Not knowing how to help DD (23) find her soulmate

[littlemisspigg]

Please help, and be kind to me.
I'm not sure how I can 'help' DD(23) find her life partner. She's looking, but I don't know what advice to give?
My own marriage was quite rather traditional...DH did all the hard work and I just agreed, and it all worked out (luckily) just fine.
Please go easy on me

Step back…..let her do her own thing

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻😅

I agree about discussing coercive behaviour and abuse. I hope your DD does not come across as someone desperately wanting a relationship, as that makes her more likely to be attractive to narcisstic men.

Agree with pps that soulmate is a loaded term. Someone you can tolerate over years and years is more accurate. I’d also say a too involved mother is going to be off putting to potential ‘soulmates’ so counter productive.

Tell her to focus on her career/studies/friends/hobbies and have as full a life as possible.

Then, she should only be with someone if being with that person makes her happier than being single.

Encourage her to focus on her career and financial independence. That way when she does find someone she has high standards, boundaries and choices.

She's also more likely to meet someone who shares the same objectives.

My advice is to find yourself, as corny as it sounds. Learn who you want to be, travel, earn money, be stable in your own feet, feel confident in your own skin. You can’t buy confidence and knowing who you are helps find a partner. What you want from life, what you want from a partner, what your boundaries are. So then you meet the right person rather than a good enough person

I had three immediate thoughts: 1) I don't believe in soul mates. It's just about finding someone you're compatible with who shares your goals. 2) 23 is young to settle down these days. I know it was different in the past. 3) There's not much you can do to help her find someone. Re advice- I'd say she should look for someone who makes her feel good and shares the same vision of the future that she does.

Plenty of (most?) people never meet their ‘soul mate’.
The most useful thing you can support her in is realising that it’s unhealthy to be reliant on someone else for her happiness. Much better to get to a point where she has a happy and fulfilled life whether or not she meets this person.

Found mine in my 40s, and my mum had nothing to do with it.

How you can help her?

Encourage her to find herself, encourage her to not take no shit, encourage her to know her worth, encourage her to not accept treatment from a man that she wouldn't accept from a stranger in the street or work colleague, encourage her that you'll always be there to help, support and guide her if she needs you, encourage her that she doesn't NEED a man, it's better to WANT someone to be by your side as a partner in life, a team mate, a friend, a confidante, someone who makes your life better (not worse), someone who you want to be with

All that kind of stuff. Encourage her the things she needs to know and learn so she herself can find that love of her life.

Thanks for this really gave me a giggle 😂😂

This is for her to do, not you.

Kindly and politely (and from a completely different point), a partnership/marriage are
hugely overrated, even if no children present and no financial worries.
The freedom of living single is irreplaceable.
(45, married 20 years).
I would tell my daughter this, first and foremost.

How you can help (if at all), will depend on whether she has an issue, and if so, then what the issue is?

Does she not meet anyone?
Meet people but they end up leaving her?
Have bad mental health?
Does she not have transport for getting to dates / social events?

Fwiw, I don't think meeting your life partner at 23 is too young at all (I was 24 and my OH was 22 when we got together 10 years ago), if it works out, but there's certainly no rush either.

I was surprised recently to hear of how one couple I know met. Both are busy professionals and didn't meet people that suited them. But an anuitie of one who knew the other suggested a blind date to them both and it worked very well... now a lovely couple.

So whilst most here are saying "leave them to it", there is no harm in my opinion on keeping an eye open yourself for suitable partner. Good luck.

What's with the Go Easy and Be Kind?

Why are you posting? Why is her love life your immediate concern?

Good questions. Why are you behaving as though a single 23 year old is some kind of emergency that needs urgent maternal help?

Honestly it isn't up to you to help her find a partner.

Also, no such thing as one true love/ soul mate. If you're lucky you fall in love with a decent kind person and you're compatible. Then you both have to make effort.....

Life is about finding your passion and interests and hopefully you may also have someone alongside you.

You don’t.
She’s 23. You encourage her to do things that make her happy that don’t revolve around a life partner!
And certainly don’t let her settle for the first candidate that comes along in the hope that it will (luckily) turn out fine as the odds are it won’t!

Encourage her to focus on her career and financial independence.
A better goal than ‘finding a soulmate’ would be getting a foot on the property ladder.

You can't?

She doesn’t need one at 23, she should be building her career, travelling, having fun.

Unless there is a cultural tradition of mothers arranging suitable husbands in your context, this is not your role.

Your role is to encourage your DD to nurture and develop everything else that comprises her sense of self - her career, her friendships, her interests and passions, all of which will combine to give her healthy self-esteem and self-worth when she does meet her person.

At 22 I met the man who I thought was my soulmate. I am now 41, and after 19 years together, fifteen married, and two children, this year he left me. It has been incredibly painful but I am OK, and the reason is because I have all those other areas of my life and a rock-solid sense of my own self-worth to turn to. These are the best gifts that you can give your daughter.

A decent partner will be attracted to a confident, independent woman who shares the same values.

There are lots of responses here from a very specific culture and section of society. Which is yours, as in a lot of cultures (not just "arranged marriages") the mother does have a much more active role in this and the daughter would not mind the help, even possibly expect it from a respected elder...