Astonishing article from the leftist Huffington Post, of all places. (links removed)
Excerpt:
As millennial women, we were groomed for a white knight fantasy. From childhood favorites such as Snow White to adult rom-com staples such as How to Lose a Guy in Ten Days or Sleepless in Seattle, the media perpetuates a romantic storyline in which compatibility and lasting romance is something effortless, built on chance, sustained by good looks, fun dates and electric sexual chemistry. These story lines shape our expectations for romantic happiness. It is not enough to find someone with whom we are mostly compatible, who would make a good parent, with whom we could learn and grow wrinkly; now, we expect a perfect fit and an easy, instantaneous “connection.” In short, we want a soul mate. But it is this desire for a soul mate that is actually the undoing of our happy ending.
A “soul mate” is defined as one who is ideally suited to us, perfectly completes us, one with whom the relationship feels easy and natural. With them, a relationship is just “meant to be”… A survey of young adults conducted by the National Marriage Project found that while 84% of young adults report finding a marriage partner “very important,” a full 94% of young adults say they would like to marry a soul mate, and 73% of people ages 18 – 29 believe that there is a soul mate out there for them.
Wow. That doesn’t sound like a good approach to me. My approach has always been to pick the girl who was most willing to learn new things. And then to explain to her my vision for marriage and see if I could get her to work independently on that plan before I married her. I don’t favor this soul mate approach at all.
Does the “soul mate” approach work?
We heard that those who get married later and possess a college degree have fewer divorces and more stable marriages. So we spend our twenties trying to find ourselves through travel, accumulating degrees and building a career. Marriage will be the capstone of our achievements, and nothing less than tying the knot with a soul mate will suffice. But the tragic irony is that soul mate thinking makes us increasingly likely to divorce. A study of 1,400 married men and women shows that people who hold soul mate orientations are 150% more likely to end up divorced than those who do not.
The widespread cultural belief in “soul mate ideology” undermines our chances at happiness because it makes us passive receivers of idyllic romantic expectations. Further, it fosters self-centeredness; one rarely longs to be a soul mate for someone else, which would require effort. For this reason, believing in soul mates is one of the most dis-empowering belief systems we can adopt. As millennials, we pride ourselves on actively pursuing the life we want to live, rather than simply accepting whatever hand we are dealt. We are innovative, passionate, proactive and not afraid to take risks. Yet, there is a disconnect when it comes to our desire for lasting love. Though there are prospects around us, we forgo taking the concrete steps needed to build happy compatible relationships because we do not “feel a spark.” We are passively waiting on the sidelines for love to “happen,” and then wonder why it is so difficult.
I’ve always felt that the soul mate approach was like the evil villain in opposition to my noble plan-based approach. My approach is to pick a woman who wants to learn and work hard. Explain your marriage plan to her, and how your marriage plan serves God. My marriage plan accomplishes four goals, for example. 1) Influence the university with apologetics, 2) influence the church with apologetics, 3) provide a model of a good marriage to people in the community, including co-workers, college students and neighbors, and 4) raise effective, influential children who will have an impact for God. Now if you are a Christian woman raised in a church that affirms the soul mate / fairy tale view of marriage with this “God has a wonderful plan for your life” stuff, then a specific, non-emotional plan from a man is the last thing you want to hear about.
Their solution is for people to work at compatibility:
Compatibility is something co-created through intentionality and conscious choice. It involves mutual sacrifice, effort and commitment for the sake of the other’s benefit. A recent study found that of the couples who demonstrate above average daily generosity, 50% of them report being “very happy” in marriage; among the low generosity scores, only 14% can say the same. As studies indicate, selflessness is required to create mutual compatibility. It is not instantaneous, nor does it usually begin with true love’s kiss.
We both know from experience that there are some you naturally connect with and others you do not. This is not a call towards forced attraction or companionship. But, our romantic futures should not be placed in the hands of blind chance. It is time we roll up our sleeves and shift our expectations from unattainable perfection to realistic romance, one that accounts for imperfection. We must understand that work in a relationship is a necessary key to success, rather than an indication of imminent failure. We will be letting go of a tired plot line that sets us up for disappointment and embracing an active role in our own unique story.
How refreshing to know that we do not have to be perfect to be lovable, and that our romantic success is not solely dependent on finding the “right” fit, but instead built through cultivating daily moments of generosity, sacrifice and conscious coupling.
So in my case, I am looking for a woman who listens to the plan, develops the skills for the plan and then independently engages in activities to achieve the goals of the plan. In the past, I have had women listen to the plan carefully, including my motivations and experiences that caused me to choose this plan. And they have been willing to read books, listen to lectures, watch debates, to gain the skills needed to make a difference. And they have even engaged independently with activities like public speaking, teaching classes, and so forth. But none of the women who had done that accepted the soul mate / fairy tale view of marriage. They all wanted to hear a good plan, learn useful skills and then get to work. Big difference.
WINTERY KNIGHT 
One of the things about the “soul mate” view, is that it’s very one sided and selfish. Women are expected to find a soul mate – a prince, or knight in shining armour; who will walk through fire for them and slay dragons, then treat them like a princess…
… they, however, are expecting to be able to say, do or act like whatever they want. They get to “be” the princess – and the princess they think of is someone who can behave like a spoiled brat, with no consequences or responsibilities, and everyone around them is supposed to just accept them as they are and make allowances for them.
Somehow, they’re never expected to be *someone else’s* dragon slaying, fire-walking, knight in shining armour soul mate (equality, right?).
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This is EXACTLY why I wrote this post – to address this problem. I used to (in my 20s) explain to women good things that they needed to do in order to be wives and mothers. I explained to them how learning new things and doing good things would serve God. THEY DID NOT CARE. They had the idea that God was happy when they were happy, because that’s what he wanted most – their happiness. My job as they saw it was to do God’s will: make them happy. And that meant not asking them to do anything they didn’t want to do.
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The whole “soul mate” idea comes, as much bad philosophy does, from Plato who theorized that souls were divided in heaven before birth. Plato stated that it was one’s duty to go and find the “other half” of their soul.
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Largely agree, but I’m not entirely confident that one can lay the blame at Plato’s sandalled feet. Even if Plato had not held this position, the modern concept of a ‘soul mate’ would likely still exist since it could theoretically be adduced from one’s theology if one holds to a fairly basic or vague conception of God.
If one thinks that God predestines all things (including one’s personal relationships) and wants you to be happy, it might logically follow that God would create the perfect person for you to be with. Alternatively, any kind of fatalism might give rise to the idea of a ‘soul mate’. But nonetheless, you make an interesting point RJ.
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Wow, the Huffington Post: managing to catch up with the theme of major animated movies only a month or two after they come out on DVD!
The method that worked for my family, and for all the marriages I’ve seen formed, depend on being friends first. Then you recognize you could be more, identify shared goals and paths to those goals. (That last one is a booger– if both sides want to lead, especially if neither wants to be responsible for where they lead, it won’t work.)
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On a side– part of why my husband and I enjoy Orcs Must Die! 2 is that it lets us play the caricature of our public faces– and confuse the heck out of people. (He plays the sorceress.)
Hey, mischief can be a building block of a good relationship– shared sense of humor!
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That is REALLY weird. I played with Dina. Her favorite color is purple, so the sorceress suits her.
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Dear husband was a GM who played a lot of villains; he has fun being the “bad guy.”
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Oh, and you should deal with the folks who ALWAYS guess that he’s the chick… .*sigh* Just because I use more words associated with strict logic, rather than living them harshly…..
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Love this! Definitely sharing this. What saddens me the most is when Christians believe in a soul mate. Like what?! That is not even inherently Christian! The concept of a “soul mate” or “The one” goes back to Greek Mythology and that is all it is…a myth.
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Reblogged this on Lovelyleblanc7's Blog.
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@ Wintery Knight,
This is a great post, not to mention done in perfect timing. I just linked to this post in a comment I made on a post recently written by Donal Graeme because I thought it was absolutely relevant (I hope that is okay). Here is the post I linked it on… http://donalgraeme.wordpress.com/2014/04/25/objective-and-subjective-attraction
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I liked this post. I really did. But I do feel there is a place somewhere between the soul mate myth (and I am duly on the record as speaking against it, link to follow), and the plan specific search that you outlined here.
As I read your post, Scripture verse after Scripture verse came to my mind:
‘Man’s mind plans his way, but God directs his steps”, which I know can be interpreted several ways but they all end with God’s plan having the authority to supersede our own.
“Th very hairs on your head are numbered”, which indicates that God does have a plan and an interest in who we marry, and is involved in the details of our lives.
I suppose what I am trying to say here is that we need to be careful not to make the thing too clinical, writing off the idea of feeling passionate about your intended as if it is an automatic sign that you are being flesh driven rather than Divinely directed.
Oh, I promised a link (forgive the shameless plug):
http://traditionalchristianity.wordpress.com/2011/08/31/the-myth-of-the-soul-mate/
I have a lots of writings along these lines, which is why I liked the post, but I am instantly wary of inflexibility. But then, I am an American Protestant, so you might want to ignore my ramblings altogether, LOL.
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Yep, I broadly speaking agree with the sentiments of this post. It is interesting that there has definitely been a shift to challenge the ‘soul mate’ philosophy of late. Take Disney’s “Frozen” for instance (my kids love that film), it goes out of its way to critique and ridicule the notion; pointing out the dangers of naively living in this mindset. Very interesting.
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As fewer folks grow up knowing what love looks like, the shorthands become deceptive— just like the fairy tale shorthand of good being beautiful had to give way in the face of so many having no idea it was a shorthand, a symbol, rather than the thing itself.
The lazy response is to flip to the opposite; part of why Frozen works so well is that they didn’t flip, they just showed how taking the stories too literally– chasing and grasping for the magic– would deform your kingdom. Anna still stumbled right into her soul mate, in the course of doing the right thing– rather than trying to find him! :D
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