Do Soulmates Exist? What the Myth Gets Wrong About Love

Do you believe in soulmates?

I want you to take a moment to really think about it. Because I had a really interesting conversation with my friend Amber about this recently. It all began when she started telling me about a program she runs called “Soul-Mating” (more on that later). It sparked a few questions about this idea of “soulmates.”

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• What is a soulmate?
• How do you know when you’ve found them?
• Is there only one soulmate or do we have multiple?

So you know I went down the rabbit hole and had to do my research on how many people believe in soulmates 🤪

Do you have your answer to whether you believe in them or not? Okay then…go ahead and look at this graph below:

The Word is Newer Than You Think

We treat “soulmate” like it’s this ancient law. But the first time anyone wrote the word down in English was a letter from 1822, from the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge. He was giving a young woman advice about marriage, and he told her that to not be miserable, she’d need a soul-mate, not just someone to share a house with. That’s the origin. A poet’s a letter about not settling. And it didn’t even catch on in the mainstream until the 1980s, around the same time as the modern romance industry... coincidence? I think not 😉

But let’s take a moment to go back even further than 1822. Let’s go way back to the Greek philosopher Plato, around 385 BCE. In his Symposium, there’s this wild myth: humans used to be whole. Round, four arms, four legs, two faces. So powerful the gods got nervous, so Zeus split us all down the middle. And ever since, the story goes, each of us wanders around aching, hunting for our other half. Find them, and you finally feel whole again. Excuse me?? What kind of horror story is this? Lol.

Because if you walk around convinced you’re half a person, you are going to spend your whole life auditioning people for the role of “your other half?” And without knowing it, many people keep picking the same kind of person to audition for this role, over and over again.

The Person I Kept Dating

For years, I kept ending up with the same kind of person.

Guarded. Emotionally unavailable, though I wouldn’t have named it that at the time. In attachment theory terms, they were avoidant, and I was anxious. And if you know anything about that pairing, you know it’s basically two magnets that can’t decide whether they’re coming together or pulling apart.

They’d let me in just enough. And I’d feel it. I’d get to be the one who showed them the love they’d never been shown. Patient. Understanding. The one who could reach them when no one else could.

And then it would painfully end. Usually abruptly. The closeness would get too real for them, their walls would go back up, and I’d be left wondering what I did wrong. It took me a long time to notice I was the common denominator. That there was a role I was committed to playing.

I was a rescuer ⛑️

Now, if you’re a rescuer, buckle up; the rest of this is going to feel like a personal attack, haha.

Where Did Your Ideas of Love Get Built?

Here’s the confusing thing about being the rescuer. It feels like love, like generosity. But the truth is, there’s usually some hidden payoff hiding underneath it, and mine was this: if I’m the one saving you, I never have to be the one who needs saving.

I’m going to say that one more time: if I’m the one saving you, I never have to be the one who needs saving.

I got all the intimacy of a close relationship without needing to feel the vulnerability of being fully seen. It was a brilliant little system I unconsciously made to keep me feeling safe.

And where does a system like that get built?

Usually in your early childhood. I was the rescuer in my family long before I was the rescuer in my love life. The one who planned things, organized things, held it all together as the strong one, because somewhere in me lived the belief that if I didn’t do all those things, we wouldn’t be a family at all. If I don’t hold this together, it falls apart. If it falls apart, I’m alone.

On top of that, I grew up an overachiever. I learned early that love showed up when I performed. Good grades, trophies, accolades. Love arrived on the back of achievement. So the two things got wired together without me ever realizing it. The belief I created from that was “Love is something you earn.” You earn it by being impressive, or by being needed, or by being the one holding everyone else up. Love is not something you get to just have for free. Love is not something you get just by being who you are.

Rough, right?

But that was the program that got installed. Love is earned, or it leaves. So the avoidant partners I kept choosing were a perfect fit for this belief. Because not only could they not fully love me back, they gave me someone to endlessly earn love from.

Trying My Best to Not Ruin a Good Thing

So when did I actually realize all this? I’d love to tell you it was after a particular romantic breakup, but it wasn’t. I actually realized all this when I was having issues with my family.

I was already with my wife, dating at the time, and I could feel myself dragging the unhealthy habits I learned growing up into our relationship. Now, I did not want to poison this beautiful thing I had with this incredible person, so I very uncomfortably dragged my ass to therapy. And while I was in there unpacking all the family drama, the rest of it revealed itself.

My therapist introduced me to something called “The Drama Triangle.” It’s a psychological model of the three roles we tend to unconsciously slip into during conflict.

• There’s the persecutor. The one doing the blaming, the criticizing, the “this is your fault.” Often controlling, often harsh, usually not aware they’re doing it.
• Then there’s the rescuer. The fixer. The one who swoops in to save, to soothe, to hold it all together for everyone else. Looks helpful. But actually keeping the whole cycle in motion.
• And then there’s the victim. The one who feels powerless, stuck, at the mercy of what everyone else is doing. Sometimes real, sometimes a role that avoids having to take responsibility.

Most people cycle through all three depending on who they’re with and what’s happening. Usually unconscious that all this is taking place.

And all of it started to click. I was the rescuer. The persecutor more than I’d like to admit. But the victim? Almost never. I would do anything to avoid being the one who was hurt, exposed, dependent, in need.

That was the “aha” moment.

The person who refuses the victim seat that hard is usually the person most terrified of ever being the one who needs something (or someone). And I finally saw that it was never three separate issues. The rescuer, the achiever, the control freak inside of me. All of it was one thing. A nervous system in survival mode, trying to earn its way to safety.

Outrunning Vulnerability

Getting out of that was slow and unglamorous.

I had to learn how to be vulnerable, which I’d dodged my entire life. I had to let myself be the one who needs something and ask for it out loud. I had to let my wife see me struggle. I had to learn to sit inside uncertainty (running late, plans changing, not having all the answers) without strong-arming everything back under my control. I even had to learn and accept that I’d been carrying anxiety for most of my life without knowing it. It had gone undetected for so long because my anxiety manifested into acceptable forms like perfectionism and overachieving.

Do you understand the kind of f*cking rewiring that takes? Ugh, it wasn’t fun. It wasn’t a quick fix. But it was worth every ounce of effort because I am now someone who went from “earning love” to feeling safe enough to accept it. And when we’re able to create that internal safety, guess what you’re willing to do more of? Take risks. Lean into uncertainty.

Credit: Abshky

Credit: Abshky

So, Do I Believe in Soulmates?

Here’s my answer.

I used to believe the rom-com version. One perfect person, out there, cosmically assigned, and my whole job was to go find them. But I don’t believe that anymore. I mean, there are eight billion people on this planet. The idea that the Universe would hand each of us exactly ONE match and then hide them somewhere on the planet is the worst design I’ve ever heard of, haha.

What I believe now took me a while to put into words.

A soulmate, to me, is an experience before it’s a person. It’s what it feels like to be fully seen and fully accepted, felt all the way down in your soul. And you can’t have that experience with another person until you’ve built some version of it with yourself first. Not in isolation, either. The people who love us, friends, family, even the partners who didn’t work out, hand us back pieces of ourselves along the way. That’s part of how we become “whole.” But the connection you’re aching for on the outside can only ever go as deep as the one you have with yourself.

I also don’t think we only have “one soulmate.”

I think less about partnership as finding someone so perfectly matched that it’s effortless and nothing ever has to change, and more about being willing to watch them (and you) become someone new, again and again, and deciding whether it makes sense to keep choosing each other.

Studies find people who believe in soulmates and destiny are more likely to break up, while people who believe relationships grow over time have more stable relationships and handle conflict better. And one family-studies writer put it as “oneness is made, not found.”

The other thing I don’t like about the whole “one soul mate” idea is that it creates this hierarchy within love. That you get to experience this love ONCE (if you even find them), and then after that you’re screwed. So if your “soul mate” dies young, you’re just gonna have to exist on planet earth settling for a mediocre love?

No, that’s ridiculous. I believe love is an energy that surprises us, shows up in ways we never thought could exist, and has an ability to alchemize connection in a non-hierarchical way (making not one type of love better than, just different).

So the old myth had it backwards. You are not half a person searching for the half that completes you. You’re already whole, slowly remembering that single truth and power.

Your Willingness to Do This One Thing

My friend Amber I told you about in the beginning? Well, that deep conversation led to her inviting me to come be a guest teacher inside her 4-week program, “Soul Mating: The Art of Sacred Partnership.” So, if any of this hit home for you and you’re looking to release wounds of past heartbreak, want to stop repeating patterns around partnership, or even just learn how to become the version of yourself that naturally draws love in…you may want to check it out.

Amber’s a real one; she’s had to heal her own experiences of betrayal and self-abandonment. You know I wouldn’t even bring her to you if she wasn’t. So anyway, check it out if it’s something that’s calling you.

But program or no program, here’s what I actually want you to walk away with.

This was never really about romance. Strip the word “soulmate” of all its rom-com packaging and what’s left is pretty simple: the experience of being deeply seen, met, and accepted for exactly who you are. You can feel that with a partner, sure. But also with a friend who gets you on a cellular level. A sibling. A child. A version of yourself you’re only getting to know now.

So the question I’d leave you with isn’t “is my person out there somewhere.” The question is more, What kind of love am I available to receive right now?

Because while we like to imagine love is out there deciding whether to show up for us. We’re the ones broadcasting the signal. The beliefs operating in our subconscious, the ones about earning love, whether you’re safe to be seen, or whether people can be trusted… those are setting the frequency you’re putting out into every relationship you have. Not just the romantic ones. All of them.

So before you go looking for anyone to see you, take some time to see yourself.

• What stories are you telling yourself about love?
• What do you brace for?
• What patterns keep showing up?

You don’t need to figure it all out right now. You just have to be willing to look in the mirror, rummage through the things you buried.

That’s it. Just a willingness to be with and to love yourself.

Until next time, I’ll be emitting some love your way.