When my husband and I started watching The Four Seasons television series, we laughed at the following scene between husband and wife Jack and Kate where Jack is making a toast to their friends who have been married for 25 years.
Jack: It is rare in this life to find your soulmate. And yet somehow all six of us have done it.
Kate: So nicely said honey, even though soulmates aren’t a real thing.
Jack: How can you say that?!?
Anne: Of course soulmates are real!
Kate: You really believe that for every person there’s one person on the whole earth to be with and then that person also happens to be in the same dorm at college?
Jack: So do you not love me?
Kate: I love you so much. But we’re not lucky, we’re dedicated. Romantic love fades and then you build something deeper.
Everyone groans
The Myth of the Soulmate
Before we unpack one of the key elements to a successful romantic partnership, we must start by exploring the concept of a soulmate, for it’s no doubt one of the most damaging terms to befall the modern romantic mind.
Those in the West have been conditioned to believe that there’s one person destined for you, and you for them, and that when you meet that person you’ll fall madly “in love” and “just know” that it’s “right.” I’m intentionally putting all of these words and terms in quotation marks because they’ve become the catch-phrase metrics by which we determine whether or not we should commit to someone for life.
Here are some key traits of a soulmate (according to the cosmology of Western romantic love):
• Your soulmate will get you completely.
• You will always have things to talk about.
• You’ll never be bored, awkward, or feel lonely.
• You’ll always feel attracted.
• You’ll always feel sexually turned on.
Learning from the East
So what happens when you feel bored or lonely? Or if you’re not as attracted as you’ve been to other partners? According to the Western rubric, it’s time to move on. But, this idealistic version of long-term love is not intrinsic to human nature, nor is it active in every part of the world. As Jungian analyst Robert Johnson writes in We: Understanding the Psychology of Romantic Love:
As a mass phenomenon, romantic love is peculiar to the West. We are so accustomed to living with the beliefs and assumptions of romantic love that we think it is the only form of “love” on which marriage or love relationships can be based. We think it is the only “true love.” But there is much we can learn from the East about this. In Eastern cultures, like those of India or Japan, we find that married couples love each other with great warmth, often with a stability and devotion that puts us to shame. But their love isn’t “romantic love” as we know it. They don’t impose the same ideal on their relationships, nor do they impose such impossible demands and expectations as we do.
What are these impossible demands? At the top of the list is the expectation that your partner is supposed to fulfill all your needs: your need for social engagement, depth of conversation, community, emotional connection. It’s too much. The needs that used to be filled by a village are now placed squarely on the shoulders of one person. As I wrote in this post:
Unlike any other relationship, we wear many hats in marriage. We’re roommates/housemates, business partners, sexual partners, friends, and often co-parents.
Modern marriage is often four or five relationships in one, and we don’t recognize this often enough. We’re not usually sharing bills with our friends (unless we’re living with them.) We’re not co-parenting with our siblings. While all relationships carry their own brand of complexity, marriage is alone in terms of how many streams we are asked to cross together. This isn’t easy, and yet we’re indoctrinated to think it should be.
While it’s challenging to navigate these multiple roles, one person cannot fill of your needs. That was never meant to be the function of marriage. Once we understand this, we remove a boatload of pressure from both ourselves and our partner, allowing us to shine in the ways we shine and understanding that what isn’t getting met can likely be fulfilled elsewhere. (Of course, unless you have an open relationship, I’m not talking about getting sexual needs met outside of a relationship.)
For example, let’s say you have a need for deep conversation but that isn’t your partner’s strong suit. You can complain about, and in doing so miss all of the other wonderful ways your partner shows up. Or, you can learn to accept this and recognize that you get plenty of deep conversations with your friends.
Similarly, perhaps you have a particular interest or passion that your partner doesn’t enjoy. Again, you can complain about it and try to get your partner to change, thereby eroding the goodness in your relationship, or you can find other people who share that interest. It has been said that one of the key ingredients to a healthy marriage is both partners having good friends. I completely agree.
Again, one person was never meant to fulfill all of your needs. If you can take that to heart, you will soften the expectation of being with the perfect partner and bolster up appreciation for the solid, warm, available, committed person you’re with.
brilliant post, as ever. I think I do believe in soul mates, but I don’t believe they are ‘out there’ waiting to be found. I believe they are created with hard work and dedication. Statistically, there are probably millions of people out there who COULD, theoretically, become a soul mate. But I’m not with those people, I am with my wife.
I also believe in soulmates. Joshua. But not the way our culture presents it.
What exactly is your concept of soulmates?
In my view, a soulmate is someone to whom you consciously decide to be committed, and who reciprocates that commitment. I’m sure there’s more to it, but that is the essence of my (personal) view. Hopefully I’ve not spiked anyone x
Yes the characteristics of what a soulmate is to the West is what truly triggers all of my relationship anxiety/OCD. If I feel sexually attracted to anyone else I will convince myself I have no sexual attraction to my spouse, that he doesn’t know how to “turn me on” and life is too short and should I move on? Yet not a single part of wants to ever lose him nor is our intimate life bad by any means. It feels so confusing when that triggers!
That’s the black-and-white anxious mind at play: the belief that it’s all-or-nothing and if you feel attracted to someone else it annihilates your entire relationship. It’s in those moments that it’s essential to respond from your wise self so that you can rewire the faulty thinking and allow for more freedom to be all of who you are.
as always, i really appreciate your articulation and compassion, sheryl, thank you. and i do feel i truly understand, and have begun to embrace, love as a continued Choice, in addition to an initial Feeling. a question that lingers (and of course i’m haunted by ROCD so that doesn not soften the sensation etc) is: what makes the bond particularly “special” after awhile?– is it just the fact that you’ve chosen to stay, to commit to that person, whom you love (and hopefully also loves you)?
i know i was poisoned by disney, rom-coms, myths of art partners eternally, passionately in love etc, AND there is still a desire, and/or fantasy, of a love in which the connection is Incomparable, the bond rich and deep despite all circumstances and sea changes. i know, intellectually/practically that is unrealistic, and yet is persists on some level, the desire to feel flush and Immersed in Love with a capital L.
and i FULLY AGREE re: getting needs met from all kinds of relationships, the romance inherent in deep, expansive friendships, and with creative collaborators, that there is juice and fuel in so many different places. it’s just hard when you’ve been led to believe, and also Want to, feel that “special connection” with your partner, overtime. and sometimes the exhaustion of life at large under late stage capitalism just seems to totally exhaust capacity to Really Feel, which causes guilt and sadness.
i know these feelings are symptoms of societal illness, and still…
thank you again for your insight and offerings!
Thank you for your thoughtful comment, and I promise you’re far from alone with this question:
“what makes the bond particularly “special” after awhile?– is it just the fact that you’ve chosen to stay, to commit to that person, whom you love (and hopefully also loves you)?”
Here are my thoughts. What makes long-term love special is the commitment to growing through life together. Life is hard, and relationships can be hard, but when you choose to keep showing up, facing demons, growing through hard time, the love deepens and becomes a beautiful pool of togetherness and knowing of each other’s souls that can only happen over time.
“i know, intellectually/practically that is unrealistic, and yet is persists on some level, the desire to feel flush and Immersed in Love with a capital L.”
Ah, yes: the longing for Love with a capital L. For the flush and excitement and full-body-and-soul immersion of being “madly in love.” It’s a compelling feeling, and yet we were never meant to assign that feeling to another person beyond the initial honeymoon stage (if there was one). I have many posts on infatuation and the feeling of being in love. You should be able to find them with the search bar.
“Want to, feel that “special connection” with your partner, overtime. and sometimes the exhaustion of life at large under late stage capitalism just seems to totally exhaust capacity to Really Feel”
Well, yes. We’re all exhausted on some level from this disconnected way of living. If we were living in conscious, loving communities we wouldn’t expect our partners to fill us up because we would be nourished by “the village.” The issue is really more about lack of connection in general than it is about a failure within a healthy relationship.
A wonderful and helpful article – thank you
Thank you, Rachel.