We’ve heard the term more times than we can count:
“True love.”
Some of us have a different way of saying it:
“Finding one’s soul mate.”
Is true love for real?
Does one really find their soul mate?
To answer these questions, let’s step back a bit.
Two people can get together and find themselves deeply in love. They share many intimate days, weeks, months and perhaps even years. Even with a considerable passage of time, their love for each other continues to be strong.
They both may feel they’ve found their soul mates.
They both may feel they got that elusive true love.
And then something happens. It may happen in a few weeks or a few months or it may be a year or two down the road where “something” happens.
That “something” could be a number of different things. But the result is one or both partners consider the true love to have vanished. And if not completely gone, then certainly reduced enough to where they question whether they had true love at all.
And this is important: It doesn’t have to be one big “something” that happened that brings about this drop or disappearance of true love. It could be a series of small things that gradually eroded the love.
Here’s what I think:
Two people can get together and have a tremendous amount of affinity for each other. A tremendous amount. If you like, let’s call that “true love.”
Now, that very large quantity of affinity is capable of seeing this couple through a fair amount of what life throws at them. But I’m afraid there is no guarantee that this affinity will stay at this very high level.
Things happen. We know this. Small things. Big things. These incidents — and certainly the accumulation of them — are capable of reducing affinity. In some cases, erasing the affinity.
So, is true love real?
Can one really find one’s soulmate?
I’m going to say yes.
Initially.
But if the couple wants this true love to endure, then each is going to need to throw a bit of work into it. I’m reminded of a quote from our Marriage Quotes page:
“Marriage is a mosaic you build with your spouse. Millions of tiny moments that create your love story.”
My recommendation would be this:
Instead of depending on true love seeing you through, do whatever it takes to maintain and grow that wonderful affinity you brought to the marriage.
We’re here to help you do just that.
For a period of time, we are offering a free copy of our marriage book: "When The Thrill Is Gone." Click here to get your copy.