<p>I have a friend who went from Massachusetts to California for a vacation.</p>
<p>While in CA, she met a friend of a friend, and they hit it off.</p>
<p>She move to California to be with him shortly thereafter – they’ve now been happily married for 20 years.</p>
<p>I absolutely think people can fall deeply for one another, very quickly, and I know that intense feeling of finding your soul mates (even though of course, there is no doubt more than one…the point is the feeling that you are soul mates that is so powerful and really quite spooky too). </p>
<p>I also think at 28, you have maturity and experience which increases the odds it will last as the ‘real thing’… than if this happened at say 18 (when it might be just hormones or a first girlfriend etc.).</p>
<p>Spouse and I met and felt in love almost immediately…it was as if we met and never parted after that, it was an unspoken and absolute sense of ‘this is it’ from the getgo (for both of us). We had both lot of experience in dating and previous relationships in the prior 15 years to meeting one another, but neither of us had experienced this ‘love at first sight’ or the level of intensity we felt when we met: totally soul mates. We sustained a very long distance relationship for several years- we felt simply we had no choice even though neither of us would ever have chosen to fall in love with someone who lived so far away. But we knew at the start it was permanent- it had to be- and well worth the long distance and sacrifices we made. </p>
<p>I can honestly say it hasn’t changed, we still feel like soul mates, even after all these years.</p>
<p>I knew from my first date with DH that we would be perfect together. We dated other people, floated in and out for a while, but ended up together. We were the crazy couple that met in a bar that no one thought would make it, but we have never fallen out of love in 20 years. (You should see us, we are still as goofy as when we were hanging out on the patio of a motorcycle bar). As far as soul mate, I am a firm believer in love, but that leaves the door open for more than one love. </p>
<p>A dear friend truly loved her high school sweetheart. They went their separate ways in college with a maybe someday idea. She met and married the perfect guy, and she remained madly in love through two children until he died suddenly and painfully of cancer.
She was always one to say that she was happy to have loved well twice in her life. She reconnected with her childhood sweetheart at a reunion two years ago, and is now a giddy newlywed. She doesn’t believe that her first husband was any less her soul mate, but rather that she was blessed with love twice.</p>
<p>My brother went to visit his friend when he 14 and that day met his future wife. She was a 12 year old neighbor and she told me she knew that she would marry him. He is now 55 and they have the best marriage I have ever seen.</p>
<p>
Actually I believe it is a lot like picking colleges … there are tons of choices that would be just fine … however there are a few with which something really special could happen. There are a more people than colleges so yes I’d think there would be many people who could be a soul mate … the trick is meeting them and getting to know them.</p>
<p>I am enjoying all the stories. </p>
<p>Tom1944…that is a cute story. I think many of us could have married people we met in our youth…but to actually marry somebody from our youth is very rare. Timing is everything. I told my wife that if I met her in our teens or early twenties, we would never have gotten together. We were so different at those ages than we were just a few years later.</p>
<p>I could see someone falling in love with a puppy at first sight. You can very quickly become convinced that a well-bred young dog is not only adorable, but will be completely loving and loyal for the next 15 years (and that you will be committed completely to its well-being for just as long). </p>
<p>But if you have this feeling immediately about any male or female who is not a Labrador Retriever, then you are completely nuts.</p>
<p>^ Then I and countless others are absolutely nuts, but happily so :D</p>
<p>@19</p>
<p>I think maybe we are thinking of soul mates differently is all. Out of 7 Bil people on earth a normal person could have a happy, healthy, loving relationships with quite a few, I agree, on that point we agree. </p>
<p>But, in my mind, finding a soul mate is a rarified thing. </p>
<p>I am not sure how many, out of 7 Bil, a normal person could truely be soul mates with because it is like a magical, unbelievable kind of love that Hollywood and the greeting card industry makes up just to sell stuff. It is so rare it is hard to believe. </p>
<p>I think maybe you think it is more common because you might be thinking it is a really great love. Yeah, that is common. I think a soul mate is that person you’d never fight with and would die for in an instant without hesitation and with whom you literally would not want to go on if they passed away. How common is that? Not very in my opinion. </p>
<p>Not to be morbid, but if I were to, by chance, pass away, I am pretty sure my lovely wife, after a few torturous years, or days, of mourning, could find a really good relationship with me being nothing more than a fading framed picture on the dresser next to the bed and she might even move that. I am thrilled by having her in my life on a daily basis but, being honest, yeah, I could love another women, maybe that is a man thing. Still, as much as I appreciate her we have had far too many differences over the years for either one of us to think of what we have as being sould mates. </p>
<p>Mine, and hers, is out there, and we just didn’t find each other.</p>
<p>My story is cute, but would be too self disclosing if shared publicly. Sorry.</p>
<p>I met H 37 years ago this week. The day I met him, I sent a letter to my best friend and told her I had met the man I was going to marry. Our anniversary is next week (34 years). We did not even live in the same state until we married, so the entire relationship was long distance (and that was before computers, cell phones, etc.) We both kept all of our letters and I have them in chronological order. I told my childen they may read them after we are dead. He still curls my toes :)</p>
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<p>Hmm… then I’d never want to meet my soul mate. Fights are a part of life and relationships IMO. If they didn’t happen, things would be so darn boring. Disagreements make life so much more interesting! Not constant fighting, obviously, but a fight here and there is quite OK in my book.</p>
<p>We all have different opinions about what love is and what not. It always fascinates me what people think. So different!</p>
<p>saintfan: Uh oh, now I am in love with your husband!</p>
<p>paying3: Awwwwwww! Happy anniversary.</p>
<p>I like what the Dawson’s Creek (yeah, I know, make fun of me, it’s okay 
) finale said about soul mates. They’re not necessarily the people we do best with in a relationship. Dawson and Joey kept trying to make it work, but she settled on Pacey, even though Dawson was her soul mate. (That was before she met Tom Cruise LOL.)</p>
<p>The point is that a soul-mate doesn’t have to be a romantic partner. Straight people can even have soul-mates of their own gender, or it could even be one of our children. I think there are many people out there who evoke this deep soul connection. If it’s one’s mate, that’s a unique, very special situation.</p>
<p>And their are different soul-mates for different times of life. To me it’s like climbing a mountain. Some people drop out, and we meet others as we climb. The connection is intense while it lasts.</p>
<p>I definitely knew I was going to be with my current H before we met. He is a friend’s ex, and they stayed friends, and I had a sinking feeling when she described him because I kind of knew it wasn’t going to be an easy relationship. I was so happily surprised when I met him, and it turned out he is very physically attractive. She hadn’t told me that. It’s been a very difficult relationship but one’s that’s produced two very special children (I know all of our children are special – not delusional) and has forced me to grow over and over again.</p>
<p>Here is a story. I was in labor for gazillion hours with my first child. Finally, even though I was almost ready to deliver, my doctor got worried about the cord around her neck and decided on a C-section. The worst of all possible worlds. Hideous labor and stretched out abdominal muscles.</p>
<p>Anyway, the anesthesiologist (named Merlin, I kid you not) was holding my hand. I was conscious the entire time. Suddenly a felt a powerful force coming through his hands, but when I looked back it was my boyfriend (now my H.) I could feel our connection without even knowing he was there.</p>
<p>For those who think love at first sight, picture, name, someone describing someone is crazy, all that means is that it didn’t happen to you. As I said, It’s a psychic thing.</p>
<p>^^^ :eek:</p>
<p>I met my H when I was six weeks away from marrying someone else. It took us 12 years to get married but we’re still together 25 years after that. A friend’s D had never had a date until she was in her PhD program, met a guy and they knew right away. It does happen.</p>
<p>It appears that when a female feels that way the marriage lasts.</p>
<p>Happy anniversary p3t!</p>
<p>I came home from my first date with the craziest conflicting thoughts. I believed I was going to marry him, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go out with him again because I wasn’t ready yet. He had made a comment when we were talking about something we disagreed about at dinner - he said 50 years from now we’ll come back here and decide who was right - and I instantly had a vision of us together in 50 years.</p>
<p>We’ll be married 20 years in September.</p>
<p>I think there are lots of people you could marry and be happy with but I believe the choices you make in your life, every fork in the road leads you to where you are today. Whether that’s fate, or coincidence or just a series of choices leading you to your present, I do think it happens for a reason. </p>
<p>Sounds like your son met a winner. Be happy for them, not everyone needs to date forever to know.</p>
<p>I was never very forward or confident with guys more reserved i guess. when I met my husband I just knew. The way we talked was like we were going to be together, as if we just assumed it. We must not be soul mates as we fight but we are bery close and have a wonderful bond.</p>
<p>I am enjoying everyone’s love stories; keep them coming!</p>
<p>While I wouldn’t say it was love at first sight with my husband, I did pursue him. He was the best friend of the guy I was kind of dating; we were more like friends, so I was still looking for “Mr. Right.” My now husband was with us one evening and was looking for a date for an upcoming dance; I suggested he take me!! He didn’t quite understand my seriousness, and went with someone else instead. 
It worked out later as I invited him to something of mine, and 32 years later we are still married!</p>