A False Soulmate is a person who someone has a deep romantic love for, but the relationship is for some reason not meant to be, perhaps because of the love interest not sharing the same feelings, incompatibility, or misjudgment of character.
Mary Rose, Beware the False Soulmate (Psychics Blog) , Beware the False Soulmate ( California "'Follow your heart.' Ha! Sometimes the heart sends confusing messages. Contemplation, counseling, friends, and readings can help us sort our true convictions from the false ones, though we flat-out disagree with the advice sometimes. Yet even THAT may tell us a lot. We usually need help sorting it out. But there's always a lesson!"
A False Soulmate is a person who someone has a deep romantic love for, but the relationship is for some reason not meant to be, perhaps because of the love interest not sharing the same feelings, incompatibility, or misjudgment of character. Alternatively, the relationship ends up being a failure or catastrophe because the love interest's personality or behavior has changed in a negative way (e.g. the love interest may be unfaithful, a user, a criminal, mentally unstable, or a drug-addict). This may stem from Puppy Love, or personality traits that the love interest either had or had more of when they were younger. The Serial Romeo is particularly prone to encountering this.
This often overlaps with Romantic False Lead. Compare Love Cannot Overcome, Loving a Shadow, Starcrossed Lovers, Unlucky Childhood Friend and Wrong Guy First (if the character meets their false soulmate before their true soulmate). Compare and contrast with One True Love. If the audience thinks a love interest unintentionally comes off this way, it's likely a case of Designated Love Interest or Strangled by the Red String.
Due to the nature of this trope, there may be unmarked spoilers below.
Examples:
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Comic Books
Spider-Man, being that it originated as a teenage hero, has a problem in that the constant running melodrama that Marvel likes spinning since their adoption of "the illusion of change" corporate mandate makes it difficult for any girl to be Spider-Man's soulmate for long, at least on the part of editors and executives if not necessarily writers and fans: Gwen Stacy was Peter's first real relationship, the first girl he fell in love with, and both Lee and Romita Sr. thought initially that she and Peter would be the Official Couple. But readers never liked the relationship since they her as a bland character and didn't care for the fact that she liked Peter but hated Spider-Man, wrongfully blaming him for her father's death. Even Stan Lee admitted that he saw Gwen as uninteresting. The writer Gerry Conway saw Gwen as a false soulmate but felt it would be interesting to add drama for her to die in a famous storyline that in his view allowed him to satisfy both groups. Gwen fans could see her as Peter's The while those who didn't care for her could happily start rooting for Peter to get with his real soulmate, Mary Jane Watson. Mary Jane Watson is a zig-zagged example. Originally, she was established as a Blind Date Peter's Aunt May had set up with her nephew, who largely avoided her because he didn't like the idea of being such a loser that he needed his aunt to be his wingman. After early hints that Peter was making a mistake skipping on her (namely that Liz and Betty run into her and their thought bubbles confirm she is incredibly pretty), many thought that she was set up as the Last Girl Wins (in a time when Marvel Comics hadn't adopted Comic-Book Time and early readers believed that the story would eventually have an ending) which was buoyed after her iconic appearance. Gerry Conway, who had read the comics since the beginning and who like all readers saw MJ as fitting, set them up as a couple, and he repeatedly stated that MJ and Peter were made for each other. But a perfect relationship had the problem of potentially leading the story to an end, so Marvel has tried to push back even if in practical terms, she is Spider-Man's most common, recurring, iconic love interest and Peter and Mary Jane are the most important relationship the pair ever had.
Fan Works
Are men with attractive wives happier?
Hot wife, happy life? According to a recent study, it turns out that's true. Men with attractive wives have happier marriages. A study published in...
In Splint, Ingrid ended up being this for Cadoc. They were married and had a son together, but while Cadoc loved her, he tended to put his duty to Gondor first and spent a lot of time away from home. Ingrid eventually got sick of this and her love for Cadoc faded; not even a year after their divorce, she remarried to Baladnor, whom she seems much happier with, while Cadoc eventually finds love again with Rukhash, who appears to understand him on a more fundamental level than Ingrid did.
What It Takes: Felicity Smoak to Oliver Queen. At the start of the story, they're vacationing in Bali and seemingly happier than ever. However, their relationship hits a rough patch after Oliver starts getting homesick, and when he asks her about returning to Starling, she's extremely hostile to the idea, causing an argument. Their relationship gradually deteriorates from that point on with Felicity's continuous refusal to go back and visit their loved ones. And then they're visited by Athena and attacked by H.I.V.E., whereupon he learns that she's been deliberately isolating him from his loved ones, who are in a major crisis and have been all but begging him to come back and help. Oliver immediately calls her out on her actions, but her refusal to accept any blame or to go back and help them with him effectively destroys their relationship and any hope of them getting back together after. Not long after, Oliver returns to Starling and eventually gets back together with Laurel Lance while they're still on the run, and is much happier .
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Penelope is revealed to be one of the Gold Digger and Evil All Along variety in Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. Bentley is convinced that she's a Nice Girl who helped him get over his developing resentment towards Sly. In reality, Penelope is a jealous sociopath who only pretended to love Bentley for his skills so she could make a fortune in weapon designs. Bentley does not take the reveal well, and his attempts to reason with her almost gets him and Sly murdered.
Visual Novels
Do onions Work eyes?
Onions can give you good vision The selenium in onion helps in the production of vitamin E, which in turn keeps this painful eye problem at bay. In...
Infatuation Rules
Photo: Dmitriy Ganin
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