Hina Patel believes she found her soul mate in India, through an arranged marriage when she was 23 years old.
“I always feel like he’s my soul mate,” Patel said of her husband. Patel also said she feels there is a soul mate for everyone.
There are many ways of meeting significant others, through an arranged marriage like Patel’s, starting a conversation at a coffee shop or a party, but one option has been increasing in popularity: online dating.
ClassmateCatch.com, an online dating website for post-secondary school students, lets students look for other students in their area.
Co-founder Christopher Gimmer said that Ottawa is quite keen on online dating with over 1,000 members from Ottawa’s post-secondary population.
When an account is deactivated on ClassmateCatch, it gives the user a list of reasons asking why they want to deactivate.
Reporting by Taylor Craig
Produced by Fraser Tripp
Gimmer said that one of the reasons is meeting someone from the website and beginning to date them, and many of the deactivations are for that reason.
Gimmer believes that it is possible to find “the one.”
“My good friend found his wife online dating and they had their second child a week ago,” Gimmer said.
Janet McCredie is a relationship and divorce recovery coach for the Relationship Resolution Centre, a company in Ottawa that coaches people with relationship issues, divorcees, even communication-related work issues.
McCredie said that people have “core values” that make up the basis of their personality.
“We start developing core values such as honesty, integrity, compassion, genuineness, loyalty, trust, etc. at a young age,” she said.
Humans begin developing core values while in their teens and by their 50s they have a strong set, McCredie said.
“When we are young we meet partners that share some of our core values and of course, the fun ones come out when we first meet,” McCredie said.
“ However, as we grow older and perhaps have lived with our partner for some time, the reality of finances, careers, relatives, children bring out the best and the worst in us,” McCredie said.
McCredie said that relationships begin to fall apart when couples are faced with “incompatible core values.”
“For example, if you have honesty as a core value and you see your partner lying to you, other people, or to themself, then it chips away at your honesty core value. Every time you catch them telling a lie, it chips away at your respect for the person and chips away at the friendship,” she said.
“When we have children, one parent may be very family/child-oriented but the other not. This causes a clash between parents and their opposite core values.”
McCredie said that once a person determines their core values they are able to understand why they are attracted and remain attracted to their significant other.
She said that couples often fight because of what the other person is doing, instead of why it is a problem for them.
“If you are in a relationship and you are fighting all the time, get some help. You can be trained on the elements of a relationship so that it becomes logical rather than an out-of-control emotional spiral. You would get driving lessons when you want to learn to drive a car, why not get relationship lessons,” McCredie said
McCredie believes in soul mates and said that she found her own soul mate at the age of 47.
“After I became aware of the term ‘core values,’ I figured out the values that I was looking for in a mate. Rather than looking for behaviours that I didn’t want, I looked for values that I did want. I even made a list of them. Then I looked for them and appreciated them when I found them in another person,” McCredie said.
McCredie describes a soul mate as being a person one is very comfortable around.
She said that there are no games or unsaid words or emotions.
“You finish each other’s sentences. You find humour in the same things and will know a joke about something at the same time (without saying a word),” she said.
However, McCredie said that a soul mate is also a complete person when not around their significant other.
She said that they must be strong enough to be their own person and do not have to rely on their significant other to make them happy or complete.
McCredie began training as a divorce mediator when she was 50 years old. She also began a divorce recovery program and developed a couples’ tune-up program.
“I saw a need for people that needed training about their relationships. So I founded the Relationship Resolution Centre, Inc. to fill that void,” McCredie said.
McCredie said she helps people to improve their relationship, understand why they choose bad relationships or cannot find a relationship, decide whether their present relationship is right for them.
“I help them close down their relationship through mediation and finally, recover from a breakdown of a relationship,” McCredie said.
McCredie said that these elements are also relevant to business and family relationships, group dynamics, and other professional relationships.
She said her clients are able to leave with a greater understanding of what is right or wrong with their relationships and the tools to fix anything that is not working in their relationship.
“I tell my clients that I should take a ‘before’ and ‘after’ photo of them because you can see the stress and sadness just lift off their faces,” McCredie said.
