In more than 25 years of practice, I've sat across from hundreds of people searching for "the one" — the person who will complete them, understand them without effort, and make the hard parts of love disappear. It's a beautiful idea. It's also, in my clinical experience, one of the most quietly damaging myths in modern relationships.
The soulmate myth suggests that a great relationship is found, not built. That if you simply meet the right person, compatibility, communication, and connection will follow naturally. This belief puts enormous pressure on the early, easy part of a relationship — and very little value on the skills that sustain love once the initial spark settles into everyday life.
What the research (and the therapy room) actually shows
Relationship satisfaction over time correlates far more strongly with communication skills, emotional regulation, and repair after conflict than with any measure of initial compatibility. Couples who describe themselves as "very happy" after twenty years are not the ones who never disagreed — they are the ones who learned how to disagree without losing the relationship in the process.
This is one of the clearest lessons from my Six Pillars framework: Connection is a pillar you build, not a feeling you either have or don't. Secure, authentic relationships are constructed through repeated small moments of being seen, being heard, and being chosen — not discovered fully formed in a single meeting.
Why the myth is so seductive
Believing in a soulmate offers a kind of relief: if the right relationship should feel effortless, then any difficulty must mean you've chosen the wrong person. This belief lets people avoid the more vulnerable, more useful question — what am I bringing into this relationship, and what would it take for me to show up differently here?
In session, I often ask couples to set aside the question "are we compatible?" and instead ask "are we willing?" Willingness to communicate honestly, to repair after conflict, to keep choosing each other on ordinary days — this is a far more reliable predictor of a lasting relationship than any early sense of destiny.
What actually predicts a lasting relationship
In my California practice, I see the same pattern again and again with the couples who tell me, years later, that things finally feel different. It's rarely a single breakthrough conversation. It's a slow accumulation of small repairs: a partner who learns to say "I'm scared" instead of "you always," a couple who figures out how to disagree about money without it becoming a referendum on the whole relationship.
Communication over compatibility
Compatibility tells you where you might struggle. Communication tells you whether you can move through that struggle together. I've worked with couples who seemed, on paper, wildly mismatched — different backgrounds, different temperaments, different ideas about how to spend a Saturday — and watched them build something remarkably steady, because they were both willing to keep talking honestly when it would have been easier to go quiet.
Repair, not perfection
Every couple I've ever worked with argues. What separates the relationships that last from the ones that don't isn't the presence or absence of conflict — it's what happens in the ten minutes after. Couples who can circle back, acknowledge what went sideways, and re-connect without keeping score tend to build a kind of resilience that no amount of initial chemistry can manufacture.
The soulmate myth and anxiety
There's also a quieter cost to the soulmate myth that I see constantly in individual sessions, separate from couples work entirely: anxiety. When someone believes the right relationship should feel certain and easy, every normal moment of doubt gets reinterpreted as a red flag. This can trap people in a cycle of second-guessing that has less to do with their actual partner and more to do with an unexamined belief about what love is supposed to feel like. If this sounds familiar, it's worth exploring separately — anxiety has its own patterns and its own path forward, which I write about more on The Self.
Where this leaves you
If you're in a relationship that sometimes feels effortful, that isn't necessarily a sign you're with the wrong person. It may simply mean you're in the part of love that requires skill, not magic. And if you're single and waiting for a feeling of certainty before investing in someone, it may be worth asking whether that certainty was ever the right thing to wait for.
A question I ask often
When a client tells me they're not sure their relationship is "right," I usually ask a different question first: not "is this the right person," but "am I actually showing up here as myself, or as who I think I need to be to keep this working?" That second question tends to surface something much more useful — and much more within your control.
The most important relationship you will ever have is the one with yourself — and the clarity, security, and self-worth you build there is what allows you to build genuine, lasting connection with someone else, soulmate or not. If you're working through what that looks like for you, whether alone or with a partner, I'd encourage you to read more about how I approach couples and relationship work, or to start with a few common questions on the FAQ page.