Recently my friend Angela called me in tears. Angela, 31, and her husband have been married for three years, and they are very well-suited: They can spend hours talking and laughing, are attracted to each other, get along with each other's friends and families, and agree on faith, politics, and financial matters. But recently, she told me, the "glow" had worn off. They were busy with their careers, and in moments of exhaustion each said some hurtful things to the other.

"He was supposed to be my best friend. He was the one who said he could never hurt me, but he has. I thought he was my soul mate, my everything, but now I'm worried I made a mistake," she said, sobbing.

"That's why you have friends and family, too," I said. "He should be your husband, not your everything."

Angela's fears are increasingly common: When young Catholics marry today, some 88 percent say they want their spouse to be their soul mate first and foremost, according to a recent survey by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University. The quest for a soul-mate marriage is a modern trend: Young Catholics 50 years ago had a very different perspective. Indeed, the CARA survey found that older Catholics are less likely to say marrying a soul mate is a top priority.

It's very romantic, really, and the stuff love songs are made of: You live as best you can alone, and then one day you meet your other half, the person who completes you in every way. This person always knows how to make you laugh, how to make you feel cherished, and will never hurt you.

But looking for a soul mate-and believing your significant other or spouse is your soul mate-can be a recipe for disaster in modern relationships. Some 20 percent of American couples file for divorce before their fifth anniversary. Could we be setting ourselves up for disappointment after the first blush of passion fades?

Yes, finding a true friend-someone you click with, someone with whom you can share your emotions and communicate well-is central to making a good match. But the idea that there is one person who will fulfill all our needs, one soul mate out there for each of us, is a childish idea that should be put aside with the tooth fairy.

When Americans talk about soul mates, they mean someone whom they love and who loves them, who will make them as happy as they can possibly be for all time. Everything will be easy with your soul mate. With this person by your side, there's nothing you can't do. The inverse of this, of course, is that if you make the wrong choice, you will be less happy, things will be less easy, and you will accomplish less than you could have had you found your real soul mate.

On average Americans are getting married later in life. This means we meet a lot of different people, and most of us date a fair bit before we marry. There are all sorts of benefits to later marriage-we're older and wiser-but there's one troubling theme I hear from so many men and women: The longer we wait for marriage, the more convinced we are that we deserve a soul mate, a perfect match in every way.

The quest for a soul mate makes it hard to find a spouse and puts unnecessary pressure on your relationship once married. Here's why:

First, in this search for our supposed soul mate, we don't know what to look for. Are you looking for someone who has similar taste in music? Who makes you go weak-kneed? Are you looking for someone just like you? Are we sure we are prioritizing the right things on our list of characteristics for Mr. or Ms. Perfect?

While the vast majority of singles say they are looking for a soul mate, nearly half (43 percent) of unmarried Catholics say it is "not at all" important that their spouse be Catholic, according to the recent CARA report. Perhaps our priorities are out of whack. If we are confused about what a "perfect match" should look like, we're likely to overlook some perfectly wonderful people for very silly reasons and are inclined to prioritize more superficial aspects of someone's personality or interests more than issues of shared faith.