To ask how many people are haplily marrried to their soul mate and how many people feel they 'settled'?

[Desperatetobeamummyonedaysoon]

As title suggests.. im not looking for judgements and ceiticism but interested to know if many women on here spent their 20s and early 30s focussed on their career and independence etc and suffendly mid 30s panicked, wanted a family and 'settled'? Im 37 soon and realistically times running out for a family.. do you settle for a decent guy and have a family knowing thr relationship may not last or do you 'hold out for true love' and run the very real risk of missing out on longed for children??

What happens if your 'soulmate' dies when you're still young? Does it mean you have no chance for happiness again in your life because 'the one' has passed away? What if he or she leaves you? Again, does it mean no more for you? I'm amazed at how many seemingly reasonably intelligent adults believe in such poppycock ideas.

@dontalltalkatonce - maybe then it's part of "god's plan" and part of the journey you're supposed to take, and your next one is also a miraculous soul mate, which the universe provides...?

We’re a bit in the middle in all honesty.

Together we make a team, we have achieved more together than we ever would have alone, and we are best friends.

In many respects we are not the ideal each other had in mind, but I think he settled for me because he was 25 and had never had a serious girlfriend, and he didn’t think anyone would come along, and I settled for him because I decided that I was sick of being around men who would treat me like shit.

It’s been for the best, but I often really wish that the realisation that we settled for each other didn’t pop up as often as it does.

Maybe, Badly. There's a thread in Active convos right now featuring an OP whose husband, whom she terms her soulmate, has left her with their 3 kids. So how does that square away with those who believe in this concept, because by their reckoning, you have your soulmate and that's that. So now guess the poor gal should just sew it shut because her soulmate's flown the coop.

My fiance is my soul mate, lover and best friend. I have definitely not settled! I settled with my exh though.

My husband is definitely my soul mate. He is the opposite of who I thought I wanted but absolutely perfect for me (not that we don't ever argue of course!) I met him when I was 21 and he was 28. The person I was with before broke up with me and I thought I'd never find anyone better for me - but I'd have rather waited until my thirties or forties for my husband than settle for anyone else.

I don't believe in soul mates or "the one". I think there are many people out there for everyone. I am very happy with the one I have got.

Leafy - if you’d waited until your 40s then you most likely couldn’t have kids.

I think of the lot of the ‘soulmate’ people are missing the point. Most were in their 20s when they met theirs. By the time you get to your 30s all of the good guys are taken and at 35 you do tend to have to ‘settle’ or compromise on some aspects. You are older and set in your ways and it’s simply not the same as meeting someone at 21 where you can grow and develop together.

Dontalltalkatonce, I don’t appreciate you dismissing my love for my late DH as poppycock. If you’d bothered to read the thread, you’d see that I am still grieving my soulmate 27 years after his tragically early death.
I lost him a month before our baby’s first birthday, after 16 wonderful years together.
What makes it especially poignant, and your comment particularly insulting, is that today happens to be the anniversary of his death.
As I said in my post, soulmates do exist - and they are irreplaceable.
My only consolation is that, as a Christian, I know we will be reunited at my own death.

Got together with DH when I was 21 and he was 22 and we've been together over 20 years now. At the time I felt a bit as though I was 'settling' because I had just come out of a tempestuous relationship where I was either euphoric or in a deep depression.

With DH though it's always been calm and contented, which I soon realised was a far better long-term prospect! He's my best friend and though he occasionally pisses me off (I know I do the same to him!) we'd never be without each other.

So I guess I'd say that a 'great friend' plus some good sex can make for a perfect long-term prospect, whereas hanging on for 'the fictitious one' will leave you single and bitter, IMO.

I met DH at school and hand on heart instantly loved him. Or whatever a 12 year old at the time feels. We were best friends, I felt incredible pain whenever either of us dated anybody else and he felt the same. At 17 we were in a relationship, baby at 20, second baby at 22 and married at 23.

Soul mates or not, he's my absolute best friend and I'd dread to think of life without him. I have never ever felt love like I do for him and I know he feels the same way. I could never imagine 'settling', I just wouldn't be happy

Very happily married to my soulmate and best friend. Met at 33, married at 38, baby at 41.

Fair point @Redskyandrainbows67 - it is a fine balancing act if you don't get lucky and meet someone in your 20s or early 30s. I do know lots of people who met someone in late 30s or early 40s and quickly settled down and had children (and were very happy) but I know that's a gamble.

I think I'm in the middle - absolutely don't believe in soul mates or destiny. I'm happily married to a great man, though, and don't feel that I settled. We just fit when we met, and although it's cliche'd he makes me happier with each year that passes.

No such thing as a "soul mate". There are plenty of people you could be happy with and enjoy a meaningful and long-lasting relationship with.

I definitely did not settle for my DP. I love him dearly and we have a great relationship. But I also know he's not the only one that would make me feel that way.

I don't appreciate being told by others that people have settled if they're not with a 'soulmate', Bab. I think it's a ridiculous concept that causes a lot of people needless misery and sadness when they feel they've failed to find this 'soulmate' and I don't believe that a soul needs a 'mate' at all.

A big part of why I don't believe in soulmates is because I thought I met mine at 18. Such an inrush of love and all the other feelings, it felt like living in a period novel. (Now, looking back with the benefit of years, it was old fasioned love bombing by an unwell man towards an immature woman.) We were separated by "tragic circumstances" out of my control, and I genuinely thought I'd never love again! I'm eternally thankful for the circumstances that separated us now, though. He's currently awaiting trial for a murder, which (if he's guilty) isn't his first very serious crime.

Give me an ordinary, everyday non-soulmate love, please!

To believe or not depending on what happens to you in your life I suppose.

I was enjoying life as a single professional with the odd smattering of bfs when BOOM! I experienced something that literally blew my life away from the life I had known.

Call it magic, call it a spirit, call it what you want and as a usually cynical non religious person I could not quite believe what happened to me.

Even if I mention the sequence of lifetime events which culminated in what happened people get hairs sticking up on the back of their necks.

Revealing here would be too outing but all I can say that you would have no reason to believe in the whole soulmate phenomena unless it happened to you.

Revealing here would be too outing but all I can say that you would have no reason to believe in the whole soulmate phenomena unless it happened to you

Oh please.

I agree, Jacques.

I don't know if I believe in the term soul mates but I am with an amazing man and we love each other deeply. I don't think there is anyone out there as well suited to me as he is. We enhance each other's lives in a way I've never thought possible when I've been with exes.

Interesting question. You seem to be assuming that true love is somehow different to the person you settle downwith. Have you a particular person in mind. I found in my 20s i was quite self hating and went for drama filled relationships with shitty selfish people. At that point i didn't love myself enough to believe a decent person like my husband could love me. LUckily enough i opened my eyes and changed my "type" and settled down with my soul mate.

OP, 37 is not necessarily too late to start a family. I'm one of 4 women I know who had their first babies in their early 40s. I wasn't ready to have a baby until about a year before we started trying. My friends met their husbands in the last two years. It happens when it happens.

I understand that having a baby gets harder as a woman gets older, but I don't think fertility drops off the edge of a cliff the way the stats suggest. I remember my mum's carer telling me that in her country, where birth control is not widespread, women regularly had babies into their late 40s and early 50s. I think that as more women wait until later to have children we'll see that some of the women who waited until they were older to start and then had difficulties would have had the same difficulties if they'd started at 25, although obviously there would be more time to explore alternatives.

Also, there is a lot to be said for waiting until you're a bit older. I don't have anything else that I'd rather be doing and I don't feel that there's an amazing social life out there that I'm missing out on because I have a baby. I have more money and my husband and I have been together for nearly 10 years. We saw lots of people have babies before we did and we went into it with our eyes open, accepting that we wouldn't be sleeping, anticipating that sometimes we would be tired and ratty, and knowing that things would change profoundly. There are obviously advantages to have babies younger as well, I'm not in any way overlooking that, but I do get tired of the constant doomy portrayal of the Silly Selfish Women Who Left It Too Late.

I didn’t settle at all but the concept of soulmate is ridiculous and straight out of a mills and boon
All humans are flawed. No one is perfect, I certainly and not.
The number of people who marry ‘soul mates’ who then turn out to be utter twits is pretty high too.