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

Ohh sorry, haven't read the whole thread

Nothing to be sorry about.

Oh, come on, SGB. I've never said that love is all anyone needs. Nor have I said that monogamy is the only way to live; clearly there are people who want to, and successfully can, live in other types of relationship or none.

But monogamy, despite the trouble and pain relationships can cause when they go wrong, remains the dominant lifestyle for humans, imo, because we know that being with one special other person is the way most of us can be happiest.

It would be wrong to deny that monogamous couplehood is the only way humans should live. It would be equally wrong to imply that people who choose couplehood are only doing it because they've been deluded by a misogynist conspiracy designed to ensure that men can "be as sure as women that 'their' children are really 'theirs'" and that they can "raise their own DC and secure the domestic and sexual services of a woman."

Oops, that really wasn't Freudian - I obviously meant "It would be wrong to suggest that monogamous couplehood is the only way humans should live."

MsHighwater, but given how frequetly things go wrong with the idealised couple-relationship (and how many people don't actually want to engage in it), don't you wonder why we are so constantly being told that it's the best model, or the 'default' model? The modern model, in particular, of finding one person to meet all your social, physical, mental and sexual needs seems to be a bit of an effortful undertaking - even those who have never considered the possibility that it isn't the best way to live spend a lot of time acknowledging what 'hard work' it is, what with all the books on keeping marriage alive, fending off fiendish interlopers and stopping sex getting boring after 20 years.

Who said anything about just one person meeting all another person's needs? That's not a realistic relationship. I need other people in my life - friends, colleagues, family, etc - and each contributes something to my life. I only want, and need, one partner, though.

But then most people probably aren't having idealised relationships, but real ones.

Bloody hell women! I've not read the whole thread either and I started it. I thought it was dead! I'll have a read and get back to you, hope you are all well.

I think DH and I are soul mates. There's a special connection. We've been together 15 years and it gets better the longer we're together. We have lots to talk about. I enjoy being with him and can't imagine being with anyone else in this way.

It's not to say we don't fight - we can have the most awful arguments about the silliest things but fundamentally they're just disagreements and don't change the relationship nor the connection.

I think we're lucky to have found each other, and I guess we could have ended up with others but somehow I suspect it would not have been quite the same as what we have with each other.

A soul mate doesn't have to be a romantic partner - I've had 'profound' connections with people of all ages and sexes. [Aware that typing that makes me sound like a complete fruit loop - honestly I'm not].

A soul mate is just someone who shares some common values, someone who you 'get' and who 'gets' you. If you take the time to get to know people you will be surprised by how many 'soul mates' you find.

On a romantic level I think that DH is my 'soul mate' but, at a risk of sounding callous, if we split up tomorrow I wouldn't think that I had 'lost my soul mate' - just that I'd lost one of them.

I do believe in soulmates, in that there are people out there who make you feel so loved and connected to them that you never want to be apart. You are lucky if you find that, and if you find it more than once, even luckier. Thinking of onlyjoking's post, in a way I think that having experienced that connection once means that you know what you are looking for, and realize that you don't have to settle, IYSWIM.

If I lost my partner for some reason, I don't think I'd be in a hurry to replace him with someone I had a lesser bond with, and I'd rather concentrate on finding a way to be happy on my own. But I would like to think that I knew the value of real love, and wouldn't let it pass me by if I saw the chance of it again.

Bits
you said what I was trying to say, but in a much better way.
In my younger days I was more of a settler, nowdays I know the things that are important and I refuse to "make do and mend"
I feel very lucky.

I am saving up to go to Papua New Guinea

I am convinced my soulmate is there

LoveMyGirls, that clip is hilarious, and so true!

I do agree with a lot of what sgb is saying, she has valid points about who the happiest people have been found to be and that there is evidence to suggest that it is women who are more likely to be promiscuous rather than men - around ovulation time to getthe best sperm etc, womens bodies change slightly around this time to appeal to men or something like that.
Though we don't hear as much about that little nugget as we do about the man's need to sow his seed .

Who knows if it's natural to be monogamous or it's been fed to us by whichever industry with it's images of what true love should look and behave like.

Fwiw I believe in monogamy though not sure about soul mates. When I met my DH we were both sure that we were supposed to meet, it felt like I knew him already, I don't know if it makes him my soul mate though. Maybe.

I have another theory though, that you meet someone and you are 'fated' to meet that person because you are meant to have children with that person and produce someone who is meant to be born and they need to be the product of the both of you.