The soulmate myth

There is a notion in our society that there exists a soulmate for each one of us, one special person who is amazingly compatible with us. We wander throughout life searching and searching, and eventually if we're lucky we find our soulmate and we fall madly in love and live happily ever after.

This idea damages people, relationships, and marriages.

You do NOT have one person out there who you are searching for and who is searching for you. There is no Prince Charming, there is no Perfect Woman for you. This is not a cause for despair, this is a cause for rejoicing!

People spend their lives searching for "the one". They obsess over finding this one person, to the point where they evaluate all of the potential "soulmates" that they meet. In these evaluations one of two things happen: either they dismiss someone who has something "wrong" with them or they emotionally invest in someone they just met.

In the case where someone is dismissed due to there being something "wrong" with them, the person evaluating often overlooks someone who may be very compatible with them. People who subscribe to the soulmate myth generally have a laundry list of qualities that their soulmate will have, including physical attributes, personality attributes, emotional health attributes, spiritual attributes, and mental health attributes. When a person has qualities that don't correspond with the list, they are written off as a potential spouse. This means that the only people who are considered to be potential spouses are those who fit some sort of ideal, often those who we are more comfortable or familiar with.

The truth of the matter is, nobody measures up to the ideals that are on these preconceived lists. People who are only interested in finding the ideal spouse will never find them, because they don't exist. We are fallen beings. There will always be something not ideal with every person we encounter, even the person we wind up marrying. Additionally, oftentimes our knowledge of ourselves is very limited. You may not know what sort of person you need to continue your development as a person. By deciding ahead of time who it is you are looking for you are limiting your ability to grow (this is not to say that you shouldn't have some idea of what you are looking for, but taking it to an extreme is detrimental).

When a person does find someone who fits their vision of an "ideal" soulmate, they tend to emotionally invest immediately. This leads to all sorts of emotional difficulties and heartbreak when the relationship does not work out. We live in a culture where people are yearning for love, yearning for real connection. When we meet someone who fits our notion of the ideal, we tend to give our hearts over to that person while bypassing the natural process of getting to know someone. Then, when the relationship almost inevitably comes crashing down we suffer the consequences in the form of emotional damage and heartbreak.

I mentioned above that the soulmate myth also damages marriages. The reason this happens is that we fool ourselves into thinking that our spouse is our soulmate, that they are the perfect person for us. How could our perfect soulmate ever cause us pain, ever disappoint us? Again, there are no perfect people. Your spouse will not be perfect either! They will disappoint you, they will wind up hurting you in some way. That is okay. Part of marriage is the forgiveness process. For marriage to last you have to understand that the two of you will both grow over the course of the marriage.


Now for the good news: you do not have a soulmate! Therefore, you do not have only one person that it is possible for you to have a happy marriage with. There are a number of people that you could wind up with. You don't have to find one specific person out of the millions available. What you do have to do is find someone that you are compatible with and then learn to grow with that person. The dating process should be a time in which you come to know (in part) who another person is and whether your relationship should continue on to marriage. There is a great freedom in understanding that the person you marry will not be perfect.

In the end, this notion of a soulmate leads to a lot of heartache. It is a flawed understanding of human relationships. This sort of flaw in your understanding will lead to broken relationships and possibly broken marriages. Rejoice in the fact that you can find someone who will cause you to grow. It will probably wind up being someone who you never would have considered as fulfilling your list of a perfect soulmate, but they will wind up being an amazingly wonderful match for you.