Do you believe in The One?
And I don’t mean the 2001 Jet Li movie of the same title.
No, I am talking about soulmates. Do you believe that there is one person out there that is right for you?
If you do, don’t feel ashamed; you are in strong company. According to a 2021 YouGov poll of nearly 15,000 adults, 60% of respondents, including 64% of women and 55% of men, believe there is one person out there meant to be their romantic partner.
The soulmate myth is not new. There are variants of it around the globe stretching back to ancient times. In the West, the idea of soulmates can be traced to Greek mythology. Humans once had four arms, four legs, and two faces, the story goes, until Zeus decided to punish us for believing we were equal to the gods and split us all in two. Now we are all cursed to walk the Earth searching for our other half, our soulmate.
The Egyptians, Hindus, and Chinese all have similar stories.
But as a new report published today by the Wheatley Institute shows, this soulmate myth is often destructive for real-life relationships.
“At their core, soulmate beliefs provide a backwards depiction of the sequencing of healthy relationship development,” the authors of the report write. “They suggest that someone exists as your One-and-Only before you have even met; therefore, relationship success is primarily about simply finding that person.”
“Soulmate thinking diverts attention away from a fundamental truth of loving and lasting marriage,” the report continues. “That oneness is made, not found.”
I love that line: that oneness is made, not found.
But what does all this have to do with politics?
Well, if the dating process is all about finding that one special person who is right for you, a style of dating the authors call the “Destiny Approach,” then creating a successful marriage is all about making the right match. Not only does this belief make it easier for men and women to reject perfectly compatible partners because of one incompatibility, but it also means many relationships that do start will meet an untimely end once they hit the first sign of turbulence.
After all, if this person is my soulmate, our lives together should be effortless. If there is any trouble at all, he or she cannot be the one.
We can see this destiny approach growing today, especially when it comes to politics. A whopping 70% of Democratic women say they would not even consider dating someone who had a different view of Donald Trump than they did. That eliminates a lot of otherwise compatible men from the list.
The authors of the report instead suggest an “Agency Approach” to dating, one that focuses on asking oneself, “How can I be prepared to form and nurture a flourishing marriage?” Agency daters recognize that rewarding relationships are built, not discovered. Rather than seeing marriage as a vehicle to personal happiness, agency daters believe that “a shared history and couple identity make the marriage relationship an entity itself, and that flourishing marriages not only meet the basic human need for satisfaction, but also satisfy and promote the human need for safety, growth, meaning, and human connection.”
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Once people abandon destiny beliefs about relationships and instead embrace “growth beliefs,” they are much more likely to adopt a “work-it-out” approach to relationship problems, one that involves listening to your partner and shared problem-solving.
Too many young people today are writing off whole swaths of the opposite sex because they vote for the “wrong” political party. Our politics would be a lot better if instead of going their separate ways, young men and women gave each other a chance and tried to build something lasting together.
