SoulMating

Sarasota Herald Tribune,  Thursday, April 15, 1999

By Art Levy, STAFF WRITER

Jeffrey Kaplan has a disease. Everywhere he goes, he has to arrive five minutes early. There’s no debating this. He has no choice. “I may be out of my mind,” he said. “I may be crazy, but, for me, being late is unacceptable.” His wife, Basha, has a disease, too, but to a lesser extent. Time doesn’t mean much to her, so she’s almost always 15 minutes late wherever she goes. Such is the stuff of a classic power struggle, so common among couples. But Basha and Jeffrey don’t let that happen. First of all, it would make for a difficult marriage and they don’t want that. And second, it would be bad form for Basha, since she’s a clinical psychologist and the coauthor of “Soul Dating to Soul Mating: On the path Towards Spiritual Partnership” (1999, The Berkley Publishing Group, $14). So, rather than fight about it, they talked about it. Ever careful to not make one partner seem right and the other wrong, they found a way to diffuse the situation, so both of them are happy.

In the end, Basha agreed to be more aware of time, and respect Jeffrey’s over whelming desire to never be late. And in return, Jeffrey lets Basha leave stuff all over the house. That’s her disease. “Five minutes in a room, and she has piles all over the place,” Jeffrey said. This drives Jeffrey nutty, but not as nutty as he’d be if she was late all the time. So they reached a compromise, and it works for them – and they think such compromise would work for you, too. Of course, they also think that we’d all fight less if we’d just find the right mate in the first place, which is petty much the idea behind Basha’s book. Basha, along with co-author Gail Prince, thinks we have to learn about ourselves before we can make good decisions on potential partners.

“Most people look out there to find a soul mate, but I believe you should look inside first and touch your own soul,” Basha said. “Value the intimacy with yourself and then you can be intimate with another person. “It’s not about getting married,” she said. It’s about meeting the right person so you can be happy married.” That’s what Basha and Jeffrey did before they got married three years ago, and they swear it worry. Now, they travel together and stage soul-mating seminars, people wanting relationships and people who already have them. Their April agenda has already included stops in Sarasota, She Petersburg and Tampa. Future stops include Vero Beach, For Myers and Naples, their hometown. They expect offering advice a relationships to be a good business. There’s never a shortage couples with problems. “How many people do you know who are at peace?” Jeffrey said. “Just think about it. We don’t know very many.”

Basha Kaplan is a clinical psychologist and co-author of “Soul Dating to Soul Mating: On the Path Towards Spiritual Partnership.” She and her husband; Jeffrey, who admit to a few idiosyncrasies, have been married for three years.