ARE WE SEARCHING FOR GOD IN A SOULMATE?
How Faith and the Divine Shape Our Deepest Connection
“People often talk about finding their soulmate, their one and only. And I’ve always thought ‘soulmate’ means God, not a partner,” said relationship guru Esther Perel in an interview with Matthew Hussey.
I immediately sat up.
“Today,” she continued, “we want to experience with our partner all kinds of things: transcendence, wholeness, meaning, ecstasy, belonging. Things we always looked for in the realm of the divine.”
I waited, holding my breath. Where was she going with this?
“But people also want what traditional relationships offered, if it’s still relevant: economic support, companionship, social status, family life. Plus, I want a best friend, a trusted confidant, an intellectual equal, a passionate lover.”
Was she about to suggest we search for the divine in the realm of the sacred if that is what we are truly seeking in our soulmates?
“So,” she finished, “we must strengthen our family bonds, friendships, and community. We must ensure there’s ample love already.”
Not the ending I was expecting (or hoping for). It left me dead-lettuce-limp. Of course, we all know having strong bonds with family and friends is essential before searching for romance... but that’s not the same as having a strong sense of God.
Her conclusion sidesteps the divine elephant she had just brought into the room.
As a new Catholic, finding God—a religious practice, a clear understanding of the spiritual, and a deep respect for it—has brightened all my relationships.
First and foremost, it’s mended my relationship with myself, which, as an anxious worrywart, has been broken for most of my forty years. Catholicism has pointed me toward the source of life—our North Star. Being encouraged to pray and connect to that source has brought me back to life—back to God.
I shouldn’t have been surprised that a famous couples therapist in 2024 wouldn’t suggest we find God as a solution to marital turmoil... but she was the one who brought it up!
Her mention of it reminded me of God’s role in helping me find my soulmate. I met my husband walking the Camino de Santiago pilgrimage in northern Spain. As cold rain splashed on my smiling face, I said, “Wouldn’t it be amazing if the man of my dreams just walked in and swept me off my feet?” My walking companions laughed.
But….they weren’t laughing two days later when a handsome Spanish man waltzed in and swept me off my feet. Their jaws dropped.
Everything about this romantic relationship shouldn’t have worked—we were polar opposites from opposite points on the globe.
For ten years, we’ve been head-over-heels in love. But it has been tense, even tumultuous, until I found God, and my husband rekindled his relationship with his faith.
If you asked my husband what changed in our relationship after I found God, he’d say, “Everything.” And I’d agree.
Are we perfect? Are we walking around doe-eyed at each other all day? No, but that’s the goal—and it’s glorious.
We pray, hands held, every morning, thanking God for each other. We dance every morning—I KNOW! My husband and I dance together every single morning.We end each day thanking God for what we have. We attend church. We strive to offer each other the divine love we’ve tapped into.
The morning prayer, in particular, has been very powerful. I’ve seen this practice melt tension like a blowtorch to ice. I’ve felt us both bow down before each other and shift into a deeper connection. As we move into middle age, I’ve wrestled with insecurity about my body, about my fading youth and brightness. One day, sensing this, my husband thanked God for his beautiful, stunning wife during our prayer. On a hard day, when your reflection isn’t what you expect, hearing those words offered up to God induces the healing we are all searching for in filtred selfies, hair colour, botox, and fast fashion.
Before getting married in the Catholic church, you must undertake a weekend course designed to help you understand exactly what you’re signing up for. Something a priest said during that weekend stuck with me: “Imagine your home, your marriage, as the Church. You must treat each other as if you were speaking to God.”
That struck me hard because I’d seen my parents love each other in a very passionate, human way, but they certainly weren’t speaking to each other as if they were God. Our home was warm but didn’t feel like a sacred place. There were screams. I don’t mean to disrespect my parents—that’s not what this is about. They’re extraordinary people. But this concept of seeing marriage as sacred was revolutionary. So the priest’s words stayed with me, and now, ten years later, we’re living by them. And it’s working.
As I said, I’m a new Catholic—not even baptized yet—but in my weekly catechism class, a priest recently said, “You must build a relationship with God because when you marry, you think, ‘I’m going to love them so well, so deeply, and perfectly.’ But you can’t because you’re human. It takes a divine force to love an imperfect human. Both of you need a relationship with God to support your human love. You will disappoint each other, and your human idea of your partner will fail. God’s love helps you forgive.”
My journey into Catholicism has, like I said, sparked my husband’s curiosity about his faith. He’s re-energized, more alive, more himself than I’ve seen him in years. He’s the man I married, the version of our spouses we always hope to see again. And he would say the same about me: “She’s alive again. That’s the woman I married.”
Two years before my mother died, when it was clear that her curtain was closing and my parent’s relationship in the physical world would end sometime soon, I had a coffee with my father. Nightmares tormented him, he said. His subconscious mind was trying to reconcile with what was happening. He burst into tears. “I just wish I hadn’t been so stupid during our relationship. I wish I’d been better. What was I thinking?”
When anyone dies, we see the divine so clearly that it’s almost blinding. But what if we had a practice that reminded us daily that our beloveds, our divine yet very human loves… are dying? Would we think differently…? Would we speak differently?Would we dance every morning? Would we forgive faster?
The ultimate ingredient, the one the secular world refuses to acknowledge in its sea of suffering relationships and 50% divorce rates, is the divine, as Esther Perel hints.
Yes, family and friends are essential—strong bonds. But I’d argue that many people suffering in broken marriages or enduring unbearable divorces have friends and family—but do they have faith? Do they have a spiritual practice woven into their lives—every week, every day, every morning, every night, every breath?
In my ten-year marriage, I’ve learned that life is a series of beats, and to bring about the beauty we crave, we must live fully and positively in those beats.
Bringing the divine back into our lives is crucial. I won’t insist on how you should find God, or live daily in the divine... because it won’t work unless you do it in your way.
But if you—a mere mortal—want a dazzling, meaningful relationship with another mere mortal, you might need a little magic.
Let’s think about the places where magic is still taken seriously - sacred spaces where it is still allowed to sparkle.