The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if there is any reaction, both are transformed. — Carl Jung

I used to believe in soulmates so thoroughly I built a version of myself around the idea of one day finding mine. And that belief cost me years of my life.

Here’s the part that should genuinely unsettle you. What you’ve been calling love, this entire time, might actually be a chemical trick your own brain is playing on you.

I want to talk honestly about this belief, because I think it’s quietly one of the most damaging ideas floating around in modern relationships, particularly in the US and UK, where it’s bandied about everywhere from dating apps to astrology posts to wedding speeches, without anyone realizing the damage it may be doing.

The Idea That Sounds Romantic But Isn’t

There’s something very romantic about the idea that somewhere out there, there exists one particular person who was made for you. Once you find them, everything falls into place. The anxiety is gone. Searching is done. You’ve arrived.

It’s a beautiful message. Which is also exactly why it’s one of the fastest ways to damage a relationship before it’s even really started.

Stay with me here, because this next part is the one people don’t want to hear.

Psychologists have language for this.

It’s called destiny belief versus growth belief, and research has found that people who hold the former tend to detach from troubled relationships more quickly, because if the relationship requires something from you, if it hits a rough patch, or two people have to work through some issues, the destiny believer’s mindset tells them, perhaps this wasn’t the one after all.

Growth believers, by contrast, tend to look at those same situations and see them as a challenge to work through.

And research has found that growth believers tend to report greater relationship satisfaction over time.

Think about that for a second. The very belief that sounds the most romantic is statistically likely to lead to the quickest breakup.

Read that sentence again if you have to. It’s not an accident that this feels uncomfortable.

 

Why We Fell For This In The First Place

I don’t think that’s happened by accident. We were raised on this idea. The rom coms. The songs. The fairy tales that always end at the wedding, just as the hard work of learning to truly love someone begins.

Nobody ever showed us the arguments about money at eleven p.m.

Or the fact that one of them will soon die, or that one of them will inevitably lose the job they’ve pinned their hopes on, and have to deal with the emotional fall-out.

We were sold on destiny and subtly taught that nothing of lasting worth will come unless you’ve fallen in a way that feels destined, even though that’s not at all what the majority of people who hold this belief go on to experience.

Nobody told us the part that actually matters, and I think that omission was never accidental either.

 

The Real Psychology Behind Why This Hurts So Much

Here’s something fascinating: when you believe in a soulmate, you’re not only believing in a person, but essentially a specific feeling that comes with them, a sort of addictive high that only you can create.

That rush fades. It always does, because your brain just can’t sustain it.

So, what happens when, in a belief in soulmates, the rush fades? Panic, and a belief that something is wrong.

They panic, think maybe this wasn’t the one, when in fact it’s the perfectly normal transition that all long-term relationships experience, as the infatuation stage passes.

I’ve seen this happen to people close to me.

Perfect relationships falling apart because the fireworks had subsided, and they assumed, instead of being the mature, committed people that chose to stay, that maybe this wasn’t their soulmate after all, and there was someone else out there who would give them that feeling again.

And so they left, and a few months into the new relationship, the fireworks started again and faded as expected.

Notice the pattern here, because once you see it, you cannot unsee it.

 

The Comparison Trap Social Media Made Worse

Here’s something else that’s changed: social media has created a whole industry around the soulmate trope, with couples sharing their relationship “signs” and other things that they think prove, to each other and to the world, that they are soulmates.

And here is the psychology of this: when you are constantly exposed to other people’s relationships, presented in a way that makes it easy to compare, your own relationship is automatically diminished.

You think something is wrong when it isn’t, simply because you’re comparing your unedited reality to an edited version of someone else’s relationship.

And that’s how the culture has created an industry that encourages people to seek out relationships based on an unsustainable feeling, while simultaneously convincing people that their existing, less thrilling relationship, is somehow lacking, and needs to be discarded in favor of the promised fireworks.

If you’ve ever felt that quiet, nagging sense that your own relationship should feel more intense than it does, this is exactly where that feeling came from. It was manufactured.

What I Actually Believe Now

I don’t think soulmates in the destiny sense exist. I think what exists are compatibility, effort, timing, and two people willing to do their damnedest to make it work, rather than walking away and waiting for someone else to come along.

I think the healthiest relationships are those where both people choose the other, over and over again, on the boring Tuesday nights as much as the exciting ones, rather than assuming that they have to be destined for each other. It’s easy to believe in the former.

It’s hard to believe in the latter, but it’s far more rewarding to both people.

 

Why I Think We’re Wrong To Believe This

If I’m totally honest, I think a lot of people believe in soulmates because it’s easier to believe that the right person will make things easy, rather than admit to themselves that even the right person requires work.

The belief in the soulmate creates a culture of entitlement around relationships, where people are far more willing to walk away from a relationship in pursuit of the magical belief that they’re “meant” to be together, and I think that’s doing a huge disservice to modern relationships, particularly in the US and UK, where the concept has become almost an obsession.

 

What I Wish Someone Had Told Me Earlier

I wish someone had told me that the fireworks aren’t what matters.

I think about all the relationships I broke off because the thrill had faded, or because they weren’t “destined” to be together, and how much time I wasted waiting for something to appear rather than building it with the people I was already choosing to spend my time with.

If you’re someone who is still waiting on the soulmate to appear, I want to gently tell you that it probably won’t, and the relationships worth having to you will most likely not present themselves in a flashy way.

They’ll ask you to choose them, over and over again, on the boring Tuesday nights that always feel so far removed from the exciting first date.

No soulmate is going to come into your life to show you your true reflection.

That mirror was always yours to hold up. You just handed it to someone else, hoping they’d do the work for you