What if paths in life are actually pretty limited?
I was talking to a young male client. He’s atypical in that he wants to get married and he wants to get married for life. He also wants to please his parents. He wants a spouse who will please his parents, etc.
I’ve known the man for some time. I’ve been with him through some “misses” when it comes to relationships. I now I think he’s located the right woman. Time will tell, but this is my opinion.
“Think about it,” I said. “You want to get married. You want to be with one woman for the rest of your life. You want to be loyal, and you don’t want to be bored.”
He agreed.
“You have your quirks, they’re pronounced. This is why you’re interesting. But realistically speaking, how many women do you think there are out there, who could fit this bill? The two of you are able to get along, your whole life. You get married, you have your fun, you have some kids, you get old, you still like this person, you love them. How many women out there do you think will fit in those shoes, if you were guessing?”
He got my point, but just in case, I made it.
“They may be only one,” I said. “How about that? You’re not going to be able to have this kind of life with just any ol’ person. So open your eyes…”
Later, I got to thinking. It seems to me there are two paths. You either look for that one person, and lock on, or you decide that lots of people can be your partner. I hear this a lot and I’m sure you do too. “Everyone has lots of soulmates…”
I understand this. Your soul mates with this soul and then this soul and then this other soul and another. But it seems to me there is a choice to made here, particularly if you are young.
What path do you want to take? What life do you want? Do you want one partner or many?
I chose wrong when I was young. I am happily married, today. I met my husband when I was seventeen, he was nineteen. We spent more than two years together. We were happy, but we failed to marry.
No one had taught me it was the thing to do. On the contrary! I was told to either marry rich, or not at all, but mostly it was not at all.
So we, quite stupidly, split up. And neither of us were able to make relationships with other people work, though we both tried, with all our might.
I feel my soul was lost for close to 25 years, until I found my way back to the only person on this earth, who I can truly be happily married to.
What do you think about this? What do you teach your kids on this topic? Anything?
I’m pretty much with you on this. Virtually, I’m aware Life is about endless possibilities, just like the Universe. But deep inside me, I have this awareness that there is one, and only one person I’m meant to spend my whole Life with. I am an unique individual just as everyone else, and so is the other “half” of me. So it sounds illogical to me to think I could match with just about anyone. And I think there’s an unique alchemy between two people that are meant to come together, that you instantly recognize. I don’t know if it’s my Libra, but this is what I think.
I knew someone in high school whose mom had been married four times. Her mom finally met the right one and then settled down. My friend came to the conclusion that any man could be “the one”. She married young (happily) and that was over thirty years ago. I do believe in true love, soul mates, twin flames, whatever. You are lucky indeed if you meet that special someone who cherishes you, enriches your life and has your back!
Elsa, what you said is beautiful and few have the courage or knowledge to speak it. I agree with it though I have the other experience, having been unhappily married and divorced and a number of other partners over the years. I have either never found my soulmate or possibly found him in high school but didn’t stay with him. I’m pretty sure he’s been married for many years but he still comes up in my mind in a certain, poignant way sometimes. So I now think we may have karma with many to resolve but possibly only one soulmate.
I don’t know. Honestly I just don’t know. I’m happy sometimes & sometimes not so happy. A partner is suppose to support your choices, ideas, and your passions. If that is lacking should you just walk away? Marriages are give & take. Good & bad. I would love to mate for life. The stability is wonderful & grounding. But if you feel stagnant, trapped & not supported emotionally do you look for someone else or is it just a phase, a lull in the marriage? Maybe it’s a lack of communication. Or an illusion that keeps the marriage together such as for the sake of the children.
In truth, I have always just wanted one person in the abstract. I think I was led to believe I could have many partners, and that this was preferable to just having one, but I could never bring myself to take the bait. I am too serious, and too devoted, and it takes me too long to get over people. I was meant for strict monogamy, not serial monogamy.
I think about this a lot…. It has been one of the grand theme so of my of my life! I bet this will become a very long thread as it’s a subject many people do care about.
I think everyone is different. As an astrologer, wouldn’t you say that everyone has different relationship patterns and lessons?
I am a hopeless romantic as well as a strong individualist. Sun Uranus in Cancer!! Sag moon. Mars Pisces. I married young… and though it didn’t last more than ten years… I do not feel it was a mistake nor do I regret ending it. He was perfect for me at that time and we had three children together. The divorce was still shocking as deep down I am a ‘lifer’ . I have had many lovers since and have one now …. but so far nothing permanent.
I met my soul mate person 16 years ago…. I have had many dreams and premonitions and messages about him (starting at 14 yrs old) yet , so far he has not been able to commit due to other karmic attachments. He has gone back to complete what is a not great relationship because he feels he has to. Etc etc
Cue my broken heart!
I eventual did a it of work to let him go, though on some eve we will aways be connected. Sometimes you get what you need but not what you want. So yes I believe in soul mates but I also know that life has its own lessons and mine has been to know I am ok on my own.(and be over me that took some doing… I felt Ike I would die if I couldn’t be with him,… Y destined other) I have learned unconditional love and freedom are big lessons for me,
My south node is in 7th house of relationships…. North node (destiny pint) in 1st…. Having to learn to stand alone.
So although I truly resonate with what you describe Elsa… I also think we all have our journeys and everyone who comes into our life is there for a reason… (or a season or a Iifetime)
I am not with a very sweet and loving person who I know is not my ‘one’ but for now he is the one in front of me. He is y gift of the moment. ‘If you can’t be with he one you love… Love the one you’re with….’
Eek,… Auto correct drives me crazy.
I am ‘now’ with… etc etc Please excuse typos!
I believe this whole heartedly
I really don’t know:(
“It’s bad enough, what I’m going to say, in terms of it’s potential to piss people off, so I won’t get into the Saturn in Sadge angle, except to say, what if paths in life are actually pretty limited?”
But I am really wanting to hear the Saturn in sadge side of this. I divorced over 5 years ago and Saturn in Sadge will be in my 7th. I find myself lonely yet thinking I may well spend the rest of my life alone
I will say though that my grandmother was married 4 times. She had the guts or maybe drive to not close herself off. Her and my grandfather found each other when my mom was about 14? She taught me marriages take work, from both partners. I realized recently that I think of him when I think what kind of guy I would be willing to take a chance on. I was married for almost 18 years, and with him for 20. I don’t think he was my soul mate. Though I do think we had karmic history of some sort. Or if we didn’t we do now. 🙁
what you describe is a romantic fantasy…in reality,you find someone you can stand and they can stand you and enter into an agreement much like a business.You put up with a lot of crap, but so does the mate. I’ve been married over 30 yrs same man. we both flow with the times, get knocked around by the waves, but manage to stay afloat.
I’m stunned to read this. I don’t agree with it. What I describe is not a fantasy. I know many, many couples who have been married 20, 30, 40 and 50 years – who can’t imagine having gone through life without their spouse.
For starters, there was every single lady in my Woman’s club. Every single one of them was or had been married for at least 30 years. Those who lost their husbands, missed them on a daily basis.
I don’t doubt your personal experience, WATERGAL, but it is not universal.
The man I’m writing about in the post – his parents have been married 30 years and they’re also very happy.
He wants what they have. He can see the value of it – I’m sure it’s why he works with someone like me…who knows it can be done.
We have this in common – we’ve both seen it done.
If it hadn’t been for my grandparents, after each had HORRID failed marriages, finding each other, loving and supporting each other, I’m not sure I would believe it’s possible. I do believe it’s possible I just wonder if I can do it.
My grandmother met the love of her life in a ballroom one winter night in EU. His ballroom. His family owned factories, sent him to the US to learn new techniques. She went to open a dress shop in Paris w her sisters, then informed them she had to go to the US to buy the new fabrics. She got there; he was on safari in Africa w friends for six months. She waited, living with friends in the city, starting a little dressmaking business. He returned. They married. Four kids. He suddenly became ill and died. She tried to gas herself w the oven, thinking she could not go on. Neighbors caring for the four little under-age 8 kids saved her. Introduced her to a kind man who became her second husband. He was a devoted husband and father; her kids said no father could have been better or more caring and his death years later devastated them all. She said, He is a good man, I respect him, but I only loved that way once.
Strangely, one of her daughters married a fine man at age 19….good family, good education. But my grandmother broke it up, saying he wasn’t Catholic (he was Presbytarian!). Destroyed my aunt, who had two more bad marriages and never forgot that
major love, who was a scientist/teacher/poet/musician, her perfect match. To this day, it stuns me that a woman who knew love could smash another. Watching all this, my mother dated but opted for a more businesslike arrangement and it was soul-dead, though my father was truly kind. She told me — “never marry! work! Look at your grandmother, aunt and me — disaster, sadness, we have no luck, just work, or bad things!!” I fell in mad in love at 21 anyway, but shied away from the proposal, ran to a new city. Dreadful of me, still makes me sick. I went on and found a second love, good on many levels but not the One — I believe in one marriage, one commitment for life. Then I met another. liked him as a friend, then, fell in love. It felt right, a little karmic and like we’d known each other before, got each other though we are both a bit complex and good at masking. I agreed to marry, it felt right, like finding home and love. We both lived broad lives, then as he says, became the people from this who could find and SEE each other. I feel there is a strange strong thing here, through good and bad, I sense a strong rightness even when I am annoyed or my Sag Moon is prodding me. And we still grow and learn and I love that. Oddly we both lived just a a street apart in two other cities before we met in a third city. Our charts are similar enough to amaze me, though I didn’t know it until recently.
I still recall the deep soul-ness of the first true love. Can you love more than one? Yes…but it not always the same, I think, and yet maybe it is levels of love that teach us about a big true love. I have seen many people settle, say “it’s time I marry, so, I guess, YOU” or be businesslike. To each their own, but I always wonder how that screws up the broader life/love destiny of others — if you marry someone for business reasons, what happens to the one who would have been their love? Mark me down for One Love, while understanding the levels of love that help us find it.
And….might I add, I have natal Venus in Libra…and while I felt that pull to romance, I love romance! — I knew (VIrgo?) I needed to wait for the real love. I traveled the world and explored (Sag moon) and met other men, enjoyed romances. But…inside, I just sensed…not the one. I lost the first true love to my family “never marry” nonsense. I then held firm to find, not him again, but a love that felt right. I am happy i waited and found it. I like feeling the love i feel for him, and we’re both learning a lot through stuff that life brings and even a fight or being down and ready to walk results in a deep growth spurt and more love. It’s a true karmic life lesson in many things. Who knows what tomorrow brings, but I am happy I found this love.
Wow. That was beautiful. Thanks for sharing.
“But what do you think about this? And what do you teach your kids on this topic? Anything?”
I have taught my children that life is about choice(s). They know that they can choose/or not choose: marriage, or having children, practicing a religion…etc.
My own personal point of view about the term soul mates—no, I don’t believe that. I haven’t taught my children that either. I do not believe there is only one person on the face of this planet that is the one and only person for another person.
I do think that we meet people that we have so much of a connection with emotionally (spiritually, physically) that we are happier having them in our lives than not having them and those are the people we especially should work with in a relationship.
Some people just fit better for us than other people and vice versa. I want to share that I gave a lot of consideration to this “story” of the “knight in shining armor” who will come into a females life and “be her soul mate” and that their love will be “fated” and “it will be a love that only the two of them can understand, and no one in the world has ever loved as intensely as they do” and they will ride “happily ever after” into the sunset. See what I did there? Those are what I think of (the words I put quotations marks around) as part of the fairy tales we are taught as children. Children live what they learn.
I have been married for 20+ years and I can say with all honesty that I am just as happily married to him now (perhaps even more happy) than we when first married, or even when we first fell in love. I choose to have him in my life every day and I know he chooses me. The point is that we choose to be together, we choose to love each other. Even through those times when we were growing as individuals and as a couple and we really didn’t like what the other was doing or saying. There was always love there.
What about the statements “you can’t help who you fall in love with” or “love happens to you and you have no control over it”? I don’t believe those either. One of the most important thing I think I’ve taught my children is—our emotions are created within us by us, meaning we are the master of our own emotions—we are not created by our emotions. I have found it to be liberating and empowering to know that I’m not at the whim or mercy of my emotions. All emotions (feelings) are valid and none that can be felt are wrong but to believe that someone is at the mercy of their own emotions shackles them and hinders them from finding true meaning in their life (just my thoughts).
These are just my own thoughts and how I raised my children (the youngest will be 18 in a couple of months) and I respect if someone believes or thinks differently. 🙂
I was like this man back in my 20’s. I came from a broken home and wanted to have the security of creating my own family (4th Sadge Sun w/stellium) and having a hubby (Libra Moon in 2nd). It didn’t work out the first marriage (we were really just friends playing house) and I got burned in my 2nd engagement (sneaky Gem Sun/Scorpio Moon cheated on me). I am now with someone, happily married…
I think it’s about not settling down but having intertwined paths that both of you accept. I am with someone who is family oriented and loyal; this was not person A or person B. We still feel rather “free” – we are monogamous, but I am talking about other paths (moving for work or traveling, deciding to go back to school, etc.) He has a Sadge Moon so he gets it. You outgrow people all the time, but as long as it’s not your spouse, you’re probably in a happy relationship.
I’ve always hoped there is one love for me. I am 54 and have never been married. After 2 common-law relationships that in retrospect seem karmic in nature, and 2 lifetime what-ifs that turned out to be toads, I am beginning to fear I will remain alone. I have Saturn in my 7th house. If I knew what that meant and of your class to deal with it when I was younger, I would have been in to do the work. Now with the job, community work and spiritual service I don’t have the energy or interest to work on finding/making the relationship. Part of me still hopes for the fairy godmother ending though.
rare. very. my married coworkers will testify to the same.
My sense is that many people want and need the impossibly deep commitment you make to a life partner. And its a scandalous need—that person matters to us more than other people, we accept limitations because of them (which are often strangely graceful, limits we need that we otherwise wouldn’t have). Its not unlike the unfair commitment we have to our children (may have I suppose)—they come first, social equality and egalitarian values are good, but if we are honest we pull for them. I have mars/venus in Aquarius, but moon in Taurus. I think Aquarius/Uranus energy involves brilliant and idealistic notions of culture, of what would work to meet everyone’s needs, of how love could be, but I think in the end we have to take cues from our bodies/feelings for the kinds of culture we require of each other/ourselves. Its all very well to want to transcend gender or not be jealous or to be polyamorous—the key word here being “want.” I see so many people ignoring their bodies and feelings so as to meet these brilliant cultural ideas—its a kind of violence (that special uranian kind of violence), often a violence we do to ourselves as much as to others. (Like struggling to be celibate, or macrobiotic, or any other high-culture ethic.) My Taurus moon is conservative, but its also dedicated to a culture that is actually fertile and has possibility. I don’t want people to be locked into roles that do them violence, but I also think we should take our deep needs seriously.
That said, birth control is really introducing a change into our sociality and may affect how people partner. I think there is a need that goes way beyond procreation—a need to have this other person as a check/boundary. Its too easy in social groups for ideas to pass without getting checked, for you to get a pass on some crap, simply because as long as you are flocking right, no one is going to check further. Your partner checks further.
I have felt that the uranus/pluto square for many people has been about a crisis in partnering and egalitarian ideals—people wanting to realize ideals about new kinds of relational fluidity but running into terrible limits with respect to what is actually possible (this is happening in the big political realm as well). Sagitarius is not a terribly faithful sign… centaurs gamble, ethics are “cosmopolitan,” adventure is more important than cultivation. But Saturn tends to lead to focus/application, so maybe Saturn’s pass is going to lead us to figure out the lessons of the uranus/pluto crash—that is, lead us to focus on and question and work out some curriculum or triage system for thinking about what ideals are valuable or should lead, and when. So says, Sag rising with Saturn in Sag 7° into the first house anyway…
i agree w/ this. 🙂 i always knew deep down there was one person for us. I had thought it was my ex husband, but i was wrong, so very wrong as he made me very unhappy and the next two were just not “right”. It is very very rare when a person finally finds their soulmate. there was this scene in “Practical Magic” where Sandra bullock as a little child makes a wish for her soulmate to find her, and he’s in the other side of the world it seems. I always felt deeply that my husband was waiting for me, or that i was waiting for him to come along.
I agree so much. I met my soul mate in high school but she wanted only friendship, not marriage. I waited around but she married another guy who gave her nothing but trouble. I married late, at 35 to someone who is wonderful but not in any ways my soul mate. We have more of a learning/growing relationship than a hand/glove union. The other day, this friend confided in me that her life would have been so much better if she’d stayed with me. But I don’t feel stuck with my wife. I feel blessed, even though she’s doesn’t understand me like my friend does. Maybe a comfortable life isn’t what I was destined for. I am growing in this relationship, I know that.
My husband and I are from opposite ends of the world and we met by chance somewhere in the middle. We only had that one chance and we both had to make a lot of choices along the way to be in the same place at the same time but when I saw him, I looked to the woman beside me and said, “He’s perfect.” I have a lot of Virgo. It was like BAM. We danced and it felt like the best thing ever. I’ll never forget it, that night. We stayed together for two days and when he left, life lost it’s luster. All I wanted was to be with him. I returned home, finished my degrees and then moved far far away (Moon, Saturn 4th house Scorpio) but really since we’ve met, we’ve never been apart. I’m a Leo rising w/ a SAG 5th house. It all really was meant to be and it’s been a lot of work; different languages, different cultures, different ages, he’s from Mars and I’m from Venus…
….but to answer your question, happy marriages weren’t a part of my childhood (yet I was able to nurture the possibility) so I tend to think a happy marriage is rare. I consider myself lucky and try to be grateful… And not blame any unhappiness on my husband.
I’m with Roxana also, except married once to a Gemini for 23 years, then had some unfinished karmic business to take care of. Have Airy Saturn in Saggie in the 3 Gemini House. At 57, I’m planning my hermit life as a single Godmother to live and let live!
Wel, Ter. 🙂
I totally believe that this happens. I’m so happy for those that are blessed enough to find this on earth. But I see a lot of lonely people. I’m one of them. I don’t think everyone is so lucky but I’m glad it happens somewhere.
As far as “the one”. I don’t know. I’ve felt great attachment to a few men. But I’ve never had that innocent love.
And I’ve often wondered why god would put this desire in my heart if it couldn’t be fulfilled. That goes against everything else that I’ve seen in nature/the universe. So, I hope. I pray.
What do I teach my son? We’ll this is one of those areas where I feel like I’m failing as a mother. When it comes to teaching him about relationships I got nothin. Or very little. I was given a horrible example. Both of my parents were married five times each. They married each other twice. Talk about making the same mistake twice. And they still hate each other. Its painful. I can say this about them: neither of them ever gave up looking for love. They’re both married now. They seem kinda happy. Kinda. Not in love by any means.
Love as we know it comes with conditions, or another love is a love without conditions (live and let live).Libra noir all you can do is guide your son to the basic elementary style of relating with opposite sex, it’s a give-take with agenda. So 2 things…first, remember you are fortunate that sex seems to be going away from your life. Secondly, don’t think that the other person is feeling offended. Expose your heart to the other person. Don’t try to bring yourself to the position of the other but try in every possible way to hold the hand of the other, and take him/her, to the higher stage, where you are suddenly finding yourself. Only in the beginning it will become difficult; soon it will become very easy. When there are 2 ppl growing together, many times gaps will arise becuz ppl cannot keep pace with each other; everybody has his own speed, everybody has his/her own unique growth pattern/habit. But if you love yourself first without conditions, judgements, as well for the other, you can wait a little till the other arrives, and then, hand in hand, you can move further. Namaste
How Rare Is A Happy Marriage?
It’s rare all around me. I don’t see a lot of happy ones but I am in a happy one myself. Now I don’t want to sound like some hopeless romantic. We don’t always see eye to eye and we have had our ups and downs but its the real love that keeps us going strong.
We finally decided that we should get married because we were never going to be happy with anyone else and when we tried we ended up ruining the lives of others that tried to get close to us.
We are mostly easy together. His moon us under assault, so is mine so we are going through a little personal hell on the inside but I am always going to take care of this man and he is always going to take care of me.
If I had to describe my marriage I guess I could start with it was red hot in the beginning, and there was friendship with that and of course a deep love. We usually love and hate the same things and allow each other the space to work and create.
We don’t hover over each other and there is rarely jealousy or petty fighting. He’s my partner. He’s my friend. He is my true love and if anyone ever did a thing to him I would claw their eyes out of their sockets.
I am protective of him and he is of me but not in the way that people do that crazy dance where they don’t allow each other life outside of their home. We are as active apart outside home (at work) as we are together but we bring it right back to the front door.
It sure is easy to be married to him most of the time. Not that I don’t tell him to go straight to hell once in a while. Believe me we are not perfect. HA! I tell him I am going to throw his shit in the street at least 4 times a year and he tells me he will be happy when I do hahahah and then the next day its over and no one brings it up again.
Why? Because it doesn’t mean anything. We are just fussin!
I love this crazy bastard. I have loved him for 27-28 years? I should have married him when he asked me the first 55 times but no, I had to go out into the world and ruin my life 3 or 4 times first. I am grateful he waited. I mostly cant believe he did.
Are we happy? Well mostly we are and some days I want to hit him with a coffee mug, but no one else better ever try it 😉
After one failed marriage and a couple of unhappy committed relationships, I met my perfect match at age 50. The great thing is we both love to be alone in our own spaces and don’t desire lots of together time. We live separately and get together every weekend. We usually talk twice a day but not always. We are totally there for each other and have fun like kids on the weekends. It’s perfect for us and we’re grateful. If we had to live together all the time we’d go crazy. This is our 18th year together.
That’s a great story!
that is a great story! My mother in law told me about her good friend/colleague, around the same age as you both who have the same situation. they got together late in life, and live separately but love it like that! His house is just next door to hers. lol 😀
🙂 This sounds wonderful. In my ideal marriage I’d live probably in the same house as my husband but we’d have our own sections of the house that were just ours and we could come together as we choose. I value my alone time. Not because I dislike people, I just need space to myself to sort out my own thoughts. Lol finding a man who can admit that he wants that as well has been tough.
Ditto, that’s my idea of a dream house too. 😉 Separate spaces to go to but overall joined.
omg@falconbride &Cici, you two! lol Wishing you ladies men who actually love that kind of arrangement. 😀
DITTO!! (-:
Sounds perfect!:)
Sweeeeeet! 🙂
When I look at my parents, I can say that true love and happy marriages do exist. Of course they have had their ups and downs, but it’s was that love for each other, that really kept them going and dealing with things that many other people wouldn’t of dealt with.
My father and mother got married in 1972 5 months after meeting. My father dealt with her parents hating him, and treating him like complete A** when ever he would come by. They were even rude to him during their wedding. My mother dealt with my father fighting an alcoholism self war- for almost 11 years. However during each struggle they both made it through.
My father is 6’3, and if you ever saw the Honey Mooners – Ralph Kramden – He is a spitting image, same face- same belly, he even does the huge bulging eye ball thing when hes mad. My mother, is 5’2, little tiny Sicilian lady. I have never heard her in my life- raise her voice. My father, at times I thought the screaming he would exert would cause him an aneurysm .
They are the complete opposite of one another, but now in their late 60’s, when my brothers and I are home, they are still cuddle up on the couch together every night, and enjoy doing EVERYTHING, together.
This of course makes me happy to see them so in love, but I do believe that fate, has a big element of who comes into our lives, for a lesson a blessing, or a lifetime. A happy marriage between your parents does not mean you will follow the same pattern. You are going to meet the challenges that you are meant to meet in your life. However, I do feel like the way you see your parents interact, will help you deal with those challenges, and help guide you through life lessons.
I just want to say for the record that I didn’t choose my husband he chose me. I had no intention of going with anyone ever. I’d say he’s the lock on type. He wanted a happy life, found me, and then had to work hard to convince me. 😉 We’ve had our ups and downs, but that is what makes a relationship. I’d say it’s possible to have happy marriages, but you’re right, you have to realize that there’s only one person who’s probably willing to put up with your quirks. Better not to disregard that.
I have an off topic question though regarding soulmates. I was watching this movie and it brought it up in my mind. We always contain our soulmates to earth. But what if soulmates were to range across the universe? Or is it a magnetic thing, when possibly reincarnated you’re magnetically pulled to the same planet? Anyway, just thinking.
I suspect we have soulmates who exist in other dimensions. Like “soul,” “soulmate” strikes me as a word we use to say something of the force depth we feel in relation to someone, the fated/fits like a glove feeling. We understand ourselves in relation to bodies, and having bodies says something really important about what it means to be, but there might be ways of seeing ourselves (like settings on a microscope) where what is separate more clearly touches or is a part of some larger figure—ways we touch across apparent time, space, etc. If soul is a word for who we are, then it might refer both to the individual and to some twinned shape, etc.
I think you have one true soul mate. I met mine in a most fated way 37 years ago and am still married to him today. He is my second marriage. My first marriage, at 19 years old, was to a high school “sweetheart” that really should have just remained a friend. Our marriage lasted less than 2 years.
I met my second husband in a beauty salon. He was a hairdresser at the time. One of the other hairdressers was washing my hair and for whatever reason, decided he didn’t want to work there anymore. He quit right then and left me sopping wet in the sink and walked out. My current husband saw my dilemma and took care of my hair.
I was getting a perm (this is back in the ’70s when that look was in). Unfortunately for my husband, my hair was very difficult to curl because it is very straight, so it didn’t come out right. He felt bad and said he would fix it if I came back the next day. He did. In that short amount of time, I knew there was something special about him. He felt it too and that was the beginning of our 37 year old love affair.
My takeaway is that true love lasts. It goes through ups and downs, but love is strong and it survives. I think you can’t look for love, it finds you when the time is right.
Sure you can have many relationships in your life, but when the real thing comes along, you’ll know it in your heart.
I do believe we only meet about three or four people (probably less), who we truly ‘click with’ and are capable of marrying. Unfortunately, younger generations get the impression that you can just snap your fingers, and a man/woman will show up magically.
Another blockbuster question from Elsa!
I think (like Watergal) that this is romantic fantasy, served by fairy tales, books, movies etc. although I would prefer to think that relationships are due to mystical workings.
But this does not necessarily exclude having a happy marriage…
The chance of that happening seems to me closer to mathematical probability, finding a compatible partner is like winning at loto. Many play, but all don’t win.
If there are conditions that enhance the probabilities, I’m not sure. If you live all you life in a village population 300 do you have the same chance of meeting a “perfect” match as someone who lives in a big city or travels all over the world meeting many people? More choices, more opportunities, more options, better results? Not so sure.
The romantic fantasy I guess gives people hpoe and is probably helpful as such. But it is also an expectation that can lead to disappointment.
Whether there is a divine plan or karmic reason involved in meeting the people we meet and choose (or not) to get involved with is hard to say. You might like to think that there is somthing divine in mathematical probability, as it IS truly a wondrous thing.
Comes to my mind the vision of row on row of people working the machines in a well-known city in Nevada… Some win more or less. Hitting the big prize is a romantic fantasy too (the real winner is the game industry), but some people do hit it.
When that happens it seems like a miracle of some sort.
Well – fate, hasard or luck, I don’t know. (I’ve got Libra rising…)
Uh, sorry for the strange ending of my post – I had to reword the last part as it seems I was using “forbidden” words!!!
Apparently something somewhers did not accept the name of a desert city, a money apparatus, and the word which describes getting by luck a big happy sum of coins.
I guess that is more forbidden than a happy mariage!!!!!
Satsun—What if the variable isn’t just the object (can you find the needle in the haystack) but also has something to do with one’s sense of the importance of love? I tend to agree with you that we seem to be unevenly gifted with respect to the kinds of relationships we encounter, and I don’t believe its all on whether we act on love or not either. But the absence of some prefect fit in my life does not discredit the longing…
in general the only thing that would really bother me is then “soul mate” language is used by people the same way other comparative signs are (big/bigger houses; successful/more successful children), as a coin in some kind of social contest…
my sense here is the discussion has just been about having permission both to be delighted by a relationship and, more generally, to think of lasting relationships as valuable —
Depending on the subjective application of the word ‘young’, I may very well be much like this client of yours.
At 34, I have had a grand total of two sexual relationships. Does this correlate to the bar that weighs in on my standards for a partner I’m hopeful to find? Absolutely. Do I expect to find very many peers among my generation in this regard? Absolutely not.
My 8-year-old daughter once asked me while the three of us we were out for dinner, “Why aren’t you dating?” Without thinking, blunt honesty came out and I answered her, “Because I haven’t met anyone that I would like to date.”
To give but one example, I happen to think I’m faring well in teaching my daughters about the importance of healthy motivating factors for entering into relationships.
I was very upfront with them last year before their mother moved back in. I let them know it WAS going to be short-term and the reasons were for her to become gainfully employed with some support and a healthy environment for she and them to interact within. Am I self-sabotaging my own prospects for a serious relationship to provide what’s best for my daughters? Absolutely, and with too many good reasons to recount. The foremost, though, being that it is difficult for me to be happy unless I’m in a relationship, and I want to find a relationship in which I can be happy WITH someone, not simply happy because I am with someone.
As to how strongly I want a happy, committed marriage – I have a Libra Mercury/Venus/Moon/Pluto stellium and Taurus Vesta conjunct DC, you tell me 😉
Everyone around me says there are more than one soulmates
Everyone!! they also have the most rational arguments about it
In my experience and according to my gut “that’s not true”
I’ve had the worst trust issues with this one person who i ‘feel’ is my soulmate
now he’s with someone else — he also does not believe in soulmates
Plus of course the universe has set us on the most divergent paths
But still i’ve not been granted another “soulmate” – so are there one or more — is my experience right or other ‘wise’ people right?!
in fact this has done so much damage to my belief in my own instincts
So either I’m right or I’m not!! Either way I’m not happy
Is this how life’s supposed to be?!!
David you’re so wise!! This is so true what is desired or envisioned vs. what is possible aka uranus pluto square
You just unlocked a part of this grand cross mystery (well at least for me)
My husband is my partner and my best friend. I am grateful to have such a friend. I will always love him. But when I define soul mate I come up with something completely different. My grandmother was my soul mate and I suppose Scorpio moon is my only living soul mate. As I get older the definition of soul mate has become something completely different than it was when I was choosing a partner and used that term when considering marriage.
I didn’t find “that guy” until I was 48. He was 51 at the time. I’d already been married once, he’d been married twice. His 2nd marriage to a manic bipolar woman nearly killed him (I do mean that literally). Based on what I see around me, most of us are not Fated to have just one partner for our adult lives… what “the church” says about it notwithstanding. I wish we could all just be okay with knowing that multiple relationships are a vehicle for not only love and pleasure, but for teaching us, evolving us….
Lol noone taught me anything about anything so I got pretty desperate for anything and the simplest most accepted and easiest thing was to just go along with the idiocy of youth
“Post-purchase rationalization, also known as Buyer’s Stockholm Syndrome, is a cognitive bias whereby someone who has purchased an expensive product or service overlooks any faults or defects in order to justify their purchase. It is a special case of choice-supportive bias.”
🙂 🙂
There’s something of a special snowflake thing going on, though. No one is like me, no one is like you, we’re the only two who together make this magical bond with each other.
If the “raw material” is decent on both sides, I think a committed attitude will make any number of unions “soul mates” and “fated”. With billions of people on the planet, there are many similar people, none of us in the end is as unique as Sesame Street would have us believe.
What a beautiful, heartfelt post Elsa! I’m strange in the sense that with Aquarius on my 7th house cusp, I’ve had quite a bit of ambivalence towards marriage growing up. I had dreams of a happy family but then through my teens, I thought I would be independent. But I let a bout of depression and loneliness overtake me and when Uranus crossed my DC, I married the very wrong person very young, with stupid Neptune-Venus hopes it would be the picket fence dream that I never had. It was instead a tumultuous disaster that I’m still reeling from almost 20 years later. I vowed not to get married again and even said I would avoid relationships altogether. Then-BAM! I met my soulmate when Neptune crossed my descendant and even though things haven’t always been easy, we actually are blissfully happy. We have the dream. I pinch myself sometimes because it’s too good to be true. But –it doesn’t mean it’s without challenges or bad years. Settling into domesticity and the traditional marriage routines and responsibilities wasn’t easy for me. That Aqua-flavored need for independence in me sometimes wondered if I had taken the path of the traveling nomad instead… Luckily, I have a spouse who’s learned to give me plenty of space and can you ask for better than that? I share my life with the best person I know! ?
I have North Node at the end of 12 house, conjunct my Cancer ascendant. Empty 7th house Capricorn. Saturn in 8th, opposed Sun. I will never, ever be married. It would be right up there with being in prison. Uranus/Mercury/Pluto conjunct 2nd and 3rd, opposed Moon.
I lived with a man who first hired me to care for his wife and then to move in. His wife died, I stayed on. He wanted to use me for sexual gratification, but not wife material. We fought like cats and dogs and I was severely depressed. A few years after he died, a married man came to visit me. He ended up becoming my longest and most secure relationship. He has been married since the 1970’s and has no children. He left his wife once in the 1980’s, was dumped by the woman he tried to pursue and reconciled with his wife. So he has decided he can have his cake and eat it too. I tell him sometimes that despite the fact he is in a sexless marriage, he still has a good spouse and she is his family.
Between the two of us, our unconventional relationship is full of trust and intimacy. I get to keep my privacy and independence, and he gets to keep his secure long term marriage and a sexual/intimate/friendship with me. 6 years this coming August, we have never had one argument and we spend a great deal of time together. He helps me out financially, emotionally, is the best companion I have ever known. Sometimes he jokes that I am his other wife. No one has ever loved me as dearly as he. He is 14 yrs. older and has Cancer Moon/Sun/Uranus conjunct.
My son is a Cancer, turns 21 next month. He loves passionately, loses himself in a relationship and worships the ground his beloved walks upon.
He goes so far as to promote women’s rights, his major is women’s studies and he has Sag moon in 11th house, square his 6th house Venus. His girlfriends are all strong willed, intelligent, educated feminist types.
I told him to try to remain friends post break up, that one day he will be glad he still has the friendship. So far, he is not on speaking terms with any exes. Sometimes his decision, sometimes theirs. Back when he was in 8th grade, I told him to take his time dating someone. I told him if it turned out she was crazy, it was alot easier to break up with a crazy woman you have not slept with.
A male friend of mine told him once about how valuable and endearing it was for a man to know how to give a woman a good foot rub and massage. Also how to “please” her without unzipping his pants. My son made a joke recently that he paid attention to that information, ahem….
The older I get, the more I notice that for every guy you see in the news abusing a woman, there seems to be more men than not who tell me they desire their partner be as happy as they are in the relationship. There is hope out there, ladies…..
I gave my son the same advice about easier to break up with someone you haven’t slept with, and definitely easier before you have moved in! I am glad you see hope out there 🙂
@Sherry, that’s so interesting about your son and his placements! he sounds really lucky to find some really great girlfriends. I know personally a young middle aged man who is the son of my Gemini step in law’s, although he’s super cancer stellium with sag moon/sag Neptune. he hasn’t dated or been with anyone that we or his Gemini mother know of. He must have something else in his planets/houses that give him the ability to find someone.
I’ve had two soul mates.
One was smart enough to marry me, the other has some regrets, let me tell you.
I waited on the first and then got fed up waiting and found the second. And I kissed A LOT of frogs along the way, it took years. But I was smart – started young on my path and didn’t waste a whole lot of time along the way on people I knew were just passing fancies. I got married at 33 after 17 years of dating many, many people!
My advice is – don’t waste your time on people who don’t completely knock your socks off, in some way or another.
And don’t ever live with regret. Move on, life’s too short to think about what “could have been!”. It can still be!
The end!
I think I missed my one, but I am guessing I was not his “one”, he seems happily married. On the eve of my wedding a friend told me he thought that I was marrying Mr. Right Now instead of Mr. Right, wish I had been brave enough to see the truth, but I have to believe that my three kids are the reason I stayed so long. I go back and forth on whether or not to look again, and I hope I know if the time is ever right. For the time being I focus on my kids and myself and enjoy my freedom.
I’m pretty sure there is only one. I am 33 and have only had only one true soul mate. I couldn’t imagine anyone else being able to completely understand me on all levels- physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. You certainly just “know” when you have found the one, because your whole being is energized and inspired and the world seems to be so much more meaningful and beautiful. I think ‘the one’ will show you your potential. Your soul will expand and there is no better feeling one can experience. You may have fights but you both know that the bond can never be broken…everything is forgiven almost immediately. This kind of love is rare. If you find it, don’t let it go.
The reason I believe it only happens once is part psychological and part spiritual. I believe that “the one” is your anima/animus and what happens when you experience your other half is you give the other part of yourself over to this person in what you might call a soul contract. What was once the part of you that belonged to your mother/father is transfered to this one person. This is what the Catholics call holy matrimony. It is a vow- a vow from one soul to another that your Soul…. belongs to them. I don’t think this type of vow can be broken because it is not a conscious one you can simply change your mind about. It is done on a soul level.
I’m sorry, but I think anyone who claims to have experienced it twice hasnt really experienced it at all.
Oh and I always always tell my kid to follow their heart. That’s all that I feel is my place to say.
I married my first love and we had a great relationship that kept growing and changing for 33 years. If he was still alive we would still be together. I think it was possible because there was no illusion that it would be easy and we never expected the other to bend over backwards to make it work.
When we were about to divorce again, we sat down and asked, what happened? How come we don’t see the path forward together? We got out of the pit and the rut every time. A million times we thought, that’s it now, no more! And then there was still life in the what we thought was dead. It was a mystery to us both, so we called it love, the thing that gives life. We didn’t exactly seek it or think that we have it or know it, let alone create it or control it. It just was there and didn’t go away, no matter how hard we tried to ignore or dismiss it.
Was he my soul mate? Do I know what a soul mate is? The person I dream up? That he definitely wasn’t. I honestly don’t know what people mean when they talk about a soul mate. I wanted to travel and see the world, he wanted the same and we did it together. I wanted kids and so did he, neither of us wanted to slave in a job, so we founded a business together. I told him that he doesn’t need to be perfect, being honest is good enough. He never lied to me, if he messed up, he owned it.
Does soul mate imply that there’s a connection that’s predestined? Some Karmic bond? That’s why we recognise this person among all the others? If that’s what it is then yes, it felt Karmic at times. Compulsive, driven, not controllable at will. Nothing nice about that, it’s hard work. It’s worth it, if you ask me, but it’s not a happy ever after thing.