My friend is getting married to a wonderful man in October. They make each other happy and they compliment one another in such a way that it is obvious they belong together. Never have I seen two people who fit together the way they do. She knew from their first date forward that they would spend the rest of their lives together and even called her mom that night and told her she had met the man she was going to marry.
I have another friend who knew the man she is engaged to was The One before she ever met him in person. They met playing WOW or City of Heroes, I can’t remember which, and at the time she was dating another man that she truly cared about. But when she met her fiance online she knew her current relationship was over and drove 400 miles to meet her new man in person. They have been inseparable ever since.
I have been on many dates where I knew within a few moments that the person was NOT going to be someone I could spend my life with and I have met a few that I knew I wanted to get to know better but I have never had that immediate connection the way my friends and their SO’s did. I like to think that when you meet that person you will spend your life with you just KNOW, but that seems a bit far fetched to me.
How soon did you know that your SO was going to be your spouse/life partner/etc.? Was it a mutual feeling or did one of you know long before the other that this relationship was meant to be permanent?
Hard for me to recall exactly (we’ve been together for almost 19 years). Certainly within 6 months of the time we started seeing each other, maybe sooner.
I knew when I was waiting for his dog to poop (I was pet sitting while he went to South by Southwest). We’d been dating for about six weeks but I’d been refusing to date him for the previous three years.
We were friends for a year and then one day it just clicked. We started dating and I knew I’d be with her for the long haul within the first week or two. That was seven years ago and our third anniversary is in a few weeks.
When I was driving home from his place after our first real ‘date’ - we’d been hanging out casually for a couple of months, but this was the first time I’d been to his house. He cooked me a great dinner and we watched a couple of movies.
I drove home and while I was thinking about what a great night it had been, I started crying. I was just so happy that I’d found “the one” that it overwhelmed me to the point that I was in tears.
6 years? My SO and I were in the same circle of friends, in college. We saw each other all the time. It wasn’t until about 2 years after we had both graduated that we started dating, and then maybe another 6 months before I starting thinking about it as a permanent thing. There was never a moment of revelation. We’ve been together for over 16 years now.
So based on this set of responses no one took longer than 6 months from their first date (not counting friendships formed before that time) to truly figure out that this was the person for them. Most of the people who have responded knew in less than 3 months time.
Now the other question I have is whether or not you had ever felt that way about anyone else before you went on that fateful first date with your one and only. Have you ever met anyone else and known within less than 3 months that you belonged together only to be proven wrong later?
Nope. There were people that I thought I might end up with, not because I knew that we were right for each other but because I thought it might just end up that way. No one else produced the same certainty as my wife.
To the first question, I pretty much knew right away. Within a couple of minutes. By the end of our 3rd date it was not only obvious to us but to everyone in a 50 mile radius.
Yes, once. The batshit insane stuff surfaced right around 3 months in.
FTR, my One and Only celebrate our 2 month anniversary tomorrow.
Within the first month of interacting with him I thought I knew. Before I actually met him face to face. In fact, I told my (shocked) sister before leaving to meet him that I was off to meet the man I was going to marry. He felt the same way.
When we did actually meet, we were certain and we were living together 5 months later.
As for the second question. Never. Not even close. I never had any desire to marry. I never had any desire to live with someone ‘happily ever after.’ I never felt like pursuing a relationship with any of the men or women I dated because they just were not it, whatever ‘it’ was. Actually, until I met my husband, I didn’t really even believe in ‘it’. I saw no reason to compromise on what I thought was such an important relationship when I was perfectly happy on my own.
We met online, figure 4 or 5 weeks of emailing, then IMing then daily phone calls before we actually met in person.
I remember giddily getting ready for my first date, my sister had stopped by for a sanity check as I’m not generally known for giddiness, and I told her then that this was the real thing. The first real date didn’t feel like one, no nervous butterflies and awkward pauses, but more of a validation that I was right.
Naturally I kept that opinion to myself, it took him a few months to catch up to me. Two and a half years later we’re still pretty twitterpated, living together and planning a wedding.
I didn’t have a moment of revelation but I did know within the first few weeks. It took him a little longer to figure it out but I think that’s because he was having a hard time wrapping his head around the fact that he was dating his best friend’s little sister.
The first time, I could be excused for feeling that way – I was 18, she was 32, and the sex was amazing. Didn’t last, of course.
The second time, I was in grad school, and we were both deeply in love – but she didn’t feel like she could commit to me (i.e., she knew I was thinking about proposing) because she was planning on going to medical school, and didn’t think it would be possible for her to both have a relationship and focus herself on her studies. So, she pre-emptively broke up with me before I could propose…that one hurt, for a very long time.
It took a near break-up for both of us to know. I was having a hard time letting down some internal barriers (I was still stinging from an earlier breakup), and she nearly broke up with me. But the e-mail she sent me made me feel so sick to my stomach that I knew I had to win her back right away, so I left work in the middle of the day and showed up on her porch. (She still has the text message I sent her telling her I was waiting outside for her.) It’s been nothing but growing closer and better ever since.
I met my SO 4 years ago playing an MMO. With him, it was evident from the start that this relationship was different. With others, there was always some deep-set anxiety over the whole thing-- Will this work? Is this even a good idea? But with my SO, it was never that kind of nervousness. It was more like, Is this really happening? How long can things stay this good?
There were many steps along the way where for anyone else I would’ve stopped and asked myself if it was a good idea to do what I was doing. But for him, it was always the right thing to do. It was right to send him a letter and my picture. It was right to give him my phone number. It was right to meet up with him and his friends for the weekend. It was right to move in together. Some steps were leaps of faith that they were good ideas, but they all proved to be good ideas.
Didn’t last, of course.