Is your spouse your soul mate?

It's been brought up lately in the media and amongst friends.... this notion of "soul mates". Many of us seem unsure what the words even mean, but are surely hesitant to say our spouses do not fit this unclear obscure term.





To me "soul mate" is the one person in this universe and across all time and space continuum who is a perfect match to my immortal soul. If that's really the definition how likely is it that someone would find, and let alone actually marry, their "soul mate"?

So, just on the odds of probability, I'm going to say (for argument sake) that my husband Nate is not my soul mate. Surely that can be argued, and in some of the earlier days of our marriage I would have been certain of it.

You see, for years I couldn't help but focus on faults, his faults, my faults, the faults in our relationship and in the way we communicate. There were (and still are) a lot of faults to be found. It wasn't until just recently that I've settled on the idea that...

I am not perfect, Nate is not perfect, our relationship certainly is not perfect. We may not be "soul mates" but we sure care about each other a lot, and we have a lot of core values that line up in a way that makes us content. We can make each other laugh until our eyes water and we get so angry at each other sometimes our words come out like spit. So in the way we compliment and contrast each other, and in the way we work together, we are perfect.

Nate is an Engineer. He's Mr. Logical. Give him a problem and he'll solve it. Everything is black and white in his linear world. I think he might even dream in mathematical equations. I, on the other hand, am a flowery blob of emotional goo and sort of a Freudian hedonistic brat (but I mean that in the best possible way).

Like an elaborate quilt the contrast makes it possible to see the pattern and there may be flaws, but nothing that one could see from a galloping horse. So if I relax and focus on the positive I see the beauty of our marriage.

Our union works despite not being "soul mates" because when we work together, when I wander to the side of the logical and am forced to turn off the technicolor and he crosses into the emotional and begins to notice the subtle hues of rose, lavender, and honeydew.... fantastic things happen. Our life is balanced.

I've started to see my faults and his, and the faults of our relationship, not as faults but as pieces that make up the beautiful quilt that is our lives. Some are tattered, some are torn, some bright and colorful prints, some a solid subtle hue. They all come together to make something so unique, so spectacular, and so totally ours.