They say if you can't be with the one you love, love the one you're with. This sentiment is echoed in Crosby Stills and Nash's song, as well as in a recent song by Kelly Clarkson. But just passing time with someone while you're waiting for your one true love is difficult. 

There are many stories of people who have secret lives, who make up lies and tell one lover - even a spouse - that they are with them, and really they are with someone else - if not physically, then at least mentally or emotionally.

Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina brought this to bear in national headlines last Summer when he disclosed that he was having an affair with a woman - but not just any woman - an exotic woman from Argentina. And all this from a supposed family man - a devoted father of 4 - who went to visit this woman instead of spending Father's Day with his own kids.

The Conservative Republican Governor was called on the carpet - so to speak, when he disappeared when he was needed for governmental matters. Sanford's staff had originally said the governor had gone hiking along the Appalachian Trail. Is that what they are calling extramarital affairs these days? 

Ultimately Sanford admitted that he spent a week with the beautiful journalist Maria Belen Chapur. Sanford explained to the Associated Press:  "This was a whole lot more than a simple affair; this was a love story."  Sanford described the relationship as a "forbidden one, a tragic one, but a love story at the end of the day." 

Sanford reportedly met Ms. Chapur in 2001 at an open air dance spot in Uruguay. He traveled periodically to New York for romantic junkets with her and corresponded with her by email. 

Naturally there are two sides (at least) to every story, and Sanford's wife, Jenny, asked her husband to leave the home. In a prepared statement, Jenny said, "We reached a point where I felt it was important to look my sons in the eyes and maintain my dignity, self-respect and my basic sense of right and wrong," noting the potential damage her husband's actions may have caused her children. Query:  Does this sound like a woman who is hurt?  Does this even sound like a woman in love with her husband? Dignity and self-respect - are these qualities that can exist side by side in the Realm of Love? 

Who was this Argentinean woman? Sanford described her as his "soul mate". Was Jenny ever described that way? Did Jenny think of Sanford as her "soul mate"? Would a soul mate ask her counterpart, as Jenny did, to "work towards reconciliation with a true spirit of humility and repentance"? Probably not - indeed, the soul mate would likely be wondering why the other had wandered off in the first place. What was missing from the relationship? 

Pride has no place in a truly loving relationship, and making another person grovel doesn't engender loving feelings. Of course, that doesn't mean one has to become a doormat and accept another's indiscretions. But Sanford's relationship, at least for Sanford, and presumably for Chapur, wasn't an indiscretion.  It was a "tragic" "love story". Why? Because Sanford believes he found his "soul mate" in this woman.

Sanford was quoted as saying, "I will be able to die knowing that I had met my soul mate." 

If Sanford really believes in his heart of hearts that Chapur is his soul mate, then "trying to "fall back in love" with his wife could never work. Just look at Prince Charles. His love for his "soul mate" ruined his marriage with Princes Diana, but ultimately, he was able to be with his beloved Camilla. At least one writer, Sarah Tanner, declares that Camilla Parker Bowles' and Prince Charles' story is "the greatest love story of our time."

The thing about true soul mates is that they are destined to be together. Indeed, there is no space of time that will change that connection. And only time will bear out whether two people are soul mates. 

Jenny is clearly not Sanford's soul mate - nor is he hers. They raised a family together over the span of 20 years, but for 8 of those, Sanford's heart was elsewhere. Certainly she must have known as that he wasn't fully present in the marriage. Certainly, she must have seen a change in him when he met Chapur, as many people report that they notice a marked difference in a person when they fall in love. Who would know better than his own wife who lives with him? Meeting the person you believe to be your soul mate would change you; you would become half of a whole and whole all at once. That is, if you believe in that sort of thing.

If you're married to someone else when you meet your soul mate, you have a choice; you can deny those feelings, which are deep and strong and rooted in something bigger than yourself, and go on with the day-to-day, or you can embrace Love. But in embracing Love, you should do the right thing and be up front about it. Don't lie. If you do, if you cheat, if you try to have your cake and eat it too, people will get hurt. 

Affairs are negative because they involving lying and cheating. They involve sometimes torrid and disturbing behavior. But it doesn't have to be that way. You don't have to have your love fulfilled at the expense of someone else's happiness. You can live up to your financial responsibilities to the other person (and your children, if any) and your responsibility to be honest with yourself and with your counterpart. If it's time for a separation or even divorce, it was probably time for that before you met your soul mate. Indeed, people get married or are involved in long term relationships for all kinds of reasons - many of which have nothing to do with being with their soul mate. So if your soul mate comes along later, how you handle it is up to you. There can never really be a happily ever after if you don't minimize the hurt you cause the other people with whom you've shared your life in the meantime.