Do you believe in a soul mate? I have some questions so come and humour me.

[FluffysBeenBittenByAVampire]

What does it mean to you? What if one person doesn't realise, are they still a soul mate? Do you give them time? How do you know who your soul mate is? TIA

Well the porn indusrty is massive SGB!
AFAIK it's not pushing heteromonoagamy, quite the opposite in fact.

Here you go LQ - enjoy - ( hope it works this time)

www.lovehoney.co.uk/product.cfm?p=7947

Damn it to hell, won't work!

Muscley man + leather straps and little leather pouch, probably gay though.

The porn industry isn't pushing any particular directive message though. ANd it is small fry compared to the Relationship INdustry (not just the endless how-to-maintain heteromonogamy books, mags, etc, but all the dating agencies and couple-therapists and the whole wedding industry). And that's without the twin peaks of political bashing on about marriage and the religious bodies shoving their tuppenceworths in.

Of course life has other sources of great happiness SGB, I wouldn't dispute that for a moment. But that doesn't alter the fact, that for MOST people, to be with someone you totally resonate with, is heaven on earth. Rarely achievable but worth trying to find nonetheless (without making yourself miserable in the process). It's not just cultural pressure that forces us to pair up, we're social animals and whilst a lot of that need can be fulfilled by friends and family, s significant other is the icing on the cake.

Who wouldn't want someone by their side who they can relate to on most/all levels? It's a source of enormous strength and doesn't mean one is weak or unable to find happiness elsewhere. But a relationship has either got to be right or don't bother. For me at least, to be in the arms of the man I love and know he's there for me through thick and thin, is a source of immense happiness. I can live without it sure, AND be happy, but if possible, I'd rather not.

I think it is probably something in your sub-conscious recognising something in that person that gives you the feeling of having made a great connection.

I really don't believe there is any such thing.

My mother shocked me once by telling me she knew within 10 days of meeting my dad that she was going to marry him. Bizzarely the same thing happened to me with DH. I woke up one morning when we had been going ourt about 3 months and the thought just popped into my head "I'm going to marry you". However, I really think this was more an example of 'right time, right place' than 'destined to be together'.

Tim Minchin on the subject

Yes I do.

Men often take longer to realise they have found their soul mate than women do.

You just know, when you have found him!

Tim Minchin is a bit thoroughly fabulous, isn't he? Someone sent me a clip of his about silly woo believers a while ago which is equally good.

Mind you, I wouldn't kick him out of bed for eating biscuits either?

Again, SGB, I only have my own observation and experience to go on but I know that, even though my dh being in my life doesn't make everything perfect, I am far happier with him than I ever was otherwise and it wasnt just about having a warm body to cuddle up to or sex on demand. Everywhere I look, I see people being happily coupled up, being unhappy with a bad or failing relationship or being unhappily single. I don't, as it happens, know anyone whom I know to be happily single but I certainly accept the existence of such people. They are in the minority, for sure, and I simply don't accept that it's just a question of us all being brainwashed by cultural expectations.

MsHighwater: I don't think that those who are happy in heteromonogamous relationships are just brainwashed into it - I think heteromonogamy is a fetish/preference/part of your wiring like lots of other things. I rather think that the default position for the majority (and it's not a big majority really) of human beings might well be shortish-term serial semi-monogamy. But the substantial minority of the rest is made up of the not-heterosexual plus the thoroughly unmonogamous plus the single and/or celibate by choice.
And there have been societies where the general pattern or indeed the pattern adopted by the most powerful was not heteromonogamy at all, whether that was the South Sea Islanders' variations on polygamy/communal families, the harem system or the (OK this one is a bit speculative but not entirely unfeasible) arrangement someone outlined earlier where the women lived in groups sharing the childcare and the men buggered off in groups to hunt meat, popping back every now and again to do some impregnating.
Given all these things, it's interesting as to why there is so much cultural pressure in favour of heteromonogamy, and one possible explanation is that men (as a class) have found it beneficial to divide women-as-a-resource in a way that seems 'fair'. There are also theories about 'traditional' heteromonogamy being necessary for post-industrial-revolution capitalism - the (lower status) men are the available workforce for employers, but they work best when women are providing free domestic/caring/sexual services.

Sorry SGB, but that's hilarious! Harems (one of the vilest examples of male/female domination), stone-age man, South Sea Islanders? WTF has that got to do with the vast majority of humans who desire a one-to-one lasting relationship? Whether they get it is another thing but it certainly IS in the wiring and to call it a fetish is just plain daft!

I know quite a few happily single women (not men actually, I think men in general are not very good at being on their own) and these women do lots of things to ensure their happiness (I was one of them) but with the exception of just one, ALL of them would welcome a man in their lives and not just for a shag. And why do you keep banging on about the non-heterosexual? I'll probably be hung, drawn and quartered for this and if you're gay, great, but most people are heterosexual and it'll always be that way.

And why do women prefer monogamy? It's got nothing to do with men dividing women as a resource, it's got to do with the fact that women in most cases want to bond with one man and that certainly is do with our wiring but ultimately who wouldn't prefer to have the lasting contentment of a long-term relationship that worked, rather than going from one man to another (joyless, joyless, joyless) or trying to endlessly convince yourself that you're happier being single when you're actually not? (and again, I'm not saying you can't be happy single). A lot of people are single because they're afraid to take a risk (because they've been hurt before) but the single by choice are rare.
But most certainly I would much rather be single than in the wrong relationship.

If you are referring to Margret Mead's work on Samoans, tis all bolleaux. Was later exposed as a bunch of porkies. Having known a fair few Samoans myself, and coming from the pacific, I can tell you that the patriarchial structures are fairly firmly in place.

Been thinking about thisa thread and the way SGB puts the counter argument over - yes there are some people who are happy with the type of lifestyle she seems to think is 'normal'. We had a reunion last weekend, from when we were at college over 20 years ago. Guess what the majority of peole there (70% or so) are still with their same partner, many of whom were together when at college so have had very much long term relationships and reported to be happy but of course we don't know if there had been any affairs or whatever.

Not sure I agree with the actual term soul mate but yes you can find a partner that you want to be with for a long time -sometimes that realisation happens very quickly, others not.

I dare say that the Pitcairn Islands community thought their way of life to be "the norm".

I'm really not sure what SGB's agenda is but I wish she'd change the record!

Being annoyed with the "pushing" of coupledom is ultimately pointless, get over it duck.

My irritation stems from the way the pushing of heteromonagy, particularly the nonsense about 'soulmates' as the option everyone should really aim at is mainly that it leads to people (more usually women) putting up with horrible situations (violence etc) for far longer than they should do, and also (again this ainly affects some women) putting their lives pretty much on hold until they meet The One, which I think is a bad thing.

ANd mentioning that some societies operated with different models such as polygamy, harems etc is not to say that this was a good thing, just that it happened (as a counter to the idea that all human beings will opt for longterm heteromonogamy).

And, SDD, the fact that you don't know if any of your college mates are swingers, for instance, or how many of them in fact despise each other but are putting a brave face on it for the reunion, means that your 70% figure isn't proof of anything, really.

Heteromonogamy, to borrow your favoured term, could just as easily seem to you to be "pushed" because it is what the majority of people genuinely want out of life. You make it sound like some kind of conspiracy. I don't buy the idea that this is the explanation for why some women stay with violent partners, either. Seems to me that's a far more complex picture than your theory would suggest.

Perfect MsHighwater, and it is far more complex, to do with the individual. Some women put their lives on hold while they wait for "The One" (which is unfortunate) but there are just as many who lead full and happy lives whilst being open to meeting someone important. Women who stay in abusive relationships have very complex issues normally, nothing at all to do with the wretched curse of heteromonogamy (please change the record).

And isn't there a pretty good chance that in the societies where the norms were harems, polygamy etc, this was because the women simply had no voice and it benefitted the men? What woman with freewill would opt to live a life as a virtual sex-slave? That was brainwashing, not the view that for most people life is most fulfilling when they're in a meaningful relationship. And if I hear the word "heteromonogomy" again, I'm going to barf! Why not just say monogamy, most people just can't help being heterosexual!

Either you or someone else got it quite right earlier (while not realising) with the statement that men are not very good at coping on their own: the myth is that women need couplehood much more than men, women are desperate to 'tie down' free spirits, when the truth is more usually that men want women to look after them (while they brag about what free spirits they are, see various threads on here about arseholes who do just that).
Time and time again it shows up that the happiest people are married( or at least coupled up) men .... and single women. The paired up men are getting serviced, the single women don't have to service a man and can please themselves.

SGB, It would probably be too easy to dismiss your comments as arising from frustrated singlehood. All the same, I just don't recognise your worldview. I just cannot view sex, when it involves a loving, committed couple, as nothing more than "servicing". I know that I was less happy when I was a single woman, even if I could, and did , "please" myself, than I am with my dh. Of course, that's just me but I also see those around me seeming to prefer couplehood to singlehood, even, it has to be said, when the relationship throws up its own problems.

You have so many theories about why men like coupledom. How then, if singlehood is so great for women, do you explain why we buy into the relationship thing so readily?

interesting thread think you need to elaborate more fluffys about what's going on with you
tbh i'm not wholly convinced by the notion of soul mates as such but i think it's a very personal thing and is also determined to a great extent to where you are in life iyswim

I don't believe in the concept of "soul mates". Logically, it seems improbable that we happened to chance upon the "one" person who was right for us, at a time when we were ready.

I don't personally know any women who have held out for their "one" either - rather, they have realised there was a very good reason why their exes didn't make it to the present - because they knew that they could do better!

I think any number of people could have been right for us. I think the most successful couple relationships are formed when the people in them grow together and become soul mates. They develop an amazing bond, respect and nurture eachother and most of all, care passionately about the wellbeing of the other.

I know that for myself - and all the women I know - we have been happiest in our lives during relationships with the above factors in place. I have a lot of single friends - age-ranging in the main from 40-55 and so as you'd imagine, they haven't always been single. Every single one of them has said that they were at their happiest when they had a truly nurturing, give-and-take relationship.

One has been widowed, some are divorced but can remember when their relationships were happy and some have never married at all, but have had a series of relationships. Not one of them wants to be single forever though, not because of conditioning or propaganda, but because they remember happy couplehood as providing greater satisfaction than now.

I also don't recognise this notion of "servicing". It reduces men to neanderthals who have no emotional and love needs. That's not the way I view men in general - no more than I view women in relationships as victims of conditioning and martyrs to "servicing" their men.

I've got friends of both sexes who are in desperately unhappy relationships. Women who live with manipulative, controlling men, but who lack the courage to leave - mainly for financial reasons or the mistaken belief that their children will be better off living in this hell. And male friends who live with lazy, workshy women who think it's a man's responsibility to work and pay the bills, even when there are no childcare issues to prevent them working. Their reasons for staying are much the same as the women's, with the added threat of losing daily contact with their children. Fortunately, none of these people's barriers to leaving the marriage are because they believe they are "soul mates" - and they would regard that notion with bitter derision.

Of course the people in these relationships would be happier single - they are in crap relationships where absolutely no nurturing takes place at all.

I don't think it's luck either, if you've managed to have a great relationship. I've been (mostly happily) married for 25 years and I don't think that's down to luck. We've had some dreadful times, when I've taken far more than I've given and he's done the same to me. For the most part, however, we've nurtured eachother and cared, deeply. He does so much for me, I'd be a bit crap on my own - and he would say the same if he was on his own - there are no gender divisions about that at all.

We'd cope if we had to - we've both always been pretty independent and have always worked and had separate friendships - and we've never been the sole source of eachother's happiness. However, we'd much rather we were together, helping eachother and doing things for eachother.

SGB, I'd be really interested in how you came to feel this way. I think you care deeply about people, because you show so much love and sympathy for the predicaments people face on these boards. Your humour often makes me smile. I also admire your ethics - I know you despise deceit and prefer people to be honest about their needs. And then at times, you seem very bitter about life and about men in particular.

I suppose living your life must mean that you never want to fall in love again, because that might imply monogamy? And what are you planning to advise your DC(s) about the relationship choices they
face? Will you inadvertently or overtly push polygamy?

FFS the 'servicing' aspect is domestic work, not just sex (though it's another thing that some men seem to regard as an entitlement, look at all the threads about the blokes who do fuck all round the house and then expect to get their cocks sucked as well). ON the one hand, romantic relationships do make some people happy and that's fair enough, on the other hand, women who want independence, equality and autonomy are constantly being told, with greater or lesser degrees of subtlety, that this will mean Men WOn't Love THem and that not having A Man's Love is the worst thing in the world (when it isn't).

ANd it's irritating to be regarded as a bitter man-hater when I have plenty of good male friends and an excellent co-parent relationship with DS' dad, simply because I recognise that romantic love/couplehood is pushed so hard at people for a reason and suggest that people should think about why this is.