Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3

Original poster

To think there is no such thing as a soul mate

71 replies

scruffybird · 20/02/2011 17:59

Am I the only one who thinks that it is a load of bollocks?

OP posts:

iscream · 21/02/2011 10:15

According to Theosophy, whose claims were modified by Edgar Cayce, God created androgynous souls?equally male and female. Later theories postulate that the souls split into separate genders, perhaps because they incurred karma while playing around on the Earth, or "separation from God." Over a number of reincarnations, each half seeks the other. When all karmic debt is purged, the two will fuse back together and return to the ultimate.[2][3]

I like this idea.

I wasn't in love with dh the second I met him, but he swears he was with me. Is that a soulmate requirement?

ArsMamatoria · 21/02/2011 10:26

iscream: interesting. Very like the Greek. My best friend did her PhD on Theosophy. Never met anyone else who's mentioned it!

FindingStuffToChuckOut · 21/02/2011 10:30

First ONE, Second ONE, Third ONE - but ONE at a time ONE. I am feeling overly cynical this morning however.

With DP it was pretty much love at first sight, and he is the ONLY ONE as long as I'm with him.

But do I believe without him I'd be destined to be alone forever? of course not!

berryshake · 21/02/2011 10:44

thumbwitch, I'm with you.

I'm with DP because I'm happy and I can be myself. He takes the best parts of me and makes them even stronger. None of this 'one' stuff.

TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 21/02/2011 10:51

Well as there is no such thing as a soul obv YANBU.

In the sense that people are 'meant to be together' YANBU.

I the sense of liking someone very much and feeling a connection with them YABU.

So I think we have demonstrated is that the terms are insufficiently specific.

Onetoomanycornettos · 21/02/2011 10:59

I don't really get what statistics have got to do with an expression of deep connection which you feel outlasts and outdoes anything else you could experience. I think it's possible to have more than one soulmate, but not everyone you love is your soulmate. Reducing it to statistical probabilities of meeting someone is a little reductionist and not the point of the expression (which as the CoalitionNeedsYOu points out, is a term to express a feeling, not a statement of scientific fact).

boredbuthappy · 21/02/2011 11:05

I don't believe in soulmates. I do however believe that you can't be happy with just anyone, it takes a very specific (for you) type of person with whom you can have an equal 2-way relationship. You have to have a lot of respect for someone to put in the hard work it takes to make a relationship work.

YankNCock · 21/02/2011 11:10

iscream, had heard that story before at uni in the course 'Love in the Western World'...I dropped it after 6 weeks, the professor was a drunk. So now I can say 'I dropped out of Love'

my comment about statistics doesn't have much to do with soulmates, it was more a general comment on the way people argue their point as though the exception proves the rule. I see it all over the place and it is annoying.

YankNCock · 21/02/2011 11:11

eek, that should be 'exception disproves the rule'

BendyBob · 21/02/2011 11:15

Yanbu. Yuk it's right up there with 'emotional rollercoaster'.

LadyintheRadiator · 21/02/2011 11:19

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Original poster

scruffybird · 21/02/2011 12:15

Just watched the link, it is very true unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you lokk at it

OP posts:

ShushBaby · 21/02/2011 12:25

I think it's very much down to temperament. The people I know who believe in "The One" and "just knowing" and all that, tend to be more impulsive, enthusiastic, all-or-nothing types who have little trouble making decisions and throw themselves into things. When they meet and fall in love with another similarly minded person, it's intense and exhilerating and feels like The One.

I, on the other hand, analyze everything, am cautious and take a long time to make decisions. I am not prone to extremes and have never "just known" about anything, be it a job, a decision, a feeling or whatever, so it stands to reason I'd be the same with relationships.

So while I may feel very well suited to my partner and happy with him, it isn't in my nature to believe in The One.

Some might say it's because he isn't The One, and I would know if he was etc etc.

But he's my first love, we've been together for eleven years and seen many "The Ones" come and go for other people.

So I tend to think it's down to personality and compatability.

Having said that, I believe in "soul mates" - and not just in a romantic sense- in the sense that there are several people in my life who speak to my soul and are kindred spirits.

SmashingNarcissistsMirrors · 21/02/2011 13:30

YANBU but i believe it's in our biological make up to feel that soulmates do exist. however i wish i hadn't believed that as it left me wide open to abuse in relationships with so-called "soulmates" / "the one"s.

a far more healthy position is that a relationship merely consists of two people and their behaviour in that relationship.

we are fed so much crap about 'love' and 'relationships' from year dot that it is not surprising that people hold dear to this stuff. it's a strong psychological addiction backed up by a chemical reaction.

that said i do believe there is some science that shows if you aren't attracted to your partners smell there is nothing you can do to forge a sustainable romantic link between the two of you. so whilst i don't believe in "the one" anymore i certainly don't believe you could have a sustainable relationship with just anyone.

SmashingNarcissistsMirrors · 21/02/2011 13:32

ShushBaby you are very right. i am impulsive, quick to make decisions and go with gut instinct. i'd like to be a little more like you sometimes i think.

GetOrfMoiLand · 21/02/2011 13:34

YANBU - I think it is all a load of old bollocks.

I love my DP dearly, but we met by chance, and if we had happened to be in different places on that particular day, I would probably have never met him. I would have just met someone else and fell in love with him.

I do believe you meet people and click with them, however soul mates, no.

SmashingNarcissistsMirrors · 21/02/2011 13:48

LadyintheRadiator - brilliant link. thanks.

gobbledegoop · 21/02/2011 16:25

I've recently decided, after years of crap dates and relationships that there is no such thing as 'the one' you've just gotta find someone who pisses you off the least!

I'm still looking....

bebemooneedsabreak · 21/02/2011 16:33

...or maybe they're not proving or disproving the rule, but merely stating that for them the generalisation that love was around the corner/in their own backyard did not/does not fit...

fruitshootsandheaves · 21/02/2011 16:43

Ohh spooky...was reading this thread and the song that reminds me most of my first meeting with DH has come on the radio!

TigerseyeMum · 21/02/2011 21:00

LadyintheRadiator I was just coming on here to link to that Tim Minchin song!

I wholeheartedly agree with him.

I also agree with Lord of MN Darkness Jimmy Carr when he says that 'Love is a verb not a noun, that's how relationships work'.

Flip

1 2 3

Swipe left for the next trending thread