"if two people are meant to be together, then they will be...."

[Harpsichordcarrier]

says my mate, when another relationship fails because she is convinced that "one day" she will get together with her soul mate.
despite him being married to someone else on another continent....
It happened to me (sort of) as I ended up marrying "the one" after a couple of false starts.
so - Fate or Cop Out?

the moment she loses the idea that there's such a thing as a 'soulmate' - the soul doesn't need a mate to be whole - and 'the one' and any other adolescent load of tosh notion like it, is the moment she'll get on the road to being happy.

i stopped wasting my time, stop chasing after silly Western notions of 'romantic' love, and found happiness at last.

cop out

have you capped your chatname? looks v grand

i think you choose who you fall in love with.
attraction plays a big part but whether conciously or not you make a choice.
I hate it when married people have affairs and say'you can't help who you fall in love with'
yes you can you are an adult.fall in love with someone available.

can be a bit of a cop out - because you still do have to work at things, rather than just saying it wasn't meant to be when it all goes tits up

I also don't believe that there's just one soulmate out there for you, there's more than one person you can be with. Thing is, if she's hankering after this 'soulmate' it's going to be very difficult to make anything else work (I have a friend who still hankers after someone she went out briefly with in 1990, all her relationships now seem to be doomed)

I am a true believer in fate Harpsi. I believe though that for me the right one wasn't evident in the beginning, the love for him grew over time and grew stronger each day and now 7 years on the love and respect is still growing.

for most people...cop out

for me, hmm, actually i rather think it was meant to be

your friend's situation looks like a no-go if i ever saw one tho!

it's too easy to not take responsibility for your actions and say'but it was fate, we were meant to be together' etc etc

she went out with him in [wait for it] 1985
I don't think you CAN choose who you fall in love with but you can choose what you do about those feelings
and yes I do think it is a useful cop put for her when her relationships fail (harsh I know)

Poor girl.

blimey harpsi!! actually quite sorry for her, as that's so much time spent dreaming of something so unlikely to happen. heartbreaking, what a waste!

Well I kissed a LOT of frogs before I met my prince.......It was definitely meant to be in my case - we have been through hell and high water to be together.

Sort of both. I think it's a cop-out, but I also think she should take note of the fact that the two of them AREN'T together and draw the obvious conclusion!

I feel for her. I have to admit that whenever dh and I aren't at our best, I have a twinge of remembering a boyfriend who was a recurring presence in my life for a while - but only a twinge.

is similar to my friend

spent the other weekend analysing text messages between her and said bloke after she bumped into him (like a couple of teenagers). I am tempted to ring him up myself and make him go out with here, then hopefully she'll see how pompous and boring he is and then maybe she'll make a go of a relationship with someone else.

Wouldn't work out like that I know, but it's very frustrating. I do feel sorry for her, but honestly. She also then seems to go out with really quite unsuitable people so of course they don't stand a chance of measuring up to the sacred memory of 'the one'

i know someone who's like this about my dh - she went out with him over 10 years ago & i know she's still obsessed with him. naturally am less sympathetic towards her & view her as barking, frankly! it's deeply unhealthy imo.

yep, sounds really similar
she sabotages perfectly decent relationships because it is "too easy"
basically she is waiting for a big Mills and Boon moment
she is also a bit hung up on her father, but that's a whole other story
do I believe in "soul mates" though? hmmm different question
yes,possibly, though not surei t is a good idea to marry them

Sounds like she needs counselling to me. Think it is a bit delusional to still be hankering after someone you knew 21yrs ago.

Don't believe in soul mates. Human beings are flexible & adaptable and can form successful relationships with a number of differnt people. I think the big issue for most people is being happy inside their own skin - you can't expect someone else to "make" you happy.

Hi, I agree that some people seem to get stuck in a groove - is it lost youth? don't know. I have an ex-friend (for this reason) who has obsessed about two guys from uni, and ended up having an affair with one of them 15 years later - what an utter waste of her life, and how pointless, as he never left his wife. I also have an ex who by accident ended up living in the same town some 3 years after we split up - when I was single in 1997, I had an ill-advised 'reunion' - it lasted no more than one evening because I realised he really hadn't moved on, whereas it confirmed to me that I had. And now, 8.5 years later, a few weeks ago, I received a group email that shows that I am still on his emailing list - or at least was put onto it so he could tell me he's moving for ever(hurrah!!!) to the USA. I just feel sorry for him - we're all in our late 30s now, why cling to soimething that didn't work out all those years ago?

Sorry for ramble - I MEANT to say that said ex, way back when, banged on about us being 'soul mates' while having at least one fling behind my back. I don't believe in 'soulmates' at all - I think it can be a major cop-out as all it does is keep new relationships at a distance. Now I'll shut up.

Fate

I think for me, believing in a soul mate or "the one" would take an enormous amount of faith & trust and i completely lack either. I don't trust the future, i don't fully trust another person. I sometimes feel in my bones that my boyf is 'the one' for me, esp when i remember our first night together, how we clicked, etc etc, and how different it was with him compared to my ex, but i am anxious all the time about the future and it's because i don't trust it. if i was a more relaxed person and more rooted in myself and less anxious about the world & what can go wrong, then i would believe in a "soul mate". ironically in order to be more relaxed etc etc i need to have faith!

does that make sense?

Definately fate in my case. I had so many times with my ex where I should have been pregnant that I began to believe I couldn't have children. However he was the wrongest person ever to have children with and a bizarre set of circumstances involving him led me to DP, whom I never in a million years would have 'normally' got together with (He's so not my type!!) But 6 years on we are still together with 3 beautiful children!

My ex has since had 2 more children with 2 different women and has a daughter younger than his Grand-daughter!!

Nope. Don't believe in soulmates. I think there are lot of perfectly nice people out there with whom one can make some sort of a go, and lots of people with whom it's not a good idea to make a go of it, and it's a matter of finding someone who'll be up for the same sort of things as you and giving it a whirl.

Romantic surges of passion tend in my case to be the heady recognition of someone who is a Truly Bad Idea.

bolleaux

thats the sort of thing that people say when they break up marriages. or alternatively don't take responsibility for their own lives and end up bitter and miserable

Yes, let's all stop and calculate the cost sophomoric belief in 'fate', 'soulmate' and 'the one' in our lives.

Let's see . . . in my case it would be: a house, financial security (about $50,000 USD), alcoholism, jobs and an entire country.

And 13 years of my adult life.