What was the turning point in your relationship with your current SO or ex SO? In otherwords, at what point did you know that the person you were dating was going to be the one you wanted to stay with for your lifetime? Was it something specific they did, the way the handled a major event or the accumulation of checking off all of the things you wanted in another individual? Or was it something altogether different?
In my case I was married only 45 days after meeting miss right it lasted for eight years. I wish I could say that there was a great deal of thought put into the decision, there was not. I liked her and she liked me back that was about all there was to it. Oh she also laughed at my jokes. 
I was married for over 20 years before my divorce, and although still friends with my Ex., I vowed to myself that I would never marry again. Then I met ‘C’, we courted, got to know each other well & eventually asked her to come to the Lake District with me on holiday.
One afternoon, pouring with rain outside, she lay there on the rug, in all her glory, in front of the blazing open fire, and believe it or not we just chatted! Several glasses of wine later, she went to sleep! It was then, looking at her laying there that I knew that I could not be without this lady.
That was over eight years ago, we married, & we’ve made up for the chatting & sleeping bit quite a bit since then.
Life is Great!
On our second date, he told me I was going to marry him. I scoffed, then thought about it for a week, then decided he was right. Three weeks after that, we eloped. it’ll be 20 years in December.
There was no sudden revelation. I just knew that he and I would spend the rest of our lives together.
When I realized that he was stable, sane, and wouldn’t play head games with me (unlike the screwed up family I grew up in), I knew I wanted to marry him. I asked him, and he said no; he was straight out of a bad first marriage, and, you know, once bitten twice shy and all that stuff. I kept telling him “One of these days, you’re going to wake up and realize I’m the best thing that ever happened to you. Then you’re going to marry me” and he’d say “Don’t hold your breath. I’m never getting married again”, but I never believed him, because the whole time he was saying he wouldn’t marry me, he was acting like we were already married. We had a baby, lived together, shared a home and our lives. One Monday morning, I just had a feeling. I told him Mom “I think we’re going to get engaged tonight”. That night, we went out for a drink, and he said, “Well, if you still want me, here I am”. We’ve been together for 20 years, and married for almost 15. I’ve never regretted it for a moment. He’s every bit as wonderful as I thought he would be.
It took me a couple of years to get really used to him because we were in a long distance relationship. I was always reserved – just a little – until one day when something made me incredibly, irrationally angry.
It wasn’t him, it was some beaurocratic nonsense that pushed me over the edge enough to rant and kick things. (Not my normal behavior :p)
Instead of being shocked or disdainful or anything, he was very understanding and let me work it out. Then when I finally burst into tears (again, not a normal occurence) he held me, and then JOKED to make me happy, and it worked!
Then he suggested a walk, and we walked around in the beautiful spring air, holding hands and giggling, and I thought: This guy is the most wonderful man I have ever met! He can take my worst without pause and make me smile not a half hour later!
Then I knew.
He had already asked me to marry him by this point, and I had already said yes, but I hadn’t really thought about what a life together would entail. Through thick and thin, goodness and health, and so on. Right then I thought, Yes, there will be bad times, yes there will be troubles, but this man can handle it and make it turn out for the better.
He makes me feel so safe, secure and happy!
/mushy
For me, there was no turning point, and I think that’s kind of the point. I never just suddenly woke up and realized that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this guy, it was really more of a meshing of interests, goals and values that lead me slowly to realize that I couldn’t not spend the rest of my life with him.
After having been together for a couple years, we we pretty much married in all but the legal sense, so went ahead and set a date. We will have been married for two years next month.
Despite the fact that I was quite happy being single, and wasn’t “in the market” for anyone per se, I have always been fascinated by the idea of fate as it pertains to romance.
Usually I’d think about it in retrospect; like if I was in a relationship with someone I’d just met, I’d wonder if we were ever, like, in the same grocery store at the same time or something, before we knew each other.
Sometimes, though, I’d think about it in the opposite way: what, I wondered, was my next SO (or the next person I’d date/kiss/screw) doing right now?
And what, I sometimes wondered, if I did end up getting married (which, most of the time, I didn’t really think would happen)? What was my future (unknown) husband doing right now, and where? Something brave like saving a group of children from a fire in San Francisco? Brilliant like working on his second novel in Madagascar? Or mundane like cutting his toenails two blocks away?
You get the picture.
Anyway, I met Skip, we started dating, things were going well, yadda yadda . . . but at that point, nobody was particularly concerned with “Where The Relationship Was Going.”
Then one morning, we drove to a nearby town for breakfast and, seeing that the only two breakfast places in the town looked kind of skanky/scary, were headed to yet another nearby town in his car, listening to a Billy Joel CD.
Suddenly it hit me: Those little theoretical moments of wonder about the wherabouts and activities of my hypothetical future husband were over–HERE HE WAS. Driving me to breakfast, in Kansas. 
There wasn’t any particular moment, it was a gradual dawning that, hey, this guy and I get along amazingly well, our values and outlook on life are pretty much the same, and our personalities complement each other’s. I was a little bit gunshy, having been engaged three times and never married, and been through a whole bunch of bad relationships, but once I let myself think about it, spending the rest of my life with him just felt like the right thing to do.
I dated my wife for 4 years before I popped the question. I have a friend that just got engaged after a few months. In my case, a few things happened in our lives and it made us both realize that we need to cut the crap and realize that we were both crazy for each other and our lives were only really complete when we were together. We really just needed a push to get our brains functioning.
My friend however said he knew after a few dates that she was the one. They seem happy enough, although planning for the wedding is driving him nuts I think
When she got pregnant!
“Lets get them meek bastards NOW!”
We were dating, and there was a huge snowstorm that shut my city down completely. I couldn’t get to work, the roads were closed, and the buses weren’t running.
I called her up and asked if she wanted to spend the day together. She said yes, and I spent three solid hours wading thru snow as deep as my waist. I had, therefore, a lot of time to think about whether or not she was worth all this effort. I realized that I was entirely certain that she was.
Our twenty-first anniversary was a few months ago.
Regards,
Shodan
Actually, I didn’t until after us dating for about 8 mos or so. Heck…when I first met him I didn’t even like him. I thought he was gross and a geek and a rich moron. But it turned out he wasn’t. He was there for a lot of things a normal guy who wasn’t totally serious about the relationship wouldn’t have been.
He held my mother’s hand and comforted her when my stepdad had a heart attack and had to go to the hospital. He rescued me from a really bad job as a sleep-away camp counselor and helped me learn to balance a checkbook. He put up with all the annoying quirks of my own seriously whacked out family. He didn’t judge or criticize me like a lot of guys I’d dated.
After about 8 mos or so we got engaged and I realized he was my knight in shining armor. That was almost 9 years ago and we’ve been married for almost 5.
IDBB
norinew said it well:
“When I realized that he was stable, sane, and wouldn’t play head games with me (unlike the screwed up family I grew up in), I knew I wanted to marry him.”
I just came to realize that this guy was a good person. I knew that even before I really loved him. I remember throwing a nickel into a fountain once and wishing that I could grow to love him and that things would work out, because I knew he was going to end up being the right person. I was worried I’d screw it up somehow.
From Day One. There was just something about him and me together - we clicked. We were instant best friends with an instant attraction to each other. Really, from the first time I kissed him, I knew he was the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.
Good Thread!
Some really nice, genuine stories coming forth (ok with one exception)
So……. Tell us Tree Boy, why’er asking?
Some important decision in your life coming soon? Please Share!
Met my wife at our 20th high school reunion. I was just realizing that I wanted to settle down and had sworn off dating. She had been a widow for 7 years with 2 teenage kids and figured she’d never married again. I flew from California to attend the reunion in Ohio and spent almost the whole night just talking to her.
I was thinking about her night and day back home, decided to write her, sent an letter from work and came home to a letter from her! We courted long-distance with just a couple of times I flew out to see her. We agreed on most everything.
So, I guess that I knew she was the one when I flew back to Ohio the first time to take her and her sons to lunch and we wound up in a park in October throwing leaves at each other. I was smitten!
we also shared the conviction that we’d save ourselves for our honeymoon (I never thought I’d be one to say that). It was worth it.
… while cutting my toenails at the same time. I can’t believe you left that part out.
I was 16 (anyone who says I was too young can kiss my ass) and saw a 14 year old goddess. She was quite mature, despite her age. She was also fiesty and stubborn, both qualities that I liked. I was already playing high calibre sports so girls/women were not hard to get, but she was different. I knew she was the one from almost the beginning. It was just a matter of convincing her
That was 12 years ago. We dated for 5 years so she could graduate and go to college for one year and get a diploma. We just celebrated our 7 year anniverary and have 2 kids. I consider myself truly blessed that each night I lie beside my high school sweetheart.
We met in college. We lived 600 miles apart, spent a lot of time on the phone, and saw each other when we could. We broke up a year after we met. But we couldn’t stop talking to each other, and we visited every once in a while. Four years after we broke up I called her after AmTrak killed my hamster (it’s a long story). We kept in contact after that (we were even further apart) and a few months later I became convinced that this really was it. I invited her to help me move from Illinois to Louisiana, and we got engaged. It’s been just over 25 years. I think we both decided that we had given not being married enough of a chance, and it wasn’t working out, so we had to get married.
I wish we had taken bets from our friends on how long it would last. We would have cleaned up.