Do you believe in soulmates?

I don't think it comes as a surprise to many of my readers {at least the ones who have been here a while} that I am absolutely a romantic. I believe in love, in beauty, in happy endings, in butterflies even after decades. It's what I aspire to.

I was reading a thread on a parenting forum earlier this week. There was a woman considering leaving her husband as she had found her 'soul mate' (i.e - NOT her husband) and simply couldn't live without him.

There was a long discussion that followed about this concept of soul mates, or more specifically - that there is that one perfect person out there for each of us.

What do you think?

I have to be honest.  It's a 'romantic' idea, I guess. But not really one that I have ever subscribed to.  I don't believe in love at first sight, and I don't believe that for each of us there is one perfect mate.

I believe that Joel and I have a great love. That he is the love of my life. That if I lost him, I would be utterly, completely lost and devestated. I can think of almost nothing worse. But I don't think I was 'fated' to be with Joel. I don't think that he was my destiny, my perfect match, my soul mate. I think we were best friends who were lucky enough to fall in love.

And we built on that love. We continue, 15 years later to build on that love. My mother told me that when you work on it, it just gets better and better year after year. She was right. Even after the initial flush of new love and constant lust transforms itself slowly into contentment and while still passionate, a more contained lust (children will force that, it seems. Less sex in the kitchen, more in the bedroom, lest little people walk in on it) and desire.

But that doesn't mean that Joel was the only person I could have been this happy with.  Or that I'm the only person that Joel could have been this happy with.  While neither of us are perfect, I think we each make good partners. I think Joel could make any woman happy - he's so easy to be with and to love. I think I love passionately, with everything in me.

And had just one or two things in our lives been different, there could have been other people filling those roles for us. I'm glad there aren't. I'm glad we were fortunate enough to find each other and build this life together. But I'm pragmatic.

What if I hadn't told my parents when getting ready to leave the Northern Territory that even though they wanted to go to New Zealand, I was determined I was going back to Brisbane. What if I had chosen to stay comfortable, close to my family and had gone with them?  I'd have never met Joel. But does that mean I'd have never met anybody? I don't think so. And I like to think that whoever I'd fallen in love with and if we'd gotten married, we could have been happy.

What if Joel had stayed in Bundaberg instead of moving back to Brisbane a few months before I did.  He could well have met a new woman, or fallen in love with one of the women he'd spent the previous several years growing up with.

We didn't. We moved back to Brisbane within less than a year of each other. Turns out, our mothers had known each other 35 years earlier! We were friends. Then we were in love. And it's a lovely story in between.

But it's the now...15 years later that I'm more proud of. I grew up thinking that love was like in the movies. Not the love at first site bit. I never believed in that. (I believe in lust at first site - a connection when first meeting someone. But not love. I believe love happens in time, that you can't love someone you don't know).

on-again, off-again, on-again

I believed it had to be big - dramatic. There had to be a chase and a conflict and a desperate declaration in the rain (maybe too many movies, lol) and finally the happily ever after. But there was always drama. Relationships that were fiery and passionate and filled with drama and near misses and speeches of love and adoration.  It's what I knew. It was in the movies. My parent's relationship was far more fiery than mine is. Far more fighting and screaming, times I thought they simply weren't going to make it, despite loving each other.

And so when I was with Joel, at one point I worried. This is too easy. There aren't fights. He doesn't fight with me. There are no angsty moments. He's a man of few words. While there were love letters galore - there was no drama. And I wondered if maybe this meant I had it wrong. That this wasn't what it was supposed to be, that our love wasn't 'big' enough, passionate enough (lust aside. There was PLENTY of that, :D  ).

And at the first sign of trouble (not between us - my 15 year old brother ran away and I was heart broken. And decided that trying to be close to people was a mistake - too much chance your heart would be stomped on), I bolted. I gave him back his ring, told him this wasn't what I wanted and I left.  I left and went home.

My heart was so heavy. The thought of not being with him was breathtakingly awful. I told myself that he obviously wasn't the one for me and that for now I was better off alone. Unattached.

And then he was at my door. The ring in his hand and tears running down his face as he told me he was not letting me walk away from this. Not for any of those stupid reasons. And I looked at his face and realised how completely stupid I was. Imagining that those fights and make ups of TV and movies were a good thing. That watching someone you love in pain was anything but awful.

That in fact, a steady, passionate, easy love was wonderful. Exhilerating in it's own way, something to be nurtured and cherished. The way he cherished me. The way from that moment on, I cherished him. Determined never to put that look on his face again. Never to be the cause of that kind of hurt toward him. Secure in the knowledge that never, ever had he or would he be the cause of that kind of hurt to me.

And he put the ring back on my finger and my world was right again. We married. And continued to have an almost entirely fight-less marriage. And 15 years on, while there has been drama (illnesses, death, financial catastrophes, my family...)and we've both had sadness - it's never been at the hands of each other.

Because we've worked on it. Constantly. Just because this love is easy, easier than the relationships of almost everyone I know, doesn't mean it doesn't need attention. It needs loving adjustment sometimes, refocusing, reminding each other and ourselves how important this is and how we need to take the time out to just be connected to each other.

Because it's not fated. No matter how deeply I love my husband right now, it could still fall apart. Marriages do all of the time. It is hubris to assume that mine could never be one of them. That if I switched off and didn't go out of my way to tell and show Joel just how much I love him, appreciate him, adore him, it could get stale. Routine.

Which I imagine is where the couple at the top find themselves. In a relationship they haven't worked on (the original poster of the story said that it was not a good marriage, had not been for several years and most people had expected them to break up years ago) in years. And then the grass starts to look greener elsewhere.  That first flush of attention from someone else, the excitement of someone else's admiration and you start wondering why your husband doesn't look at you like that anymore. Why there aren't flowers and chocolates and jewellery (Joel got off lucky. I'm so not that kind of girl, I admit. Not after jewels or chocolates or even flowers, though if we had money there's be flowers everywhere! My love language isn't really in gifts. It's in talking and touching and connecting.), romantic nights away, private stolen dinners....

And they forget that while those things are lovely, they aren't supposed to last forever. Life is supposed to settle down into a sense of normalcy. Nothing stays new forever. Love is supposed to evolve as we evolve. And you either grow and evolve together by nurturing your relationship or you grow apart because you assumed it would take care of itself - you're soul mates, after all. Destined to be together forever.

Heads out of the sand people. If he or she is worth being with, worth committing to, worth having babies with then surely he or she is worth the effort every day to nurture the relationship.

I'm only 15 years in. Not long enough to be an authority on what is or isn't a 'soul mate'. Ask me again when I can say "I'm 45 years in. He was my soul mate".  But I'll bet I still say "But we worked on it".

Adding this week to Glowy's FYBF.