I’m thinking this morning about soul mates. Soul Mates, with capital letters. The Real Thing, the One True Love.
Do you believe?
It’s a cynical world we’re living in. All those divorces, all those broken families and broken dreams littering the landscape of America, all that starting over (bravely, of course. Pluckily) and looking for the lessons for growth.
Every society must create legends and story models for the culture to function, and perhaps the idea of Soul Mates has run its course. I mean, it’s all very fine and well to weep over Romeo and Juliet committing suicide rather than face life without the other, but they would probably have started bickering by age 20 and been locked in unholy matrimony (you know the kind, those needling pairs you see on the subway or in restaurants) for the rest of their decades.
Maybe we had to let go of this idea of soul mates because it’s too painful to believe in it anymore. Maybe it’s easier and safer and…well, wiser…to get back to something a little more functional and workable. Marriages arranged by E-Harmony, according to a sliding scale of compatibility, or agreeable matches set up by friends. Nothing so dramatic as Soul Mates, eternal passion, a connection fated to be since the dawn of time.
And I get it, in a way. I’m divorced myself, and have written many tales of starting over (one could argue that all my tales are about starting over). As a society, we’re a little weary.
It’s also true that no matter how cynical the world is, my function in it seems to always be holding up the twin flags of passion and earnestness. I believe in the power of Soul Mates. I still believe it can be true, even if I have only seen evidence of it now and again in real life.
In a romance novel, that’s is always what I want to read. Big love. Love that’s been waiting in the wings for centuries to be fulfilled, or at least decades. I want Hawkeye and Cora, from The Last of the Mohicans. I believe that she traveled over the sea to find him, specifically, and that the two of them would have had okay lives without each other, but finding each other took life from fine to fantastic.
Certainly a strong helping of over-the-topness can help me make me believe that these two lovers are soul mates. Megan Chance wrote one of my favorite romances of all time in The Portrait, a book that was highly controversial at the time it was published, about a manic-depressive artist in Gilded Age New York City, and the woman who falls in love with him. Would they live happily ever after? Maybe not exactly. Lots of challenges in that connection, at that time. But I never doubted, for one second, that they were born to be together, that their love was touched by the divine spark of fate.
Maybe I’m picking up the wrong books, but I’ve been missing this sense of Soul Mates in the romances I’ve been reading recently. Perhaps the odd Highlander offers me that fix, or a paranormal. Most often, I’ll stumble over it in a young adult romance. Not as much elsewhere.
It’s as if we’ve told ourselves we’re over that now, the silly soul mate business. Now we have to write for the modern woman, who knows better, and offer her some hope for a satisfying life with a good guy.
Well, I’m all about offering hope, but romances have never really been about reality. I’m so hungry for over-the-top, intensely romantic stories about soul mates who have found each other after many trials and tribulations, and will live happily ever after. I want to cry my eyes out at the dark moment and again at the end. There is absolutely nothing I love more than that.
How about you? Do you believe in Soul Mates, or have we outgrown that? Does the notion of soul mates make you feel irritated and impatient, and you’d rather have a good comedy?
Finally, if you share my taste for this kind of intense romance, what have you read lately that I might enjoy?
No related posts.
I’ve been in a relationship with someone who appeared to be a soul mate – we had so much in common it was uncanny – but sadly, we lacked agreement on some fundamental things such as how much respect a partner is due and how much one should work on a relationship. I now would much rather be with someone I share core values with – that you don’t compromise your beliefs, even when it hurts – than with someone I share a taste in music/literature/hobbies with.
The Soul Mates thing seems to be iffy at times. So much depends on how it is written. In paranormals we’re sometimes beaten over the head with the “mate” scenario that it doesn’t always ring true.
I do think on some level most romance readers are looking for “Soul Mates” stories. Stories that have h/h destined to fall in love and reach that elusive HEA that sometimes seems impossible in real life.
PS Megan Chance is one of my favorite authors The Portrait and Fall From Grace are both on my keeper shelf.
Okay, this is almost embarrassing to admit.
Years ago, I considered myself an overly practical and highly cynical business gal (and was proud of it).
Then I fell in love at first sight.
It happened for him too and fifteen years later, the (now) hubby and I are still in love (not to say that I don’t want to feed him through the shredder every once in a while).
Is he my soul mate? That sounds a little too much rainbows and sunshine for me but then I didn’t use to believe in love at first sight either. Anything’s possible.
I believe! I married my Soul Mate. It wasn’t love at first sight, but something was definitely going on there, and we both knew very early that we were perfect for one another.
Sing it, sister. I married my soul mate 20 years ago and we’re still going strong.
In books, though, sometimes soul mate=dysfunctional obsession. Love at first sight? Oh, yeah. But many of the stories, especially paranormals, I’ve read have the heroine getting swept up in the soul mate thing against her will. Kind of disturbing.
It makes sense that there romance readers who have found their soul mates. Kimber, that’s great. Love it that you were a practical woman who was swept away!
True about the obsessive mates angle in a lot of paranormals. It can be a little creepy if you don’t buy into the world. Which is part of the challenge on the writer, of course. As a reader, I just don’t want you to drop me for one second.
Tara, me too, on Megan Chance. Very dark, intense work. Love them all.
The idea of Soul Mates in fiction doesn’t bother me EXCEPT when it’s used as an instant conflict generator. I am thinking mostly of paranormals, in which human meets paranormal being and is then dragged off because their Mating is Destined. (And often reinforced by some sort of instant chemical or psychic bonding.) Strangely, I often enjoy Arranged Marriage stories, of which that plot’s a variant…perhaps because there’s more choice involved in an Arranged Marriage.
You sound like your letting your cynical self run away with you.. I believe the human spirit is highly malleable. There are literally hundreds or thousands of people the average person can meet, fall in love and spend a great and wonderful life with.
But I also believe that there are personalities that can have a much deeper emotional fitting and if they happen to make the connection, will discover that they truly complete each other in a way they didn’t realize could happen. These people are the “One True Love” category and just because it doesn’t happen all that often does not mean it isn’t there. Could those two people fall in love with someone else? Yes but I always remember the Olivia Newton John song:
If we both were born
In another place and time
This moment might be ending in a kiss
But there you are with yours
And here I am with mine
So I guess we’ll just be leaving it at this
I honestly love you
Just because it doesn’t happen all the time, don’t assume it can’t happen. Love is the single greatest thing about being human (besides Victoria Secrets
and like all human emotions will run the gamut from intense to casual.
I’m a hopeless romantic. Still, I don’t think I buy into the Soul Mate thing. I think, for one thing, it actually contributes to the dysfunction — the expectations are too high, and also the “passion” associated with a Soul Mate doesn’t last forty years necessarily. I think the culprit here is a misunderstanding of a soul mate. Since no human is perfect, chances are there are not two humans perfect together, either.
I think that there are people who can grow together so well that a different sort of passion is alive and well after forty, fifty, however many years. And I do think that there are people who know early who they’re meant to marry – my husband I married after a brief courtship and I was only 19 at the time, which is somewhat unheard of these days – but I hesitate to say Soul Mate, not for cynical reasons, but for the baggage of the term.
I believe in Soul Mates….Mates being plural. To me a Soul Mate is someone that connects with you in a way you can’t even describe. I’ve had a few in my life, men and women that have changed it fundamentally. My BFF is my Soul Mate. I believe my ex-hubby was a Soul Mate. We connected in a fundamental way, came together for a purpose. After the purpose was complete, ie: I gave birth to my dd, we moved on.
I love when the H/H have such an intense connection. Not sure if that means they’re soul mates, but they can’t imagine being with anyone else, the connection is that strong. Best example I’ve read recently is a YA, TWILIGHT, where the heroine, Bella, is drawn to Edward, who is unfortunately a Vampire and the scent of her blood is intoxicating, in more ways than one. A modern Romeo and Juliet, as he’s equally drawn to her, both as prey and as a lover…and tries to resist both urges.
When I was nineteen, I fell in love at first sight. Twenty years later, I fall in love with him a little bit more everyday. The passion hasn’t died; it’s hotter than ever. We’re friends, lovers, and everything in between. I admire and respect the man he’s become, and in every romance novel I read, he’s the hero I see.
Soul mates? I certainly can’t imagine that my life would have been even half as good if I’d married someone else. We connected on a meta-level that I can’t explain–and trust me, I’m a complete cynic regarding almost everything else on earth. But True Love? I believe in love: in happily-ever-after, blow your socks off, out of the ballpark love. I live it. How could I not believe?
Like Barbara, I love to read novels in which the H/H discover a love that transcends time…not just because such stories are innately hopeful and optimistic, but because they remind me why I get up every morning, why I work so hard, and why those petty little annoyances are really just…well, petty little annoyances.
I love the notion of Soul Mates. Destiny. Fate. That’s why so many read romances, and why I get so angry when a movie or book ends with one of our Soul Mates dying or walking away.
I think you’re right, though, Barbara; I don’t get that dramatic wonder of fated lovers in many books these days. Maybe writers have become more cynical. Maybe we’re watching too much Court/Tru TV! It’s almost always the spouse who offed the victim. =:o
There was an interesting antecdote in the book, Eat, Pray, Love. Elizabeth Gilbert’s mentor at the ashram, Richard, tells her this:
People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. And thank God for it. ”
Wouldn’t work in romance, but it’s an intriguing thought!
Cheers,
Tina Wainscott
I loathe the idea of soul mates. Loathe it. It implies that there’s only that one true love out there for a person and THAT’S IT! If the guy abandons ship, dies, or wanders off to “find himself” you’re just plain out of luck chickie. That was your “One,” you blew it, and now you’re destined to become the Crazy Cat Lady.
Lord, how depressing is that?
Human beings have an enormous capacity for love. I just refuse to believe that when your “soul mate” is gone that means it’s the end for the other half of the team. People change, grow and move on. In other words, they have free will. Soul mates implies that the person doesn’t have free will and that’s just really, really not sexy.
Um, which might be why I tend to avoid werewolf paranormal romances at all costs. Too much of that “mate” nonsense…..
Husband and I went on a first date that’s lasted 14 years and 7 kids. Yes, there are Soul Mates. But I think there’s a heaping amount of work for all that magic to happen. (You have to scorch your hair a few times when you’re learning to throw fire) I do know that it’s worth it. And you can always trim off your singed ends.
Thos e-thingies freak me out. Not that they don’t work, but I think of them backwards. What if I joined up now and plugged myself and Husband in? Would we be compatible on 27 Levels of Personal Deepness?
And if not, I might have missed the journey with this amazing person I married.
I love it, I love it, I love it and I believe in it.
I also happen to believe that there can be more than one soul mate for a person—different people who may touch our souls at different and needed times in our lives.
It’s the principle by which I write most of my work. In my young adult work, the idea that you might meet your soul mate at seventeen or eighteen? Not very likely—however, it’s not an idea that should ever be discounted because that first, intense love? It can really set the stage for your later loves. How many times have we read stories of childhood sweethearts who had all these plans for their futures and somehow got separated for years, had full, beautiful lives with other partners, other soul mates, then met and reconnected?
I live for stories like that. It gives us faith and a power to believe.
With my adult stuff—sometimes the characters meet their soulmate and for reasons beyond their control, they’re only granted a brief window of time they can share. And that has to be enough.
I think what I’m blathering on about is that a soulmate—while we might want it to be forever, it can’t always be. But oh, how unbelievably drab life would be if we didn’t get to experience that sort of passion and emotional connection at least once.
Dontcha think?
Pam, the connection between Bella and Edward is an excellent example of Soul Mates in the romance novel sort of way. He’s so elegantly beautiful and he loves her entirely, right from the start, and it’s difficult, but oh, so romantic!
Mark, and others who are saying that we have more than one soul mate, yes. I do believe that, and as Vivi Anna said, just because we move on doesn’t mean that wasn’t a true connection.
And the song snippet made me think of a poem Therese Walsh of Writer Unboxed sent to me. Gate 22, by Ellen Bass.
Soul mates?
Tina, that’s a great clip from Eat, Pray, Love. I love the mirror idea, but I don’t think it would be so bad to keep that going, if two souls were kind.
My parents are soul mates. Highly romantic story and they are still together, almost 50 years of ups and downs and absolute connection.
Well, hmm. The coding didn’t work properly so let me put the link in by just typing it.
The link to C-22 by Ellen Bass is:
http://gravityandlight.blogspot.com/2007/05/ellen-bass-gate-c22.html
I also met and married my soulmate 20 years ago. The chemistry is still there, as is love, respect, friendship. We are alike on basic ethics–how we treat people, especially our children–but have varied and sometimes separet interests.
Was he the ONLY one for me? There could have been many others, but timing plays a huge role. When we first met all the possibilities were there but the timing was wrong. Two years later, perfect timing. We knew withing a week we wanted to be married.
Also soulmate does not equal perfection (he’s a guy for crying out loud!), but he brings out the best in me and I do the same for him
I believe in soul mates, but not in the sense that most people do. I’m happily (very happily) married and I’m disgustingly romantic, but I don’t consider my husband my soul mate. I guess I consider him my life mate/partner. He’s always got my back and vice versa, but IMHO the term soul mate brings to mind something entirely different than romantic love.
I consider my best friend my soul mate. We’ve known each other since we were ten years old, we’ve been there for each other through bad breakups, bad haircuts, moves, life changing decisions, etc. She knows where I come from, she knows practically everything major thing that’s happened in my life that defines who I am and loves me for it. She gets me in a way that no one else can. So, yeah, I definitely believe in soul mates
I absolutely believe in soulmates, but I don’t necessarly put the same definition on it. There are people in this world you’re going to click with, be perfect for–but not simply one person. I don’t think it’s “destined,” and I certainly don’t think it takes the place of honest communication, trust, and respect. I’ve still got to work at my marriage and my friendships!
I agree that the idea of only one soulmate ever is mind-killingly depressing.
FWIW, I don’t think Romeo and Juliet is a romance. It’s one of Shakespear’s tragedies, and for cryin’ out loud, they were 14! Everyone is that emo at 14!
I absolutely believe in love at first sight and the feeling that you’ve met the other half of your soul. My husband and I have been married since the instant we met. There was never any doubt in either of our minds that this was it. And it’s been a remarkably easy relationship to maintain. 15 years later there’s lots of laughter. Lot’s of passion. Lot’s of love.
And like Kimber, I’m one of those very practical very logical people, but I’ve never questioned my connection to this man. I’ve known since the very first glance that he was mine.
You can’t have Soul Mates and comedy at the same time? That’s news to me.
This is an interesting question and one I don’t think I’ll ever have the answer to. I think the truth is somewhere in between. I am sorry if I blather on, but I have a lot to say!
About 18 months before I met my husband, I fell for someone very deeply for the first time (I was 20 so I was little old to experience my first hormone rush!). Nothing ever happened b/c I was too shy. We parted at the end of the summer good friends. I got upset with him (for a stupid reason) and we lost contact. Then I found out about 6 months after from a mutual friend that he had become engaged to someone, someone he knew before he even met me. I thought I had put it all behind me, but I cried all the way to work that day to the point where I was shaking and making noises like an animal. I had to find a public restroom before I got to work, cry the rest of it out and go on.
When I did meet my now husband some time later, I felt attracted to him, but we knew each other at work and I didn’t know a lot about him. When he asked me out, I was brave enough to say yes. The old pre-heartbreak me would have found a reason to say no, to worry that something would go wrong. But I had learned that you can’t run from your own feelings if they are strong enough. We clicked and fell in love very fast. My friends were shocked when I told them after 3 months of being with this guy I was moving to a new state and a new life. This was my first boyfriend ever, keep in mind!
Sometimes I still wake up amazed at how my life turned out. My husband is one of the kindest, patient, most wonderful people in the world and I am lucky to share my life with him. We love each other, we’re best friends, but love is also a shared choice and we chose to be together every day, to be a united front against all the crap that is out there in the world.
I think the first experience (the intense broken heart) made me open to the idea of the second (real long lasting love). Does that make one of these men my soul mate? Maybe.
I think more importantly, I believe in the right person at the right time. If I had met my husband before my “heartbreak”, I would have been to shy to open up to him. If I had met him too soon after (say a month or so) I would have been too mopey to spend time with him. Maybe if the first man had met me at a different time things would have worked out differently, but it just wasn’t meant to be.
My husband and I have one close friend that met us after we started dating. She said she can’t imagine us apart, that we’re more than soul mates. That we’re “cut from the same rock.” I tell her it is not that simple, but I kind of like that expression
I love Soul Mate stories, the high drama, fated soul mates that you describe.
You’re right they don’t seem to be published so much now which is TRAGIC! Authors please keep writing them and publishers keep publishing them so we can buy them!
I don’t care if they reflect true life or not, they just make great fiction.
The only recently published story (and as yet unfinished story) I’ve read recently that meets all your criteria is C.L. Wilson’s 4 book story, Lord of the Fading Lands (Bk 1) and Lady of Light and Shadows (Bk 2), books 3 and 4 are due out at the end of the year. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t enjoying them more when I was reading them, they had everything I love in a story in them and beautifully done. Then I realized it was the pace, I’m so conditioned into H and H meet, have trials and tribulations, have resolution and HEA in under 400 pages that I wasn’t prepared for this story over 4 books. It was like trying to dance to a type of music I’d never heard before; lots of missteps and nerdy bobbing around completely out of rhythm. So now I “know” if someone rings a bell, I’ll start salivating… hopefully a re read will hit the mark. Some other authors that meet most of your criteria, that I have thoroughly enjoyed recently are Kresley Cole with her Immortal after Dark series and Nalini Singh with her Psy – Changeling series. In the other Soul Mate theme (two pieces of the same jigsaw) that I’ve recently read is Lord Perfect by Loretta Chase in which the H and H so beautifully complement each other in character that they are “Soul Mates” (just not in the high drama, fated soul mates style). A fabulous story.
I haven’t read Megan Chance so will add her to my TBR list. Thank you!
I believe in soul mates and I know it sounds cliche. My husband and I met freshmen year in
college. Dated for six years and finally got married to no ones surprise. We are nine years together and can’t believe our good luck. Do I think we would have found someone else to live with: Possibly. Do I think that we would have been this happy with another person: No. I do think our lives would have gone on but there are just too many times that we could have missed
crossing paths but we didn’t. Every decision we made in school forced us together. He didn’t want to go to college he wanted to join the army. His dad talked him into going to our school. I had a scholarship to another university to play soccer but I backed out to go to our school. Little things like that lead me to think huh maybe we were meant to be together.
I really like reading the Dark Hunter series. It is about two people who are meant for each other that are not mates. She isn’t born to be with him and only him ect… If you like the mate thing I would check out Christine Feehan’s different series.
I think people can be soul mates, but maintaining a marriage is hard work. No matter how ‘meant’ for each other two people are, there will be conflicts. Love is why a couple bother to work out the big and little things. In a book, I love a little conflict between a couple. I usually don’t care for a book where either the hero or heroine ‘know’ this person is their mate for life and it can be no other. I want them to work toward an equal relationship. That’s more like the real world.
“How many times have we read stories of childhood sweethearts who had all these plans for their futures and somehow got separated for years, had full, beautiful lives with other partners, other soul mates, then met and reconnected?”
My WIP is based on a friend’s parents. They got married young, had her, got divorced and lived on opposite coasts. In the meantime, they remarried, had more kids, and became widowers. Well, they reconnected when Friend got engaged and got the guts to call up a father she hadn’t seen in years to walk her down the aisle. That olive branch turned into a full family healing, and her mother and father remarried a few months after she did.
I guess “Soul Mates” always seems to imply a lack of choice, and a lack of effort. It just IS. And I don’t believe in that. I believe in lust at first sight. I believe that the almost eerie feeling of having known someone forever can be a beautiful thing to build a relationship upon, but I don’t think there’s just one perfect “Soul Mate” lurking about out there for each of us.
This makes me think of ‘kindred spirits’ in Anne of Green Gables… people who ‘get’ you. My husband is my soul mate, because we’re married and we’ve loved and learned and grown together. I think a soul mate is something/someone you grow into, not necessarily someone you share an instant connection with, or who is foreordained for you. I think that’s why I love MOC stories–they have to learn to love each other, and that is a beautiful thing.
Kate
Katie, great comment on the best friend soul mate. A soul mate can be anyone, parent, sibling, friend, child.
Alice, comedy can definitely be based in soul mates! I think of Crusie’s Bet Me and the shoes. Over the top, very funny, absolutely soul mates.
It’s just that my hunger *right this minute* is for that big, sweeping, desperately over the top love story about soul mates. Probably historical. It doesn’t seem to work as well in contemporaries (though it can).
So many great insights. Thanks to everyone who posted a suggestion for books to read.
As for MOC, I really love them, too. A different kind of story, but they can be soul mates, too.
I love soul mates stories and I believe in them in real life. I met and married mine. It’s not that we didn’t have our share of troubles in the marriage – we did. But because both of us truly believed we were meant to be with the other, it helped us work through our difficulties. I lost him just over a year and a half ago due to cancer – we would have been married 32 years and not a day goes by when I don’t long for him back again. I’m open to the idea of someday finding someone else – but I doubt he will be my soul-mate the way my husband was.
Kristie, I hope you will find a new companion. That’s always a tough challenge, an early loss.