Soul mates and twin flames are dream relationships that many spiritual people long for. Those relationships are said to be destined by God or a higher power. If we are lucky enough to find our soul mate or twin flame, we will not only enjoy happiness and fulfillment beyond our dreams, but will also be fulfilling our divine mission. A win-win situation.
But believing that someone is our soul mate or twin flame can also be a blind alley. I know of a woman who stayed in a relationship with a man on the autistic spectrum, because she believed he was her soul mate. Due to his emotional constraints, he was – not surprisingly – largely incapable of a healthy relationship. Yet, the woman persisted because she felt a special connection to him and believed they were destined to be together.
Often, when we feel a special pull towards someone who is unable to love us back, it's not a higher power beckoning us, but in fact, our own unresolved emotional issues and our subconscious mind being attracted to this particular person.
This person might remind us of our emotionally unavailable parent. The child in us is immensely attracted to them because we hope that this time around, we will get the love we craved our entire childhood. With this person, we are getting an opportunity to finish the "unfinished business" and heal the wound of rejection that was created in our childhood. The prospect of this is wildly powerful and capable of convincing us that the person is our soul mate and destined to be with us.
The real cause of our attraction is psychological, and yet, it feels like divinely ordained because the pull is so strong, and persists even against our better judgment. The woman attracted to the autistic man may be very well aware of the suffering she is going through as he remains emotionally unresponsive. And yet, she feels compelled to stay with him and "help him heal", so they could "fulfill their divine mission".
In order to escape the soul mate trap, we would need to become aware of the psychological mechanism that makes us feel a strong pull towards someone, which we mistake for a divinely ordained spiritual bond. We would need to work on healing the real causes of our attraction to emotionally unavailable or abusive people. And the real cause often lies in our childhood and our unmet emotional needs, which we are trying to meet via people who remind us of our parents.
If the relationship is unfulfilling and unhealthy, there is no point in staying in it. For those who are religious, it certainly isn't God's will that we suffer and sacrifice for a "higher good" – by staying with someone who is unable to love us.
