Soulmates – To Settle or Not To Settle

I have never been a person to believe in soulmates. To be frank, I find the idea of “the one” to be very limiting. You mean to tell me there is only ONE person that’s THE person? The concept eliminates the luxury of options, instead leaving you with one option –ONE soulmate. Talk about stressful! Plus, a sista has always been a bit cynical regarding soulmates because I have experienced men thinking I was “the one” and none of those relationships worked out.

It’s as if believing you should have this euphoric undeniable bond with a person could be self-destructive when the relationship encounters problems.

However, I recently had a conversation with a friend who I shall call Matt. Matt had a pretty different view on what a soulmate was. His outlook was this:

Your soulmate is the person you choose to fight for, regardless of the tough times the relationship encounters, opposed to giving up. In contrast, non soulmates give up on the relationship. Even if at some point non soulmates did fight for their relationship, the end result would be them calling it quits. Hence, indicating they weren’t soulmates.

He further used the example of cheating. He expressed a person who refuses to tolerate infidelity might reconsider when the infidelity is committed by their soulmate. Instead of calling it quits on the relationship they may instead work towards forgiving the person and rebuilding the relationship. Why? Because soulmates would choose love over everything.  If the two partners did happen to call it quits if they were true soulmates they would cross paths in the further and things would work out. Matt emphasized with your soulmate the devotion to make it work is reciprocated and in the end, it works.

Matt had an interesting point. However, if this were the case than wouldn’t everyone eventually end up with their soulmate? Think about it. If your soulmate represents the person you chose to fight for regardless of hardship until death do you part wouldn’t it be safe to say that everyone who decided to stay with the same partner until death ended up with their soulmate?

I asked Matt this question and his response was “no because some people settle”.

“Well then how do you differentiate between a soulmate vs. someone you’re settling for?” I asked.

He replied, “it’s just a gut feeling…because with your soulmate its just an undeniable bond”.

Now initially I was convinced. The way Matt argued his view was captivating. I felt as if I had an epiphany, shoot I even updated my Facebook status in excitement. What was so exciting to me about the idea was that it provided a sense of comfort. Comfort that my past relationships failed because “hey none of those men where my soulmate”, but the more I thought about it the more I became uncertain again.

To me the idea of a soulmate is a paradox. On one hand, according to Matts view, a soulmate is the person you fight for in a relationship, but on the other hand believing in soulmates could make it easy for people to walk away during hardship on the notion “hey this is too hard, thus they probably aren’t my soulmate”. It’s as if believing you should have this euphoric undeniable bond with a person could be self-destructive when the relationship encounters problems.

As much as I enjoyed my conversation with Matt I’m going to have to revert to my initial belief that you can love anyone if you put forth the effort and people you are more compatible with require less effort. Thus, making them easier to love. Yeah, sounds a bit unromantic doesn’t it. But hey I’ll leave you with this, if you were stranded on an island for the rest of your life with only one person and that person happened to be a person you despise overtime would you grow to love them? Or maybe you would just be settling.

Stay blessed. Remember, you are loved ❤️

This clip from one of my favorite movies I thought was quite appropriate for this post lol.