5 Key Lessons That Can Only Be Learned When Your Soulmate Doesn't Love You Back
It's actually really good news.
Jacob Lund / shutterstock.com I know that it can feel like a fate worse than death when your soulmate doesn’t love you back.
After all, how can you ever feel happy again if the person you believe that you are supposed to be with isn’t on the same page.
I am here to tell you something that might surprise you, something that will make you reevaluate everything that you think about soulmates.
Your soulmate wasn't meant to love you forever.
Elizabeth Gilbert, the brilliant author of Eat, Pray, Love writes this about a soulmate:
“A true soulmate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that is holding you back. They come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you and then they leave. [They are there] to shake you up…tear apart your ego a little bit, show you your obstacles and addictions, break your heart open so new light could get in, make you so desperate and out of control that you had to transform your life.”
Understanding what a soulmate truly is, that they aren’t your forever and always — but rather the means to the life you have always wanted — can be very freeing.
Now you can learn how to put those lessons into practice.
Five ways to learn the 'big lesson' when your soulmate doesn't love you back
1. Consider the love you feel for your soulmate.
I want you to take a step back and think about the love you feel for your soulmate. I know right now you believe they are the one and only person in your life who can ever make you happy and without them your life will be over.
But, is that really true? If you dig deep, are you really sure that this love is like no other love or is it just the narrative that supports the pain you are feeling? Perhaps, having a love that is unrequited is making your feelings for this person bigger than they are?
If you were honest with yourself, did you, at some previous point in your life, have someone in your life who you considered to be your soulmate? Who you believed was put on earth to be with you?
Was it incredibly painful when that person left your life, a pain that you never thought you would survive? When you lost that person, that relationship, were you devastated but, ultimately, didn’t you learn something from that person, something that you knew you needed to do differently going forward?
As time went on, did you find someone else? Yes, most likely, you did. Another soulmate.
All this being said, I want you to really think about the love you have for your soulmate and make sure that it really and truly is the grand love that you are making it out to be or if they are just one in a series of soulmates who brought something to your life.
Maybe the lesson is that there isn't just one big love of your life, even when it feels that way.
2. Consider the things that you learned from them.
Eight years ago, I met a man who I was sure was my soulmate. I fell in love with him the first moment I met him. He was handsome, funny, sexy, and he thought I was amazing. I was so very happy and sure that I had found my person. But as time went on, a few things happened.
First, I realized that I was having a ton of fun but that I was drinking too much which made me depressed and insecure.
Second, I realized that having someone in my life who other people liked was very important. He didn’t have a lot of friends, and had some people in the community who actively didn’t like him and that made me uncomfortable.
Third, I realized how important it was to me that my kids like my person. I loved him and they put up with him but they really didn’t think much of him. That, really caught my attention
When we broke up, I was truly heart broken. I was sure that he had been the one for me. Instead, I had to walk away, sure that I would never recover.
But, guess what! I did. Older, yes, but definitely wiser.
Having a soulmate who didn’t love me back was the best thing that could have happened to me — it taught me that I can survive heartbreak.
3. Consider why they might have come into your life.
In retrospect, being in that relationship was incredibly important for me. I learned a lot, yes, but it also changed the course of my life.
After we broke up, I was heartbroken and we didn’t talk again for years. I took to my bed for weeks, not eating or sleeping, believing that I would never love and be loved again. Friends came and went, trying to talk me through it, but I just wasn’t budging. I was destroyed and my life was over.
Suddenly, about 3 weeks later as I lay in my bed, something struck me like a lightning bolt — I could move. I lived in a big house in Vermont, but always dreamed of living in New York City.
Now, the pain that I was feeling from the loss of the relationship gave me the motivation to get it together and make a big move. So, I did. I listed my house on Airbnb and got a little apartment on the Upper West Side.
My life changed completely once I moved. I started my business and began speaking about living with mental illness. I dated a variety of men who helped me learn what I didn’t want and I met the person who ultimately introduced me to my fiancee.
I know now why I met the man I thought was my soulmate, and it wasn’t so that we could live happily ever after together!
The lesson was that some soulmates are there for a purpose, not for a "forever".
4. Consider how you can let them go.
The hardest part will be accepting that your soul mate is someone who came into your life to shake things up. It is difficult to realize that you must let them go so that you can move forward with your life, armed with your new knowledge and power.
The first piece is accepting that you must do this. If you don’t, you will be stuck.
The second piece is talking about it with your person. They need to know that you need to let them go so that you can move on. It is important that they know this so that they will give you the space to do so.
The third is to look to your future. Yes, you have love for your soulmate but remember that they came into your life for a reason. Despite this, you can look ahead with hope, knowing that you will love and be loved again.
When I let go of the man I thought was my soulmate and moved to NYC, my future suddenly appeared very bright.
I had the clarity and time to dig into building my business. I also had the whole NYC dating scene in front of me. I would be close to my kids and I was doing the thing I had always wanted to do – live in NYC!
Just know that you can let them go and you will be ok. After all, you have done this before and can do it again, although this time you will be truly primed for what’s next.
Learning how to let go, even if you don't want to at first, is an important lesson.
5. Take stock of your hopes and dreams.
Knowing specifically what you want is an important step in moving forward. If you just move ahead, not knowing where you are going or what you are seeking, you just might miss it when it comes along.
Once I settled in NYC, I made a list of what I wanted in three areas: my career, my love life and my life itself.
I wrote about what I wanted for my career and how I would feel when I achieved what I got for myself. I created a list of the steps that I would need to take to get my business going so that I had a path to getting there.
I wrote about what I wanted in my life and how it would feel when I got it. I literally painted a picture in words of what I wanted my ideal life to look like.
I wrote about the man I was looking for and the behaviors and personality traits that I wanted him to possess. I took stock of how I would feel when I found him. I made plan of how I was going to be able to find him.
I have to say that taking written stock of what I wanted was very effective. I was able to have those lists there, in front of me, whenever I needed to take the next step or whenever I started to doubt myself and lose my way. The list reminded me of how happy and successful I could be if I didn’t lose sight of my goals.
I still have those lists and I do read them now and then. It is amazing how much what I wrote seven years ago resembles how my career, my love life and my life itself looks today.
Learning that your soulmate doesn't love you back offers an opportunity to find newly-inspired hopes and dreams.
I know that it’s very hard for you to accept that your soulmate doesn’t love you back. And I get it.
Movies, television and books have led us to believe that we are searching for our soulmate, someone who will complete us but, I believe, that it’s just not true.
This person, your true soulmate, has come into your life to shake things up so that you will have the opportunity to get unstuck from your path and move forward in a way that will serve you.
If you can let go of the belief that your soulmate is your be all and end all, you can do it too!
Mitzi Bockmann is a certified life coach and relationship coach. She shares over 10 years of experience by helping her clients find the love they desire.