The definitions of a “soulmate” and a “life partner” are often seen as the same thing, but this is mostly a misconception.
A soulmate is essentially anyone who comes into your life to help you learn something, to teach, motivate, enrich, and help you grow to a higher state of thought, being, and consciousness.
Life partners are those who grow with you and effectively balance you out as you journey life together, no matter what changes happen or obstacles you go through. They are those who give you stability and consistency, while being someone you can trust and depend on in the long term and not just for a phase.
Given here are 5 major differences you can find between a soulmate and a life partner:
1. Guiding Lessons Vs. Lifetime Support
Soulmates can be friends, relatives, lovers, your doctor, or even your pet. They give you the push, passion, and motivation to learn something, for a short while or for a seemingly long phase in life. But once that phase is over, they usually go away, which results in a lot of heart ache if you are too attached.
Life partners usually share similar interests with you in life. They are your confidant, your guardian angel, pillar of strength, and someone who encourages you to take that leap of faith or take risks. They are the ones that stick around despite any obstacles. You tend to have a deep sense of faith in each other than with anyone else.
2. Different Spiritual Connection Levels
You will share an innate connection of heart, mind, and consciousness with your soulmate, but ego issues can wreak havoc. Like an up and down graph, your relationship with the soulmate goes through transitions, usually ending with a broken heart for you. Such relationships come in the form of karmic lessons to help you learn and evolve, breaking your ego and tearing you apart that will transform you with a higher sense of self.
Life partners are the ones that come when you are full of self-love, acceptance, and satisfied. There is no egoistic search or need you are looking to fulfill from a person, you are with them so you can refine that higher sense of self you have so long worked to balance and to be at peace. The two of you may have been through similar spiritual or emotional experiences, sharing a connection that aids your long-term journey, seldom tending to egoistic needs.
3. Time-Framed Or Timeless
Soulmates will make you feel as though you have known them forever, with similar ways of thinking and understanding. You may even share similar childhood stories and feel an almost magnetic attraction toward each other. Likewise, these relationships can be chaotic, turbulent, and destructive as you may mimic each other’s flaws and habits.
Life partners, on the other hand, will have a background and journey different from yours. These differences make the relationship a wholesome one, as you wish to know more about each other, learn from what you don’t know, and understand beyond your way of thinking. Feeling like you are at home with each other, this can even be a friendship that turns into a deeper love with each passing day—like souls that were already connected but only waiting for the physical encounter.
4. Whimsical Emotions Vs. Spiritual Stability
Soulmates connect well with your thoughts, habits, and feelings, without you having to convey them in words or in any other way. They know where you come from and why you feel a certain way.
Life partners are, however, those you’re spiritually and physically attracted to, wanting to learn from each other’s values and wisdom. It may take an extra bit of effort to fully understand one another, but you naturally grow and learn to love one another each time you try. Besides a mere emotional connection, the relationship is usually tied to logical and intellectual stimulation too, with infrequent highs and lows in the journey.
5. Life Experiences Of A Moment Or Long Term
Soulmates usually come when there is a need for you to get closure on an old chapter of life, and they end up being life-changing lessons. The love shared is usually full of delight but also with a lot of obstacles. Trying to make it work brings out the best and worst in both of you.
Relationships with life partners are less dramatic and quite easy. You feel a continuous connection day after day, even with mundane everyday events. There is no past or future that manipulates this union into something that it is not. It is just love in each moment. These relationships usually result in healthy marriages, as both sides are ready to be one, while still preserving their individuality and uniqueness.
These differences, however, are not set in stone. A soulmate can be your life partner and vice versa, the biggest difference being who you truly want to be with for the rest of your life and who you don’t. Each connection is special in its own way for its own purpose just as each person in the school of life, be it a friend or a stranger, acts as a potential teacher or student.
