Your Soul Mate Doesn't Exist

Sorry. You're not going to marry your soul mate.

Not yet, anyway.

It's an impossible expectation.

It's very popular now for people to think they will marry their soul mates; that there is one perfect match waiting for them somewhere and that they will find this person before marriage who totally gets them on a deep level, who has a deep spiritual connection with them, and then they'll marry and this wonderful soul mate will automatically understand them.

Not gonna happen

What do you do when your soul mate forgets it's the anniversary of the day you got engaged and goes out with their colleagues after work instead of coming straight home to you to relive that moment? Do you get disappointed and think maybe you picked the wrong soul mate and you better keep looking for another one? Or (yes, ladies, I am thinking of you because this is also true of me), do you say to yourself, "If he really loved me I wouldn't have to tell him what I want, he should just know!"?

You don't marry your soul mate, you earn your soul mate and you do it by slogging away year after year. You do it by working together, growing up together, and thinking of the other more than trying to be sure that you are getting everything you want and you deserve.

It's putting the other first and working as a team. Becoming soul mates takes a lot of time, talk, bonding, and sacrificing for each other.

My parents used to tell about the time the flu was raging through their house. They had three kids sick: one throwing up in the toilet, one in the sink, and one in the bathtub. All at the same time. They would look at each other and laugh, and say, "That was such a romantic time!" And my mom would say, "That's when I was so glad I married your father!" in a kind of sarcastic way.

At the time I thought that was just disgusting, but now I look back and think, yes, that really was a defining moment in their marriage.

When three of their seven kids were all throwing up at the same time, making a disgusting mess that they would have to clean up, they were working together supporting each other and taking care of us. And waiting for the next four to get the flu so they could do this all over again. They looked back at that time with fondness and laughter. They were earning their soul mate status. That's what we have to do.

I'm not sure Pat is my soul mate

I have a pretty good relationship with my husband, Pat, but I'm not sure we're soul mates. Would a true soul mate:

• Question my sanity for watching shows on the Bravo network?
• Think I would want to go to the gym with him and spend two hours working out?
• Think brown shoes match his black suit?
• Get my birthday mixed up with his sister's?
• Think that a spire goes on top of a Christmas tree instead of a star?
• Leave Christmas lights up on the house until May?

Yet there are signs we may achieve soul mate status some day.

• He's my biggest fan. No one can insult me when he's around.
• He clears the snow off my car in the winter even though he leaves for work an hour after me.
• He watches HGTV shows with me even though he's a contractor and does that stuff every day. (Although not at our house. Oops, slipping into non-soul mate territory.)
• He pulled me up when I fell in a huge mud puddle when I was pontificating about how I didn't need to be married to him, I chose to be married to him. And he didn't give me a hard time. Turns out maybe I did need to be married to him.
• Pat never forgot my birthday again, especially with the help of my mom, sister, and friends reminding him each year.
• He did take the Christmas lights down eventually.
• He holds my hand during the homily at Mass.

So please don't put impossible expectations on your future spouse! He's just a man, ladies, and guys, she's just a woman. A wonderful, loving, responsible person with a beautiful soul who has the potential to become your soul mate. We're just not there yet.