A24’s new anti-romcom The Drama takes a fear a lot of couples quietly carry and turns it into a full-blown spiral. The film stars Zendaya and Robert Pattinson as an engaged couple whose wedding week gets thrown off course after an unexpected revelation, sending both of them into a tailspin about whether they really know each other at all.
Most relationships will not be rocked by the kind of cinematic chaos The Drama is working with. But the anxiety underneath it is real enough: How do you know you’re marrying the right person? Or, if you’re already married, how do you know you chose well?
It’s one of those questions Christians can spend years overthinking. Career choices matter. Where you live matters. Money decisions matter. But marriage has a different kind of weight to it, which is why people so often treat it like a divine puzzle they have to solve perfectly before it’s too late.
That pressure is part of why Debra Fileta, a licensed professional counselor and relationship expert, says the whole soulmate framework can do more damage than people realize.
“I think this philosophy of a ‘soul mate’ has done far more harm than good in our society,” Fileta says.
And honestly, she’s right. A lot of Christians have been taught to approach marriage like there is one perfect hidden person out there, and if they miss God’s signal, they’ll spend the rest of their lives wondering if they blew it. That idea may sound spiritual. Mostly, it just makes people anxious.
Fileta says the concept itself is built more on myth than Scripture. More importantly, it trains people to trust intensity over wisdom.
“It’s a dangerous concept because it fools you into believing that love and marriage hinge on emotional ecstasy,” Fileta says.
That is usually where things start to go sideways. People confuse chemistry with confirmation. They confuse strong feelings with deep compatibility. They assume peace means certainty, when sometimes it just means they really want something to work.
“Feelings can’t be trusted. They may help point us in the right direction, but they should never be the sole foundation on which an entire relationship is based,” Fileta says.
That doesn’t mean feelings do not matter. It means they are not enough. A healthy marriage needs more than butterflies, more than a good prayer life, more than the vague sense that this person just feels right. It needs evidence. It needs patterns. It needs character sturdy enough to hold up once real life arrives and romance stops doing all the heavy lifting.
That’s where this conversation usually needs to shift. The real issue isn’t whether a perfect person exists. It’s whether the person you chose has the character, honesty and faith to build a life that can last.
Healthy relationships, Fileta says, are “founded in faith, rooted in good choices and grounded in hard work and a whole lot of grace.”
That’s a much more useful grid than asking whether someone is “the one.” Because “the one” is abstract. Character is not. Character shows up in how someone handles disappointment. It shows up in whether they tell the truth. It shows up in how they respond to correction, how they treat people who can’t do anything for them, whether they take responsibility when they hurt someone and whether their private life matches the version of themselves they present in public.
In other words, if you’re trying to figure out whether you’re building with the right person, stop asking only whether you feel deeply connected and start asking whether this relationship is actually healthy.
“They are based on positive interactions, effective communication and an emotional give-and-take with another human being that reflects health and wholeness,” Fileta says of healthy relationships.
That kind of relationship may include sparks and romance and all the things people write songs about. But it is not built on vibes alone. It is built on trust, honesty, mutual maturity and the ability to repair conflict instead of just surviving it.
That is also why community matters so much, even if people hate hearing that. Love can make smart people ignore obvious red flags. Trusted friends, mentors and family members often see what the couple in the middle of it cannot. Not every outside opinion deserves equal weight, obviously. But wise community can save people from confusing infatuation with discernment.
Fileta says people should stop waiting around for some mystical moment and instead pay attention to the actual people God has already placed in their lives.
“Get to know yourself, and then get to know people … who have the qualities you are looking for in a future mate,” Fileta says.
That sounds almost too simple, which is probably why people skip past it. But it is far more helpful than obsessing over whether a relationship feels dramatic enough to be destiny. A strong marriage is not usually built on a lightning bolt. It is built on a series of wise choices made in the light.
That is also why people should not panic if a relationship doesn’t begin with some kind of movie-worthy rush.
“Don’t freak out if the feelings aren’t magical or mystical, because frankly, they were never intended to be,” Fileta says.
That may be the most freeing part of this whole conversation. For all the pressure Christians put on marriage, Scripture does not ask people to find a flawless soulmate with supernatural certainty. It calls them to wisdom, truth and maturity. It calls them to choose someone whose life makes covenant look possible, not just exciting.
For anyone already married and quietly wondering whether they chose the wrong person, replaying that question on a loop usually does more harm than good. Regret is not a strategy. Fantasy is not discernment. The better question now is what faithfulness, honesty and healing require in the relationship you actually have.
Because at the end of the day, the goal is not to crack some secret divine code. The goal is to choose wisely and love faithfully.
“True love is based on a healthy combination of facts and feelings, and a whole lot of good choices,” Fileta says.
That may not be as cinematic as soulmates, but it’s a lot more likely to last.
