Marrying your soulmate
I’ve already confessed that I watch the TV show “The Bachelor.”
Some of you—all of you?—may ridicule me for this, but for me the show has a great combination of factors. It entertainingly takes my mind off heavier things. It’s got beautiful travel locations, and the people aren’t exactly hard on the eyes, either. The directors and/or producers and/or editors are very skilled at quick cutting (sometimes even witty quick cutting), and also at creating a certain amount of tension and suspense. The show has its traditions and conventions—including, for some reason, a near-complete confusion about the use of “I” and “me” when employed in phrases such as “him and me” or “she and I”—phrases almost universally rendered on the show as some hybrid form such as “him and I” or “she and me.”
And the show has drama. You may think it’s false drama, but it’s not all false. Plenty of marriages have emerged from the show, which is surprising considering the incredible artificiality of its setup situation, and the obvious opportunities for jealousy that arise when the show airs and the chosen mate-to-be watches all that footage of his or her significant other passionately kissing a host of different people.
But I digress.
This week The Bachelor featured The Most Dramatic Episode Ever (fans of the show will get what I mean). So, why am I bringing it up, considering that I assume that most of you don’t watch it and probably actively disdain it, if you think about it at all? Because an issue that arose amidst last night’s drama—the issue that sparked the drama, actually—is one that I’ve often wondered about: do marriages that are built on the idea that the couple are soulmates who fell in love at first sight (or almost first sight), and who never had any doubt that they were made for each other, do better than marriages that result from relationships that began more slowly and perhaps even hesitantly? Is that kind of strong and immediate knowledge of the other person’s rightness necessary for a good and lasting marriage? Does it correlate generally with a better marriage than a situation in which love grows slowly, or does the difference not matter, or is the latter situation actually better long-term than the former?
In last night’s episode, Bachelor fans (and the Bachelor himself) were faced with a contestant who sent herself home because, although she was starting to “fall in love” with the Bachelor, she wasn’t “in love” with him, and she wanted a love like her parents had—in which they fell in love instantaneously and never have had a moment’s doubt since.
I contend that if that what she’s holding out for, she risks being alone for the rest of her life. Not because such a relationship isn’t extremely desirable, and not because it’s impossible that it can happen just that way. I think it is both desirable and possible. The question is: how likely is it? Do you give up something rather good in order to wait for it? Is the perfect the enemy of the good?
Just now I did some Googling to find out whether people who begin marriage with that situation of soulmate-certainty end up with happier and more stable marriages over time, and also just how common that initial state of affairs is. So far I haven’t found research on the topic, which surprises me. I haven’t looked all that long, so perhaps you can locate something.
And of course, feel free to opine on the topic in general.
[NOTE: For what it’s worth, I fell in love at first sight many and many a moon ago, and I married that person although I already knew there would be problems. The bond was just that powerful. And we stayed together for many many years because of the strength of that bond, and yet ended up divorced.]
In love or lust?
I’ll put in a vote for growing together over the years, no matter how rapidly the couple fell in love. It wasn’t love at first sight for me, although the romance kindled quickly once we began dating. From the vantage point of nearly forty-eight years of marriage, I can say that it’s the friendship and mutual respect which get you through.
I’ve never watched The Bachelor, as the very idea of the show’s artificiality is off putting. That said, I am interested in the intimacy/partnership in marriage, that despite my one and only ending in divorce and leaving me a bit ‘gun shy’.
In my life, I’ve witnessed two really solid marriages; my parent’s marriage and my closest boyhood friend’s marriage. My daughter’s marriage, still young, so far appears to also be a possibility. They met in their first year of college and have been inseparable ever since. That was 14 years ago.
My parents tell me that they knew each other for four years and had been good friends before they ever started dating. Compatibility, respect, deep affection, and a loving commitment characterize their marriage. But I do not think that they are soul mates. Ironically, I suspect my father met his soulmate during ‘the war’ but life can throw up insurmountable obstacles and circumstances conspired against them.
My best friend and his wife both insisted that they instantly fell in love when they met. They married very young. The same characteristics as my parents also applied in their marriage. I do think that they were soul mates. (He suddenly died in his late 40s after 27 years of wedded bliss).
So based on my experiences, I’d say that several factors are necessary to a solid marriage and, whether a gradual or instant falling in love, that compatibility must be the basis for a lasting marriage.
Over the years, in reflecting upon the foundation of a solid marriage, I’ve reached the conclusion that the prospects for a successful marriage are greatly increased if no ‘deal breakers’ in the foundational areas of a marriage exist. Such as; compatibility in and out of bed, finances, politics and religion, living in the city vs a rural environment, active vs a more sedentary lifestyle… if the basics are right, at least the marriage has a firm foundation. You have to like each other as a person for love to last.
John Lennon got at least one thing right, “Life is what happens, while you’re busy making other plans…”
We fell in love at first sight and are still together. Of course it wasn’t always smooth sailing, but we made it work. And at our age we are glad we are old friends and lovers. Have no idea what Bachelor show is, but if you enjoy it that’s enough isn’t it?
I can’t resist answering this with a couple of personal experiences, so personal that I’m going to be pseudonymous, though I sometimes comment here under my real name.
I fell in love at first sight with a girl in college. I had seen her around a few times and been instantly seized with a great yearning, that yearning that goes way beyond physical attraction. One night, passing her on the street, I called out to her that she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. That commenced a very intense, soul-mate-level relationship that went on for some months until I broke it off because I felt like I was betraying a girl to whom I had a commitment and who was off at another school for a year. (And it was too bad for *that* girl that I went back to her, because she ended up getting hurt worse than she would have if I’d broken up with her at the time.)
Could we have had a successful marriage? Of course one can’t know but I truly think we could have. We really had a very deep emotional bond that had only grown stronger over the months, as well as being compatible in pretty down-to-earth ways. I might add that although I was always prone to infatuation, those manias always burned out almost immediately. Whatever this was, it was more than that.
The thing that could have emerged as a disastrous problem was the possibility that we might have developed in different ways. At the time we were both college-student hippies. Ten years later I was moving in a more conservative direction. When I ran into her maybe fifteen years later she was a pretty conventional liberal and secular, and I was definitely Christian and conservative. But who knows?–maybe if we’d been together she would have moved with me, or I with her. Anyway it remains a big “what-if” in my life.
But then there’s the woman I actually married. In some ways I actually had less in common with her than with the love-at-first-sight girl. I hardly noticed her when I met her, and not much for a long time after. Slowly I began to notice that she was actually rather beautiful in a subtle way and had a mysterious feminine appeal that was deeper than beauty per se. (“She’s got a real feminine mystique about her,” a friend remarked.) She was also extremely intelligent but did not parade it at all. And though she was very quiet, when she did say something it was interesting. It was at least a year, maybe two, before I realized I had fallen deeply in love with her. But though as in the other case we were both hippies, we have developed and changed in the same ways. We’ve been happily married now for…let’s see, this year will make it 42 years.
So I firmly believe that it can work both ways.
Love sociopathic style…
makes a farce of it all…
no wonder almost no one has good relationships any more since they fixed em
cant even figure out how to date or even talk or ask out
no future for a group that does that
but only women can think of soulmates in such a crass crappy thing
and they thought us men were crass… why not go in the local sandbox and dig for gold, its more convenient of a way to fail, but alas, has zero chance of success.. which as you can see is irrelevant to the outcome actually
I know of one couple who did, indeed, fall in love at first sight, get married and never once look back. They were the parents of a friend of mine. When I knew them best, they’d been married 25 or 30 years and each of them still visibly lit up when the other one walked into the room. They stayed blissfully married until the husband finally died in his 80s. It was lovely for them, but rather rough on their kids, all of whom have tried and failed to replicate what seems to them to be the one and only right way to be married — a very high bar — and have had a hard time being happy in more “normal” marriages.
Unfortunately, I sometimes watch and, like, low brow entertainment. So, I watched a few years of the earlier seasons of the Bachelor, and then I quit watching.
What I concluded was that given the superficiality of what people were basing their decisions on—generally looks, sometimes money, or the line that a man or women can spin, and all this occurring in an unrealistic, high pressure environment—made actually finding a good marriage partner pretty unlikely.
Moreover, finding such a marriage partner in the time compressed, highly artificial, and unrealistic environment created by the show—limos, private aircraft, trips all over the U..S. and the world, the best of quarters, food, drink, entertainment, “peak experiences,” and high living in general—made the ability to judge how someone would behave in the reality of the much less “high life” or glamorous day to day world very hard to judge.
Snow on Pine:
I can understand why you would conclude that, because it makes perfect sense and it’s true for many of the contestants. However, not all. There have been a surprising (to me) number of stable and seemingly happy marriages. To be technical, most of the successes have been with The Bachelorette, the female version (male and female have been alternating for quite a few years:
That’s actually an interesting differential: women seem to be able to do the selecting more successfully than men. Or the show just gives them better choices to begin with. Or something. That’s an approximately 43% success rate for The Bachelorette, which is actually pretty phenomenal. Plus, although certainly many of the other couples break up fairly quickly after the show ends, a pretty large percentage go on to have bona fide relationships that last quite a while (often several years) but then go on to break up.
I am surprised that anyone has success on the show, in that environment. But quite a few couples do.
Mrs Whatsit:
That’s rather like the situation on the show last night. The woman was having some doubts, and spoke to her father, who basically said she should hold out for the kind of relationship he and her mother had: love at first sight certainty. I think that’s a very high standard to hold a person to, and in some ways it can be a dangerous one. i don’t think that most people have that sort of certainty when they marry, and I’m not at all sure that those people end up staying together longer anyway.
I think that I also read a tell all by some of the women involved, who said that the producers pushed booze on them, supplied an apparently endless quantity of it, and encouraged them to get pretty “lubricated” before/during some of the filming.
Snow on Pine:
I’ve noticed they’ve cut back on the amount of drinking somewhat since those days, as well. It also depends on the contestant. There was one who was more or less a teetotaler and didn’t want much drinking.
I’ve been married 45 years – some very good years, some really tough times.
It wasn’t love at first sight for either of us – both of us were dating others at the time. Still, somehow it all worked out.
Mr. Romantic
That commenced a very intense, soul-mate-level relationship that went on for some months until I broke it off because I felt like I was betraying a girl to whom I had a commitment and who was off at another school for a year.
I am reminded of how my cousin and her future husband met. He looked at her hand and said, “Looks like an engagement ring.” It was. She broke the engagement. They have been married for over 50 years.
Neo–I also think that you have to factor in the competitiveness of some people, and someone who wants to “win,” to grasp the prize, and likely a huge, televised. celebrity wedding.
I just think that–all things considered–the odds are stacked against finding your “true love” on the Bachelor.
It dismays me that the contestant and her father believe that you *must* have a love-at-first-sight experience or there is no potential for true love to develop. Having said that, I fell for my husband the first time I met him, at work—in fact, a voice in my head (seriously!) said “whoever is married to this man is the luckiest woman in the world.” The thing is, he WAS married and I knew that. It’s a mystery as to why I felt such certainty that he would be a fantastic husband, since I was barely acquainted with him and he was no handsome suave charmer-type. I didn’t interact with him for the next year, since we worked in separate buildings, but then someone mentioned that he was getting divorced. The next time I saw him, at a retirement party, I was all over him like white on rice. We began dating immediately and that was that. And he IS the most wonderful husband!!
Go to a family reunion and set your cap on a 2d or 3d cousin who strikes your fancy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nNpx7CWLbCk
Satisfactory love song.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iulmZAz8XfY
Better love song.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=wild+is+the+wind
Handsome form. On content…
My wife and I knew each other in college but dated other people. We ran into each on a gorgeous Spring day in Chicago and started chatting.
It turned out we both loved the same restaurant. So I asked her to lunch. Neither of us thought it would be more than: “So how is such and such doing and did you hear about her and did you know he’s getting married.”
Well not only did we love the same restaurant we both loved the same exact menu items. Even though ‘it was just lunch’ we both had a great time.
That was 42 years ago.
Whenever we were downtown and it was convenient we took the kids there.
It wasn’t love at first sight but it’s been a great trip.
HINT: never, ever try to hang wallpaper together.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMy9tDtPlgM
Fine film with romantic themes (among others).
I guess I’ll add a story. My wife and I were married 40 years ago next summer. After 8 years, we divorced. Long story. Anyway, she married again and I even operated her husband. She seemed happier. Anyway, 25 years passed and I had a daughter from a relationship that may have been an example of a woman who wanted a baby and someone to pay for it. Anyway, I never married again. We kept in touch from time time and then, about 2008, she and her husband started to have trouble. He may have been getting dementia. Anyway, we got back together about six years ago and got married again in 2016. So here we are.
Art Deco,
Of the uncountable number of love songs, these three seem particularly appropriate to this discussion:
The certainty of youth: The Proclaimers – I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)
The mature years:
Tony Bennett – The Shadow of Your Smile
Reflecting upon love in the later years:
Andy Williams – As Time Goes By
Love at first sight strikes me as one of the many terribly interesting issues faced by very attractive people and celebrated in Hollywood films.
I’m not ugly or obese but it’s not something I’ve ever dealt with or seen people like me dealing with.
Colton may not be the most interesting bachelor, but he is certainly the cleanest. He’s in the shower so much that sometimes it’s even on the show!
No one’s ever been able to figure out who is the Pompitous of Love. An exasperated Steve Miller eventually said he is the Pompitous of Love. Maybe it’s Mike K.
Andy Williams? Ha ha. My father’s contemporaries knew how to be sentimental and elegant at the same time:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxEazBfPVFg
Did Walker Percy use Mike K as the model for Dusty Rhodes in Love in the Ruins?
Geoff Der Britisher writes
Okay! Song time. I’m on board. If you can’t answer the question asked, give the answer to a question you do understand.
Subject is lust at first sight: which is not exactly “soulmate” territory, but is at least potentially heading in that direction.
Nomination of the first one from the classic age of adult pop tunes that occurs to me: “This Could be The Start of Something Big.”
I cannot remember the lyrics of the Beatles’ “I want to Hold Your Hand” well enough to recall if that qualifies.
Geez there must be a thousand of them
No one’s ever been able to figure out who is the Pompitous of Love.
Art Deco: Oddly that line came up in conversation with a friend a month ago….
By the way Neo, I have never seen the show or any like it. Though I recall when I was a kid or a teenager there was some show on TV called the Dating Game, which no youth in his right mind would have watched either.
But I do not mock. Sounds as if you are just looking for a distraction.
I do recall the shock and dismay of my own “soulmate” though when she revealed to me that she watched American Idol for what sounded like a mixed bag of reasons, none of them good. Man, that was rough.
The ultimate, direct “love at first sight” line has to be by the Beatles because it was direct and they were, well, the Beatles:
Would you believe in a love at first sight?
Yes, I’m certain that it happens all the time.
–Beatles, “With a Little Help From My friends”
Although the song is about friends and on a rather unselective note about whom one loves:
Do you need anybody?
I just need someone to love
Could it be anybody?
I want somebody to love
Love the one you’re with, I guess. Which isn’t bad advice unless the one you’re with is changing every week or so.
Among my more attractive friends who had, or thought they had, the soulmate experience, I never saw that work out.
Sometimes it ended rather badly. On the way to work one morning a friend took the freeway exit to the airport and flew to the opposite coast because he was afraid he would kill his soulmate. It took him ten years to stop thinking about her everyday.
Some contrasting views from Broadway.
Fiddler on the Roof (no soulmates need apply)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_y9F5St4j0
Finian’s Rainbow (who needs soulmates?)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xfaaLzgRQI
The Music Man (definitely soulmate territory)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62ohmcwPtmo
(not the version Shirley Jones sings in the movie)
“Been A Long Day” from How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh7QbfNhKuE
If I were a bell-Guys & Dolls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_T9_iwAlD0
During my first year of marriage, I read a book called “Beyond the Myth of Marital Happiness” by Blaine Fowers. He had researched both the dewy-eyed start of marriages, and provided therapy to couples who were heading toward divorce (and seeing if they could keep the marriage together). He also had done research with couples who had remained happily married for decades, to learn what they thought made their marriages last. (Good news: the four main keys he identified, were things I’d grown up hearing at church constantly; also, my newlywed husband and myself were on the right course. We’re in our 14th year of marriage now.)
The “myth” of marital happiness is the story we absorb from our culture: the belief that we’ll fall in love at first sight, that we’ll always be in perfect harmony and bliss with our lover, and that things will work out right in the end. The myth also says that if we are not “in love” or feeling blissful, or if there are disagreements, then this wasn’t our soul mate, and we are better off not wasting time with mediocre when we could have supreme. (Recognizing that some marriages are abusive and that this is not the situation the author is talking about, regarding disagreements or the absence of bliss.)
Excellent book, much food for thought, and one I’ve shared with friends who got married after I did.
My husband and I were already friends before we fell in love and got married. We’ve certainly had some huge challenges and stresses on our marriage, but ultimately we’ve been committed to sticking together and making it work. Because gosh darn it, we like each other. But it’s always been a choice, and I’m glad I recognized that before I ever got married. That way, I’m not tossed about by every wave of feeling that sweeps by, dreading the moment when I might doubt whether He’s the One.
The lady you speak of, Neo, may not be doing herself any favors by holding out for a lightning strike, but she certainly did the fellow a huge favor.
I’m also going to throw in here that this same dynamic can happen with parent and child. I know many women who fell in love at first sight with their babies, but I never did. It took me a month to fall in love with my first child. It took less time with the two following children, because I knew what to expect and wasn’t worried about whether I *would* love them. It certainly is not necessary to be madly in love with one’s newborn to take good – and loving – care of it. Love is how we treat people, not how we feel at any given moment. Sometimes it’s treating the person justly and kindly even when we *don’t* feel very affectionate at that moment.
I wouldn’t trade my husband or my children for anything. <3
“This Could be The Start of Something Big.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05pU6l4PEJw
9 February 1958. A great evening in this history of American entertainment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2Llrp9TWqU
And something poignant. And of course of vintage elegance.
You are a wise woman, OKBecky.
“…contrasting views…”
Well yes.
And then (as hinted at above) there’s always Stephen Stills:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HH3ruuml-R4
…and the love of HIS life:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzZBGyXtb8U
Or if you prefer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDEiLImUUM8
The “myth” of marital happiness is the story we absorb from our culture:
Just who is this ‘we’, OKBecky? And what have they been reading?
Excellent book, much food for thought, and one I’ve shared with friends who got married after I did.
Back when my wife and I were having the trouble that ended in divorce, she gave me a book called “Women who love too much,” the 1987 edition. She had not read it but I did and it was her. I gave her a book called “Why men are the way they are.” Both are good books but didn’t solve our problems, some of which were teenaged kids as we both had been married before.
Anyway, they are both good books but may be outdated in this crazy society we live in. The kids are grown up and some have their own kids.
We had a daughter together who is now 38. She is kind of a lefty but I gave her Jordan Peterson’s book, wondering if she would read it. She called me to tell me how much she loved it. She is now pregnant after years of telling us she did not want children. Hmmm.
A song about love that isn’t at first sight (from the Fantasticks, of course):
When the moon was young,
When the month was May,
When the stage was hung for my holiday,
I saw shining lights
But I never knew:
They were you, they were you, they were you.
When the dance was done,
When I went my way,
When I tried to find rainbows far away,
All the lovely lights
Seemed to fade from view:
They were you, they were you, they were you.
Without you near me,
I can’t see.
When you’re near me,
Wonderful things come to be.
Every secret prayer,
Every fancy free,
Everything I dared for both you and me.
All my wildest dreams
Multiplied by two
They were you, they were you, they were you.
OKBecky, excellent point that love is often what you DO, not what you FEEL.
My husband’s mom (who has a terrible record with men though she is a wonderful woman) and her sisters convinced him to look for the person who catches his eye across a crowded room. I had to fight that idea hard for the whole first year we dated. In fact, he had already seen her: a girl he called “the pixie dust chick,” who was surrounded by “pixie dust” in his mind’s eye whenever he saw her even though he KNEW they had nothing in common, she was dull, and she was utterly uninterested in him anyway. But in addition, that whole first year he would not consider himself really committed to me because he always had an eye out for someone, anyone, who would catch his eye across a crowded room. I, at the time, was just off a divorce from my brief youthful first marriage and desperate both to find a new man (I was 23 and SURE that there was no time to start all over again) and not to fail again… so I kept on sticking to him like glue even though he kept on trying to pry me off so he could get a better view of the crowded room.
As we say now, we were both hot messes in ways that somehow complemented each other. And now we’ve been married 25 years and have three kids. But wow, we were *definitely* not instant soulmates.
Art Deco,
Now at a young 70, I may be one of your father’s contemporaries or at least close.
DNW,
I’m an American, born and raised. ‘Geoffrey Britain’ is my internet ‘handle’. “Geoffrey” is my actual first name, but “Britain” is both a play on my actual last name, which translates as “Man from Briton” and the origin of my most distant traceable ancestors.
“Okay! Song time. I’m on board. Subject is lust at first sight: which is not exactly “soulmate” territory”
What pops into my head when it comes to lust are “Bolero”, “The Commodores – Brick House” and “Night Moves” by Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band
OKBecky,
I’ve never read “Beyond the Myth of Marital Happiness” but regarding “The “myth” of marital happiness is the story we absorb from our culture: the belief that we’ll fall in love at first sight, that we’ll always be in perfect harmony and bliss with our lover, and that things will work out right in the end.”
That’s a cultural ideal and one created intuitively, we sense things of a heavenly nature and naturally wish to enjoy that state.
On a more practical level, I find Harville Hendrix’s Imago Relationship theory to be insightful; “Getting the Love You Want: A Guide for Couples”
Specifically, Hendrix postulates that all or nearly all marriages inescapably encounter in themselves and their mate the remaining desires and behavior of childhood, which interfere with the current relationship. And that what attracts us to another is that the ‘gears’ of their personality (both positive and negative) align with our personality’s ‘gears’. And that, the spiritual purpose of marriage is for us to grow in maturity with marriage being a venue for psychological healing of those childhood issues, ones that we retain and continue to influence us into adulthood. That seems a workable explanation for the dichotomy of the bride and groom’s “I’ll love you forever” and the divorced “I hate that person”. Those are the couples who discovered their mate’s issues and, perhaps due to ignorance were unable to resolve them
Now at a young 70, I may be one of your father’s contemporaries or at least close.
Nope. You’re 20 years younger.
I’ve been in love 3 times, non was love at first sight but the second two certainly included lust at first site. Tho as a successful young womanizer, I had a lot of lust at first site. The plan was to sleep around, while looking seriously for a friend to sleep with and to marry, one who would be a good mother.
The second love seemed good, but after moving in together, we grew apart in our ideals of society, and understanding of humans — she more liberal, me more conservative.
The third went much much more slowly, since she knew my history, but now we’ve been happily married for many years. Partly from my choices (also hers).
Love is lust – plus commitment. The heart (& hard-ons), plus the choice to do the actions which show, to the other, that you love her.
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-NlEKLpR5o and I Love Her)
I strongly suspect The Bachelorette is better for marriage because both men and women have more experience with multiple men, suitors, competing for the hand of the beauty. The Princess (Bride??); the Prize.
With her choosing which suitor, if any, has the best status-compatibility combination, for her. Men remain physical oriented, women remain hypergamous. Good marriages require growing together.
As colleges go over 55% women, this dynamic is changing, or already has. (Perhaps academic aptitude is about to start being bred out of women in OECD countries?)
4 compatibilities needed:
Physical (possible in the love at first sight) plus
Mental (ability to converse as friends) plus
Emotional (truly caring, and showing care for the other) plus
Spiritual (general agreement on the meaning and purpose of life) [even if it is almost never discussed]
This song is one of the love at first sight, of 17 y.o. dreams:
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fk0sY_WiCpA I Saw Her Standing There)
Not sure of the scientific validity but I have heard that in cultures where marriages are arranged that general “success” is higher. That may be because dissolution of marriage in those situations is far more difficult so people simply “settle in” or it may be that a general sense of acceptance grows over time to become genuine affection. Just a thought.
That may be because dissolution of marriage in those situations is far more difficult so people simply “settle in”
Marriages in Malaysia are arranged. And have horrendous attrition rates. Takes most people a couple of dry-runs before they get it right. Muslim countries generally have high divorce rates.
Neo, My wife loves the show too. You’re in good company.
My wife and I fell in love instantly. But after we had been dating for a few months, she left to study in Europe for a year. I visited her twice during that time. Most importantly, we wrote to each other every day; sometimes she wrote twice a day. We wrote about everything and got to know each other far better than we would have if we were together physically. We have been married for almost 44 years and continue to talk about everything.
I will confess to having watched some of this season’s The Bachelor though I would deny it to any of my friends. I did not see this week’s episode, but as I understand it the girl who rejected him is the girl who seemed to be the obvious choice for him from very early on. The two seemed to have a special ease and comfort with each other and an obvious attraction. My guess is they’ll get together.
No one mentions smell. I fell in deeply in love with a woman, and I think a good part of it was that she smelled so wonderful to me. I recall helping her tie down a rack on the roof of a car, completely intoxicated by the wonderful scent carried my way on the breeze. Several women have also told me that they are sensitive to the way different men smell and that it plays a part in how much they are attracted. Apart from the various psychological aspects of attraction, I am convinced that there are many motivations that lie at a more primal level.
Neocon, You are a romantic but pragmatic in your assessment of life and the world situation.
Marriage is hard for she and him.
I honestly don’t believe there is any such thing as love at first sight. That is chemistry. A combination of that person’s effect on all of the the senses that attracts us.
But, as glorious and as wonderful as those feelings are, they aren’t love. After prolonged exposure to the other’s foreign chemistry, we develop immunity. Those initial feelings pass. We stop needing and wanting intense sex several times per day. We stop being obsessed. In short, we recover our normal sanity.
Love is what continues after the initial passion is gone. Real love is about respecting the other person, enjoying their company, knowing that that person has your back, and being a true partner. It took me until I was 59 years old to find that. And now, I wouldn’t trade real love for a lifetime of just good chemistry.
Roy Nathanson:
I know what you’re talking about, but that’s not what I’m talking about, although it probably wasn’t completely clear from my post.
I’m not talking about lust, at first sight or second. I’m actually talking about something that combines lust with a deep connection on many many other levels. This latter perception, which can happen nearly instantaneously as well, can be a false one or at least a somewhat false one and that can emerge over time.
Or at can turn out to have been absolutely correct. I know that from personal experience. How this happens is completely mysterious to me.
Jamie:
That’s quite a story. Glad it worked out for you (hope it has worked out for you). Sounds like a bumpy ride in some ways but something or even many things kept you together. More power to you!
Mrs Whatsit:
I LOVE The Fantasticks.
Neo: I also love The Fantasticks. Didn’t you write a post or two about the show?
They are making money off of popularizing soul mates and soul twins (twin flames) which aren’t the same thing. Soul mates are people who had different souls but have paired off enough in incarnations on Earth that they have gotten used to each other’s way of doing things. Many life times of team work can create that. Some were brothers and siblings, others wives and husbands, doesn’t really matter.
Twin flames is all about the divine contracts made before incarnation. Whereas soul mates develop their connection while living on Earth, twin flamed souls are connected by their divine Higher Self goals and plans.
: do marriages that are built on the idea that the couple are soulmates who fell in love at first sight (or almost first sight), and who never had any doubt that they were made for each other, do better than marriages that result from relationships that began more slowly and perhaps even hesitantly? Is that kind of strong and immediate knowledge of the other person’s rightness necessary for a good and lasting marriage? Does it correlate generally with a better marriage than a situation in which love grows slowly, or does the difference not matter, or is the latter situation actually better long-term than the former?
It is kind of like working with someone you like vs someone you don’t like. You have to do more work with someone you don’t like. Same for marriages. If people are more compatible on sight, then it is easier for them to work together, but they can still blow up if they let it happen.
Also, humans have certain goals and tasks on Earth which they can or cannot fulfill depending on who their life partner is. So if you had signed a contract that wanted you to do something that your husband would have prevented, the Divine Celestial Heavens would set the situation up plot wise so that you would separate.
Someone told me years ago, “Love is not a feeling, it’s an act of the will.”
Then this is what the Bible says of love: “Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.”
I think in most every circumstance– whether it’s instant attraction or a slowly developed relationship based on mutual interests, you need a lot of will to remain married.
So far, so good… I’m aided tremendously by the fact that my husband’s mom likes me, and he has an old-fashioned respect and reverence for her. And he is aided by the fact that he is nothing like my first husband (of only two years) except that they’re both very bright. In particular, my husband is hilarious and somehow finds me funny too, and I think laughter has been some of the strongest glue between us.
Jamie:
I have never been seriously involved with anyone who wasn’t very very funny.
For me, it appears to be an absolute requirement.
Even now, my ex-husband and I can be arguing bitterly, and he can say something so funny that I can’t help but erupt in laughter, and somehow the argument loses its steam.
you need a lot of will to remain married.
No, inertia and indolence will keep you married as well.
Tuvea said above:
My wife and I knew each other in college but dated other people. We ran into each on a gorgeous Spring day in Chicago and started chatting.
It turned out we both loved the same restaurant.
It wasn’t The Berghoff, was it? My mother and I used to go there. It would have been absolutely funny if that was the one you had in mind.
Furthermore, Geoffrey mentioned The Proclaimers. I’d always wondered what the heck that song was saying; thanks for clearing that up. 🙂
I was looking forward to the love stories in this thread. It’s been rewarding. I’m not sure mine would count, since I’ve never been married.
While I believe many people do fall in love at first sight and can go on to build a solid lifelong marriage, it’s certainly not the only way (or even the ideal way). For my parents, that’s the way it happened. They exchanged photos (via mutual friends) and agreed to meet for the first time in New York City when my Dad’s Navy ship docked there for a short time. My mom and a girlfriend, who stayed at the Barbizon hotel for women, joined my dad and a Navy buddy for a double date. For their friends it was a bad date, but for my parents it was a love-at-first sight, whirlwind romance straight out of the Gene Kelly musical
“On the Town.” They started a long distance romance (they were from cities 600 miles apart) and married a couple of years later. They recently celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary. For years I felt this was the grand romantic standard I had to live up to, but I met my future husband in high school. I wouldn’t call it love at first sight (I can’t even recall when we first met) but we began dating in college and recently celebrated our 31st anniversary. My daughter met her future husband two years ago through the online site Catholic Match. Their first date lasted five hours and both describe it as love at first sight. They married this past weekend and are currently on their honeymoon in Italy and Greece. I think (hope and pray!) they are on track for a strong lifelong marriage. So, three very different love stories, but as Kate said, it’s friendship and mutual respect that see you through, no matter what kindled the flame.
OKBecky: I think of it like this: love is a verb. It’s a principle that can live at the core of a marriage.
And yes, it applies to babies, too. I had three of them, and have talked quite a few young relatives and friends through the arrival of more. Sometimes the love comes right away and sometimes it takes longer, but it will arrive if you just keep acting it out. The physicality will bring you there if the heart is not quite ready: the neediness and trust, the warmth of that small body and the unbelievable fragrance at the top of the head.
Neo, I too know the mystery of that deep connection at first sight that may or may not be love, but isn’t lust either, and may or may not turn out well, but is undeniable and real. And it certainly doesn’t depend on looking like somebody who could appear in a movie or on the Bachelor or the Bachelorettes, or it never would have happened to me.
I used to think arranged marriages would rarely work. I imagined many lasted due to social pressures, but doubted the couples had a “true” love of one another. Then I got to know a friends’ parents whose marriage had been arranged by their parents, in Serbia. This couple thought it odd that people would leave something so important to random chance. They explained the logic of letting one’s parents choose. “Who knows you better, or loves you more?” And, obviously, since the future couples’ parents are married they know what’s required for success.
I always thought they made some good points. And they had been married at least 30 years when that conversation took place and stayed together until death.
It’s a very long story, but I suppose Mrs. Firefly and I fit the “love at first sight” criteria and things are still good, over 30 years later.
I had confidence I had it right because I had done a lot of dating and socializing with women and knew my snap judgement was based in experience and, as I learned about her background, had confidence she had solid reasons for liking me.
In a sort-of funny, side note, I was actually mad I had met such an ideal woman. Driving home after our first meeting I literally heard a 3rd person voice in my head say, “You will marry that woman.” (That [a 3Rd person voice in mh head] had never happened before, nor since.) Which made me mad because I had absolutely no desire to marry. I had always envisioned my entire life as a bachelor. I was very happy on my own and wanted no part of marriage. I wasn’t looking for the ideal mate, but had bumped into her, and was mad that my plans had been thrown asunder.
I will also second humor. When the 1st sight thing happened I didn’t even know Mrs. Firefly had such a wonderful sense of humor. I didn’t really see that in full until we were married and living together. Now, although she is still very attractive and has always been smart, we both attribute humor and being able to make each other laugh as the most valuable component of our marriage.
Mrs. Whatsit,
The best smell on Earth is a baby’s head. Must be some evolutionary thing to make us care for them.
I bonded with each of my children differently, but had no expectation of how it would go, or if there would be a “bond,” so it happened very organically. Unfortunately I was away from home on business for most of one of our son’s first year and I did notice a weaker bond with him initially, even though he was a great baby and a lot of fun. Fortunately, I got to spend a lot of time with him in his teens.
Oh, and one of our sons married the only woman he has ever dated and he is the only man his wife has dated (they were 15 when they met) and they are absurdly well suited for one another. I can’t imagine a computer dating service or a television show coming close to matching a couple better.
Sometimes random chance works.
Rufus T. Firefly:
That’s a pretty funny story–that you were mad that you’d met the ideal mate, because now you’d have to get married!
When I met my husband I was only 21, but it seemed to me I was really old and had met a lot of men. I had never thought “I could marry this guy” about any man, even though I had dated several very seriously, and this worried me. Within 24 hours of meeting my husband-to-be, the thought came into my head as though from nowhere: “I could marry that man.” It didn’t dismay me, but it very much surprised me.
My Cup Runneth Over (From the Musical Production “I Do, I Do”) · Ed Ames
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzVbxq8h1BI
Ed Ames – Try To Remember (Fantasticks) still a great voice at 87
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p5wth6xrwbo
I had some friends many years ago who first saw each other across a crowded room, but they took that as an inspiration to get acquainted, not as a final verdict on getting married (which they did later anyway).
Some enchanted evening – South Pacific
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGyfw3yiMT4
Then, of course, there’s also “love at first bite”—
(Since it has oft been noted that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach….which is also, no doubt, meant to serve as a warning.)
In any event, if the fundamentals are generally observed, then marriage may indeed be “a piece of cake”. Absence of a sense of humor, or playful nature—well, maybe not too, too playful—may, on the other hand, prove fatal…:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6781133/Newlywed-husband-SLAPS-wife-shocked-wedding-guests.html
Chuck,
Yes, smell! I went on many first dates that ended right there because my date smelled different. Not bad, mind you, just ‘different’.
And then there’s this – recently my husband, myself and other family members did 23me, and it turned out my husband (of thirty years) and my father are from the same haplogroup. Now what are the odds of that? Maybe 23me should offer a dating service!
Enjoying all the song contributions. Apropos of that is one of my most cherished memories of my wonderful daughter. We were on the way home from kindergarten where she had a budding romance with a boy named Carl (‘From kiddie car to hearse, darling’*). Sinatra’s ‘Strangers in the Night’ came on the radio and after the lines;
‘Something in your eyes, was so exciting,
Something in your smile, was so inviting,
Something in my heart,
Told me I must have you’
A very quiet voice from the back seat said; ‘That must be what Carl thought when he saw me…’
I laughed all the way home.
*Nancy Mitford – Love In A Cold Climate
There’s some research suggesting that women *subconsciously* perceive some of a man’s immune-system characteristics and tend to be more attracted to those who have different, ie complementary, immune systems. I guess this would make evolutionary sense if resulting children combine in someway whatever knowledge is imbedded in the two immune system characteristics.
Don’t know how strong the effect is—there’s a long distance between “statistically significant” and “really important.”
Molly Brown, what a wonderful story!
I used to think arranged marriages would rarely work. I imagined many lasted due to social pressures, but doubted the couples had a “true” love of one another. Then I got to know a friends’ parents whose marriage had been arranged by their parents, in Serbia. This couple thought it odd that people would leave something so important to random chance. They explained the logic of letting one’s parents choose. “Who knows you better, or loves you more?” And, obviously, since the future couples’ parents are married they know what’s required for success.
Rufus, in India they use the Vedic sciences to look at the chart compatibility of husband and wife. If there are indicators of crime, death, or inauspiciousness, the parents decide to cancel the engagement.
Arranged marriages work about as well as political marriages like the Clintons or the Obamas. I don’t refer to the quality, just the longevity due to divorce.
Molly Brown on March 7, 2019 at 8:01 pm at 8:01 pm said:
Chuck,
Yes, smell! I went on many first dates that ended right there because my date smelled different. Not bad, mind you, just ‘different’.
And then there’s this – recently my husband, myself and other family members did 23me, and it turned out my husband (of thirty years) and my father are from the same haplogroup. Now what are the odds of that?
* * *
The smell thing is well-attested, although kind of in a crazy way, but having women and men sniff sweaty clothing and indicate which of the owners would attact them more. There is also some research implicating pheromones in sexual attraction, which especially has links to why homosexuals prefer same-sex partners.
Not wanting to detract from your family story, but the odds are actually quite high.
It’s called Genetic Sexual Attraction, and it’s a DNA-based extension of the Old Wives’ Tale about men marrying women like their mother, and women marrying men like their father, carried to the extreme. Haplogroups would be a “marker” for “likeness.”
One of the strange consequences of opening adoption records and doing DNA tests is the stunning number of couples who discover they are related to each other. Or, when reunited after long separation, there are cases where a woman falls in love with her birth-father (or sometimes it’s brother-and-sister, or mother-and-son).
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2147758/Forbidden-love-How-adults-reunite-lost-parents-risk-genetic-sexual-attraction.html
The inbreeding taboo was handled in tribal societies (who knew nothing about DNA, but could observe nature well) by specifying which clans could inter-marry so as to reduce the genetic linkages. And then there are the cultures which try to INCREASE the links with men preferentially marrying cousins or nieces.
In a reverse mode, you get the effect I read about happening in the Israeli kibbutzim, where the kids brought up in a group rather than in nuclear families ended up not wanting to get married to someone from the same kibbutz, even if they were not genetically related at all.
Aesop, if Genesis is true, aren’t we all brothers and sisters as sons of Adam/Man?
Lol
ymarsakar – and divided into “tribes” very quickly to minimize the inbreeding.
Plus, if one assumes that Adam and Eve had “perfect” DNA, it takes awhile for any degeneration to happen.
Maybe that’s why it was called The Tree of the Knowledge of Good AND Evil.