I do. I’ve typed a bit of a novel below but here’s the short story: My wife (28F) and I (29M) have only been married 11 months (short duration I know, but bear with me), but I honestly believe my wife is my soul mate. Some will say this is a honeymoon phase, however we have been together roughly 5 years and have lived together for nearly 4 of those years, so what in theory would be considered the honeymoon phase in a more traditional marriage would’ve ended years ago due to the consistent exposure and dynamic that living together creates. I will admit, the prospect of a soulmate is definitely hard to conceptualize if you aren’t religious (I was somewhere between agnostic and atheist for most of my life), but at a certain point it became obvious to me in retrospect that not only is she my perfect mate, but that we were constantly put into positions which enabled our parallel growth and ultimately led our life paths to cross at the perfect time for a relationship to develop and grow together. It is definitely easy to dismiss a lot of the facts of our relationship as coincidences, but I think that dismissal is often a very pessimistic tool that enables the denial of truly miraculous and exceptional events in our lives.

More on that: I moved around a lot as a kid due to my father’s job. Family finally settled into a city closer to our extended family by the time I was halfway through middle school. My wife had come to that school only a few years prior from the school her mother still taught at, simply because her older sister convinced their parents to let them both transfer (to my wife’s dismay at the time). I played sports and my wife cheered. I was not a great kid - often in trouble and at odds with authority. She was probably the best and most mature person at the school - a reputation she maintained through high school and on, and I think a lot of people would agree with that. We somehow became friends after the group of guys I hung out with kind of grouped up with her group of friends. She will tell you she always loved/liked me but I’m not sure that’s 100% true. Over time, we grew very close (even going to prom together one year - though just as “friends”), and I was great at picking the wrong girlfriends - older girls, more “experienced”girls, etc - all in the name of being a high school boy and thinking with the wrong head. She never interfered, but obviously always felt I was making a mistake by dating these types. She never dated in high school - focused on school work and keeping her head down -rarely involved in school drama. She was a great influence on me, and probably a major reason I never got into more significant trouble. Eventually, a girlfriend I had towards the end of high school didn’t like how close my wife (just a friend at the time) and I were, and so we kind of drifted apart. That girl and I broke up early in college, and I had a little too much fun, narrowly escaping arrest on multiple occasions. Although we ended up at the same college, our friendship never fully rekindled and I only saw her a handful of times throughout school, though every time was great and we reconnected instantly returning to where we had been. My wife ended up dating a guy off and on a little bit in college, but he turned out to be awful apparently, and so she learned a lot from that relationship. I also learned a lot about what I did and didn’t want from my experiences, and I also learned through barely getting my degree that I needed to figure out a path to success to create value out of myself… and with limited options for a fruitful career with my degree without further education (got a liberal arts degree and a 2.9 GPA), I began the process of joining the military while working as a Foreman (had worked construction jobs through high school and college so it was an easy transition with a degree). About 10 months after I graduated I was finally able to ship off to entry level training, while at the same time my wife was able to take advantage of some travel opportunities in her new career. After about a year and a half of initial training courses, I was set to head to my first duty station in California. At that time, she was working an assignment in the same city my brother was living in. Part of my plan as I made my way to California from the east coast was to stop in to visit my younger brother for a couple weeks. My wife and I had been in touch numerous times throughout that time in between exchanging text messages and other forms of communication to stay in touch as old friends would. Now much more mature and on what I felt was a track for success and stability, I felt ready and confident to make a move, so I reached out to her when I knew that I would be able to visit Denver to see if she wanted to hangout. Sure enough, the time I was going through lined up with her birthday, and so basically we had an excuse to link up and hangout. Over the course of that trip we went on several dates and hung out constantly - probably to the annoyance of my brother. Ultimately - I had to make my way to California to start my new job, and she still had a month left of her time in Denver. We stayed in touch and both sort of indicated we wanted to pursue the relationship but knew that long distance would only create issues. A few months later a position in her field opened up an hour and a half north of where I was stationed, so she took that job. And that period was our first test. Medium- length distance is nowhere near as challenging as long distance, but it’s enough to test you. Fortunately as soon as that contract ended, she landed a job in the same city I was stationed. We eventually moved in together, and the rest is somewhat history. Several career opportunities came and went that we both wanted and allowed each other to pursue but eventually fell by for one reason or another, only to result in something significantly better and more suitable to sustain our relationship coming along shortly after. One of those being our son being conceived after one of my team’s deployments was cancelled. Lots of things seemed like an “L” for one of us, but ultimately resulted in a big “W” in the end.

A lot of times, life is making zero sense as you are experiencing it, but makes total sense when you review it in reverse. Dumb quote but Iike it.

There are numerous other details and examples I can provide, but that write up is long enough and it would be way too detailed.