How did you know you had met 'the one'?

[downhifh]

I'm 31 year old single mum and three months ago I met a man at my cousins wedding. It has been going really well and although it's early days, I can't quite believe I'm in this situation.

Everything is going great, but not too great where I feel he is love bombing me. Everything is just nice and steady. I am quite an anxious person and some relationships have made me quite unwell due to the constant hot and cold behaviour, inconsistency, overthinking etc. and although I had that when we first started dating, I now feel very secure. He has never cancelled a meet up or a date. I know he will always be in touch. I love his company and chat. Good sex. I don't feel so intense like I have in previous relationships wherein I am constantly thinking about him and believe I've met my 'soulmate'. It's all very comfortable and slow and steady, there is no pressure.

He has seen some behaviour in me (due to my anxiety) that hasn't been ideal yet seems to reassure me and accept this. He is there for me and I feel I'm there for him. I've seen him do some things that make have put me off previous partners but I feel I accept him for who he is. When we are together it is very comfortable, we can happily be in silence (but mostly we are chatting).

I don't feel head over heels crazy for him like I have previously, it's more than that. For once in my life I feel really really stable and secure. I've been single for 7 years, so I know I don't need a man. He's the first man I've been with that I feel allows me to get on with other aspects of my life without him constantly being at the back of my mind distracting me. I don't have to check his last active/online as I know he will be in touch, I don't need to worry about him ghosting me as I believe he would be straight forward and say.

He is reliable and so dependable. He reassures me if I need it (I try and keep this to a minimum) and he is opening up to me which is something he struggles with. He also asks questions about me!! Which I have struggled to find.

Basically, this one feels different to me. In a way I can't really explain. I'm not being swept off my feet but I feel secure. So I'm wondering how others felt when they met their guy?

We both want children, a family life etc. so overall goals the Same

It was easy and uncomplicated. We are best friends. (30 years now). He is the person I want to talk to. When we were first together we would not sleep because we did not want to miss any time with each other. We have each others back. I still get breathless when he walks in the room because he is so fanciable. For context we are both retirement age.

I had very volatile relationships before. That drove me wild. This is just easy and happy and he is my friend.

Oh and I saw dh walking down the street about 6 months before we met. I thought’ there you are’. 6 months later there we were.

I don't believe in 'the one'. I think it's a lot of wishy washy spiritual rubbish.

I should also add though that maybe I see 'the one' through a different lense as I see a lot of couples going through marriage breakdowns sometimes for really horrible and trivial reasons.

Sometimes I think, 'Wait until you have a major health issue' and you'll see how 'the one' really treats you.

I moved back into the house I had bought with my ex after 6 months living back with my parents saving to buy him out. Ex had left the place DISGUSTINGLY filthy and I had hardly any money to re buy all the furniture…

We had only just started dating (he was actually my boss and we’d been close for a while so he knew the whole saga with the ex) and were trying to take it slow. I found a heavily discounted sideboard that I loved but it could only be delivered in a timeslot when I was due to be attending an event to support a friend in a new business venture. He volunteered to go and sit on the floor in my empty house with no TV or internet and wait until the delivery turned up. He had to wait several hours and with nothing to do he decided the clean the bathroom for me, he scrubbed it to within an inch of it’s life, then helped the guys lift a very heavy piece of furniture into my house, left it perfectly positioned and went home without mentioning the bathroom or evening seeing me. It’s the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me, he literally cleaned the crap my ex had left behind. We were supposed to be taking it slow what with him being my boss and me being newly single and owning a house with someone else but I knew then that I would be an idiot if I didn’t marry him.

He was also insistent that he had to find a new job and not me and took a sideways move into a slightly crappy role that he had to stick out for 18 months to allow us to become official. So if anyone ever tells me they fancy their boss, I always say it’s only worth it if he would quit the job for you!

It's just great and has been since the word go. Real chemistry with security, reliability, commitment. I'd been in a couple of relationships that I had thought were good and couldn't understand why they'd ended. Then I met him and within a week it was clear that the reason they'd ended was because they weren't "it", whereas this was. And is.

Depends how you define "the one".

I'd define it as "the one I'm going to spend the rest of my life with, and I don't need to look anywhere else". We met in our early 20s, and...I think you know if, when there's no external influence, it's easy and just works...and neither of you give up easily.

That's how it's been with us - we've had truly awful times that really tested us, we've had the best of times that reminded us why we're together...and, after 25 years, most of those bad external influences have been removed (or died...), we're happier than we've ever been and it just keeps getting better.

If you define "the one" as "the only person truly for me in the entire world", yeah...that's kidding yourself (and probably not really understanding the rules of probability).

EDIT: Probably better defined as "the one so well-matched that they stopped me looking for better".

I knew within minutes. That 'Oh it's you' feeling. As if it explained why I had been single and in shitty relationships. We both felt something that night we first met. Then on our first date we couldn't stop chatting - classic case of the restaurant putting chairs on tables and us being oblivious (which was very odd because I was a waitress when we met and I never ever left staff hanging around at the end of a shift if I was a customer but I genuinely didn't notice)

Like you OP, I just felt calm and trusted him. We were engaged within six months, married within 18 months and have been together 30 years now!

This is really cringe but I saw this quote on social media and that's exactly how I feel about my DH. I knew pretty much from the first time I saw him that I wanted to be with him, I don't know how that can be true without really knowing somebody but it was

Oh wow - what a lovely story! Cats...they know.

Dh said he knew after our first meeting that something was there and by the 3rd knew we were going to get married and spend our days together. For my part I'm quite an introverted person and talking one on one requires eye contact and a lot of listening/talking which expends a lot of energy. I normally find it hard work tbh and have to really try. With him though it was easy, felt very natural as though I was talking to family or a friend I'd known all my life. I felt confident and at ease. It's a gamble of course though. Dh shows me through his thoughtfulness that I made the right choice.We communicate well and are a team.

I also had a calm feeling. But OP if you've had dramatic and traumatic things before you might associate the uncertainty and cortisol stress with passion. Hope you are OK with this one.

I thought I had that feeling and I turned out to be very wrong. So I’m not sure I believe in such a thing, I think life is messier and more complex than knowing someone is ‘the one’. You sound like you are happy OP I would go with that and enjoy it :)

I saw her visibly relax when I spoke to her despite being absolutely terrified and she buried her nose in my elbow. She’s the best dog, ever.

It was easy, he was putting as much effort in as me. But funnily enough the moment I knew this was the man for me was the first time he stayed over at my house. We were lying in bed, lights out and all of a sudden I hear him make a kissing sound...yup he had just kissed the cat. I knew then and there he was "the one", as silly as that might sound, lol!

I’m very introverted and prefer my own company a lot of the time. He’s the only person I never want to leave me alone.

I don't believe in "the one" but acknowledge I'd struggle/ it would be statistically close to impossible to find anyone as right for me as my DH.

Honestly I could have written a lot of what you have here.

I also agree with the PPs who said:

• No fireworks
• one good health issue (& maybe a crisis or two) lets you know exactly who they are
• everything was easy calm and uncomplicated.
• he has never annoyed me / bored me on a holiday

Basically all pretty good signs 💕
Given you already have a child I do really recommend you proceed with caution still and go slower Vs 2 X single childless people simply as there are more "checks" that need to made around introducing the two of them further down the line, how he gets on with /treats your child /the sort of role he wants in the child's life etc etc

Good luck 🤞

On our first date I felt like he was a male version of me. After we had been intimate for the first time and he was holding me in his arms I felt like I drifted off and this feeling of having arrived home hit me. I had never experienced a feeling like that.

The way he treated his parents really to put it simply

It’s like being wrapped in a soft warm blanket and feeling completely safe and secure.

Watching this thread with interest!

It felt easy, he made me laugh more than anybody else and a person I thought “I can really do life with you” the good, the bad and the ugly. He was an absolute rock when I lost my mum and saw me at my worst. Knew he was a solid guy, we champion each other and we’re on the same page/aligned on pretty much most things or at least the fundamentals that matter to us, so I just had this gut feeling that we can do anything together, get through anything together and have a great life together. He’s the one I also want to speak to first and last in the day as cheesy as that sounds.

Been together nearly 7 years, getting married next year so not decades but a decent amount of time and commitment I still think.

ive been with my partner 20 years, it’s a cliche , but we are best friends, and we also fancy each other!

Do you think people are still ‘the one’ if the marriage/relationship ends? I recognise a lot of these feelings from my ex, but then if all went very wrong. There were things wrong from the beginning though, alongside all the lovely feelings.

@Rinkyfink , I can only speak for myself, but my first relationship, ended really badly . My partner had an affair when we had a 3 month old ! He definitely wasn’t the one