When did you know that your found your soulmate?

[mono_gram]

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

I don't actually believe in the concept of soulmates. It seems a bit too idealized for my taste. Instead I think in terms of compatibility. Still, I suppose my wife is the closest thing to a "soulmate" that I've ever encountered and can likely ever hope to encounter (as in extremely compatible).

As for how I came to realize we had this compatibility, it's difficult to pinpoint it to a single moment. It's more like something I came to realize more and more with each passing year and continue to do so with each passing year even though we've been married for 14 years.

Still, one of the early signs was when we were just friends hanging out. We went to so many parties and other social events and we'd always end up talking privately, like at the balcony of a friend's house. We'd almost forget we had other friends until our friends shouted, "Hey, you two are missing the party!" Then we'd rejoin but find our way back again talking at the edge of the party.

One of the things is that she has a communication style uncannily similar to mine. I prefer, for lack of knowledge of a better term, a "sharing" mode of communication. It takes turns sharing deep things about each other, often with minimal need to prompt each other (minimal need to ask questions). It's a style of communication which can seem self-absorbed to some people but its real goal is to promote maximum empathy and mutual understanding.

For example, say I share my preference for Android phones and someone says, "Android sucks! iOS is way better! You have horrible taste!" Then instead of arguing with the person, I prefer to go into my childhood and how I became a software developer and why I prefer the ability to write my on programs for my Android phone and plug in general-purpose USB devices without having to purchase Apple-approved Bluetooth hardware or jailbreak an iPhone.

Then my hope is that they reciprocate and share their childhood with me and why they came to love iPhones instead. This way, even if I continue to favor Android and the other person still favors iPhone, we might be able to understand each other's perspectives better and at least peacefully agree to disagree while developing deep empathy for each other and possibly even become friends. Unfortunately, very few people actually do this in my experience; when I switch to sharing mode to avoid having to debate or argue, many go deeper on the offensive and don't share a thing about themselves.

My wife shares this communication style more than any other woman I ever met. We're both among the most extreme cases of "open-booked sharers". As a result, we haven't really fought once in 14 years of marriage because whenever we have a conflict with each other, we switch to this sharing mode of communication before anyone gets too upset, and then we start seeing things through each other's eyes. After that, we quickly come to laugh and hug and the conflict ends almost as soon as it started.

So realizing we had this communication style so in common was one of the first things I realized that made my wife more compatible with me than any other ex I ever had. There were many other things, but that's one of the first and foremost that really stood out.

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

[*] [...] why I prefer the ability to write my [own] programs for my Android phone and plug in general-purpose USB devices [...]

[GuyAnswersGirls123]

Also if we put any stock in MBTI and Jung tests, then I am ENFP and my wife is INFP and we test very close to each other except I'm an extrovert and she's an introvert. That's the only big difference. This might be a part of why our empathy-oriented communication style is so in common.

[jahaims]

Soulmates don't exist

[dinojames22]

You don't.