Have You Found Your Soulmate?

When a Vacillator falls in love, they fall quickly and deeply.

Why? Because Vacillators are relational idealists.

As children, they experienced connection that was inconsistent—an emotionally or physically unavailable parent. One who is either warm and engaging one moment, then distant the next. Or one who just isn’t around all the time. 

The child has to wait for love, and they learn to protest to be seen. But after enough disappointment, they eventually become too hurt, angry, or hopeless to receive connection even when it’s offered. 

As adults, Vacillators, search for the consistent love they never had—a “soulmate.” Someone who finally gets them, wants them, and won’t ever let them down.

That’s why new relationships can feel magical—and they fall in love hard and fast.

They idealize new relationships, because the early stage of dating is all about time, attention, and  thoughtful connection. They think, “This is it. I found ‘the one.’”

But when reality replaces the honeymoon phase, disappointment and anger quickly follow. Then they think, “I got duped.”

Disappointment turns into protest, protest into despair, and despair into emotional detachment.

If they’re dating, Vacillator’s disconnect, and continue their search, but once married, they get stuck in a protest–despair–detachment cycle.

So, what happens when two Vacillators  marry? They should both understand each other, right?

Actually, rather than being soulmates, it’s double the protest, despair, and detachment power!

Amy and I married in 2012 after a whirlwind three–month romance, each believing we had found our soulmate. We quickly idealized one another, and because we married so quickly, we hadn’t even experienced a real conflict yet.

However, after the vows, was when real life began.

Our whirlwind romance quickly felt more like two tornadoes colliding as we soon realized we were also very alike when it came to conflict.

We both struggled to wait our turn in conversations. We both felt deeply disappointed and misunderstood. And we both protested in hurtful ways in an effort to convince the other to see our pain and respond differently.

Learning our attachment styles—and the core pattern they created together—was the insight we needed to see we were trying to love and attach from a place of brokenness and insecurity.

And the Comfort Circle and the Growth Goals  gave us the tools we needed to learn how to break it.

Soulmates don’t exist. The ability to grow together determines relationship outcomes.

We still have our moments of struggle, but our core pattern has lost a lot of its magnetic pull.

We’re much quicker to recognize the cycle once it starts, interrupt it, and remember the core pattern is the enemy—not each other.

I’m hopeful for a day when our core pattern will have no pull at all  

Until then, we’re on the journey with you.

The difference is that we now know the real path to connection. And that’s the true hope we need to stay committed to one another.