Soul Mate

This post was shared on my FB today, and caught my eye (catchy title: “my husband is not my soul mate” lol). It’s actually the second blog I’ve read recently about soul mates, so the idea of soul mates has been on my mind. The world is sending me signs, apparently!

I do not believe in soul mates. I’ve never felt that there was only one special person for me out there, only one person that I could live happily ever after with. I think there are many people that I could be compatible with. I think that I could be happily married to a man other than my husband.

With that being said, that does not mean that I want to divorce my husband or that I do not love him and will pass him up when someone else “compatible” comes along.

What makes Jeremy my “soul mate” is that I stopped looking when I met him. We are compatible and in love, therefore I chose to marry him and everyday I chose to love him and commit to him again. And I plan to do so for the rest of our lives.

So if one of my other potential “soul mates” comes along, they are out of luck, because I have chosen my life partner already.

I don’t believe that marriage and love is not our of our control, that we are “fated” to end up with a certain person who we have no choice over. I think when people view love as some magical unstoppable force, they take away personal responsibility. This author explains it perfectly:

But what happens to these people when the unstoppable and uncontrollable force that prompted them to start loving, lets them stop loving, or love someone else?

What happens is a world where most marriages end in divorce, and even those that don’t are often unhappy.

My marriage is not based on a set of choices over which I had no control. It is based on a daily choice to love this man, this husband that I chose out of many people that I could have chosen to love.

I like it better this way, with the pressure on me and not on fate, cosmos, or divinity. I will not fall out of love, cannot fall out of love, because I willingly dived in and I’m choosing daily to stay in. This is my joyous task, my daily decision. This is my marriage.

“Maybe that’s what it all comes down to. Love, not as a surge of passion, but as a choice to commit to something, someone, no matter what obstacles or temptations stand in the way. And maybe making that choice, again and again, day in and day out, year after year, says more about love than never having a choice to make at all.”

God Blessed the Broken Road

Last night while laying in bed with my husband I felt overwhelmed with love for him. I could physically feel a tightness in my chest, the involuntary smile and a happiness that comes from being married to such a perfect man for me.

It made me think about how lucky I am, and about how many things went good and bad in my life, that in the end lead me to an amazing love.

It reminds me of the song “God Bless the Broken Road”

Every long lost dream led me to where you are
Others who broke my heart they were like Northern stars
Pointing me on my way into your loving arms
This much I know is true
That God blessed the broken road
That led me straight to you

The first step of our “broken road” was both of us moving to San Diego from opposite sides of the country. Jeremy joining the Marine Corps and being stationed at Camp Pendleton 6 months prior to our meeting. Me, decided to go to college at San Diego State and moving down to San Diego 9 months prior to our meeting.

Next step: right place, right time.

The night I met Jeremy, two events lead me to go to the bar that night as a single woman.

#1: I had just finished my first year of college. My last final had been the day before, so my roommate and I decided we should go out and celebrate.

#2: The guy that I had recently started dating was being a jerk. I finally decided that I deserved to be treated better, that I wasn’t going to continue to put effort into a relationship that wasn’t making me happy. So I broke up with him.

All those events added up to me at my favorite country bar as a single woman open to talking to a cute cowboy

There were two events in Jeremy’s life that lead him to the bar that night as a single man.

#1: His fiancee of nearly 4 years broke things off with him right before he got stationed in California. Newley single, he decided to enjoy single life and date around a bit.

#2: He had a really bad day at work which was how his buddies convinced him to go to his least favorite bar that night to let off steam.

So there Jeremy is, at a country bar, single and open to meeting a nice girl.

Then there we both were, single, in the same bar, on the same night.

Finally, in the midst of thousands of people, my friend picks his friend to hit on, and I pick him to flirt with to help her out as her “wing woman”.

One meeting, that was all it took for our love story to begin. We exchanged numbers that night and became boyfriend and girlfriend the following weekend after our first official date. Six months later we got engaged, eloped three months after and now are approaching our four year wedding anniversary and I am still blissfully, head-over-heels, in love with the country boy I met when I was 19 years-old at a bar on a random night.

So many things had to happen and go right for us to meet that night.  Both of us had to go through heart break and negative experiences that lead us to meeting each other. If one thing had been different, I would never know the love that I haven now with Jeremy. It’s almost scary to think how close I came to not meeting him, how slim our chances were to spark a romance that night that has lead to a lifetime love.

It’s all part of a grander plan that is coming true

God blessed the broken road

That led me straight to you