@Sherman_Alexie: “#2 reason for divorce: Belief in “soulmates.” #1: shagging someone else’s “soulmate.””

I guess he hasn’t seen very many long lived couples.   I have.   Soulmates is a real thing.   But not everyone has that temperament for monogamy.   People who don’t should leave people who do alone, and vice-versa.   I would submit that a big cause of divorce is our culture places too much emphasis on monogamy and not enough on trustworthiness.   But before you can be honest with others you need to be honest with yourself.   You need to cultivate that habit of truth telling internally.   The culture that discourages that is cutting its own throat.   Not everyone is heterosexual. Not everyone is innately monogamous.

Some of us are.   And we who are and those who are not seem always to be staring at each other in disbelief and fussing with each other about all the wrong things.   Belief in soulmates isn’t a problem…soulmates are a real thing…belief that only monogamy is moral is a problem.   Cheating is immoral.   Lying just to get inside someone’s pants is immoral.   Sex for its own sake is not in and of itself immoral.   You live long enough and you will see lots of long lived happy couples and lots of thoroughly decent moral trustworthy people who’ve had lots and lots of lovers.   Monogamy is a temperament, not an ideal.