Isn't that the million dollar question? How can I tell if this is the one? Is this one my soulmate? How will I know when I find the right one? There is no magic answer, but I can tell you what seems to work. I asked a psychic one time if a certain person was my soulmate. His answer, "If you have to ask, then he's not the one." He went on to explain that with soulmates no matter how good or bad a day you have together, you wake up in the morning knowing without a doubt that this is the one and you go to bed at night knowing without a doubt that this is the one. Nothing that happens in between those two points can change your mind.

Whenever I find happily married couples in their fifties or older who have been married for most of their lives to each other, I always ask them, "How did you know this was the one?" Every single one of the men answered the same way. They all said that the first time they laid eyes on the girl, they knew in that moment that they would eventually propose to her. For every one of those men it was love at first sight. "But why that one? What made you fall in love with that particular woman at first glance?" Each one answers differently, but they all have a vague unanswerable quality that the guy just knew she was it before they even knew what the girl's name was.

The women all said they thought the guy was nice enough, just okay, or a little goofy but not too bad. None of the women fell head over heels right away. The women were all living a happy upbeat life and were not really searching for a husband when the guy came along. That may be a big part of the mystique that these women created. They were not needy nor desperate. Truth be told all of the lifetime happily married women I know are very strong and independent, but loyal and loving women. None of them are nags nor codependent types.

The thing that all of these couples have in common is that the each one was relatively happy and mentally healthy going about their lives, their goals, and their dreams. All of them planned to some day fall in love and get married to one person for life but none were attached to a soulmate type concept or ideal. None of these people were sexually loose but they weren't complete prudes either. They chose not to sleep around because they had a strong sense of self-respect. Some had religious beliefs that added to the dynamic and others did not. All were of a mindset that you simply didn't whore around for the heck of it.

In all cases, the man chased the woman. You have to remember the deep underlying needs of the male and females of our species. The man must hunt and conquer. If she's too easy to catch, then there must be something wrong with her. Right or wrong, men have a very deep down need to 'win' the girl. They were all upbeat, bright, kind, loving women with full happy lives of their own. None of the women were pushovers and none of the women were easy to 'win.' It was always love at first sight on the man's end, but not on the woman's. The women were not cold and unapproachable, so the men were able to charm them and 'win' them over. All of these relationships had at least a two-year courtship and engagement period. Their eyes were wide open when they said, "I do."

Were they soulmates or just lucky? It depends on how you define soulmates. If you define a soulmate as your cosmic twin, then I'd say no these people were very different types that hooked up and stayed happy together for life. In one example, the woman was a devout Catholic and the husband was just sort of generic Christian. She didn't try to convert him and he respected her need to go to mass every Sunday. No, he didn't become any more or less of a Christian then he already was. They each respected the other's right to be who they were. Nobody tried to change anybody. Who they fell in love with is who they stayed in love with. In another example, he was from an extremely conservative religion and she was very lightly Christian. She completely changed her entire way of life to be with him. She gave up makeup, stylish haircuts, jewelry and sexy clothes to become almost Amish in her life with him. She never regretted it because he was everything to her and she came to agree with his family's religious beliefs. In none of the relationships were the couples a twin copy of the other. Yes, every one of those couples struggled in the first years of their marriage to find a balance between 'me' and 'we'. Every one of those couples had to learn to listen, to compromise, to be fully present in the moment, and to show their love in a way that resonated with the other. However, they all managed to live that elusive 'happily ever after' that the rest of us only dream of.

If you define a soulmate as the right one for you, the one you were meant to spend the rest of your life with, the one specially designed to create 'happily ever after' with you, then yes, they were soulmates. No matter how bad things got, these couples never ever contemplated divorce. They didn't stay together because of a vow before God. They stayed together because they couldn't fathom the concept of not loving the other one. Every morning they woke up knowing they were both in love. Every night they went to sleep knowing they were both in love.

Copyright 2004, Skye Thomas, Tomorrow's Edge