Relationships take work, and pop culture taught us that finding the one meant finding a relationships that works without any kind of effort. You don't find the one, you find someone that wants to...
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Relationships take work, and pop culture taught us that finding the one meant finding a relationships that works without any kind of effort.
You don't find the one, you find someone that wants to be your one and that you want to be the one of.
I think that's kind of what they are asking though. I don't think many of us think there is "one" person for everyone, but I'd say this is the heart of their question: "someone... you want to be...
I think that's kind of what they are asking though. I don't think many of us think there is "one" person for everyone, but I'd say this is the heart of their question: "someone... you want to be the one of". How do you know that's what you found? I think that's really obvious in hindsight, but not everyone ends up with that.
It's important to listen to your gut. You'll have lots of relationships and if your gut is telling you to move on it's probably a good idea to listen. If you imagine getting married to that person does it fill you with dread or joy. There are hints you're moving in the right direction. Do you feel seen? Do you feel understood? When you think of their intention do you jump to positive or negative conclusions. If those are all positive, awesome, sounds like someone you want to be with. Then you move into the work period. If that isn't there to begin with there is no point to work on it.
Oh, I just knew. We're both pretty sceptical, down to earth people, but we were also both like "oh so this is that 'love at first sight' thing. Huh." We met on a Friday, had our first date that...
Oh, I just knew. We're both pretty sceptical, down to earth people, but we were also both like "oh so this is that 'love at first sight' thing. Huh."
We met on a Friday, had our first date that Tuesday, and decided to be exclusive that Friday after. I knew I was going to marry him then. He felt the exact same way.
Celebrated 10 years together last August, married for 5.5 😄
Sorry that I can't be more helpful, it wasn't even a big event. Just like a very knowing feeling of 'oh look there he is, that's the guy. Great, let's start planning our lives together.'
Edit: There were also 0 doubts about any major relationships milestones. Moving in together was essentially a foregone conclusion and more of a logistics discussion at the end of my studies after our first 2 years together. Getting married was never like a 'are we ready for this' sort of talk either. I feel like we moved in together after 2.5 years in April of 2019, and it seemed natural to start looking at engagement rings that summer.
Then 2020 happened and instead of planning a wedding, we (and others around us that had been together for the same length of time) went 'welp, this is terrifying. If you end up in the hospital, I am legally nothing and no one to you. Let's get married and we'll have the party after the world is back to normal'. So we got married in January 2021 at the courthouse.
Edit2eletricboogaloo: all this to say that the relationship itself is pretty much like any other relationship I think, in terms of having its ups and down, fights and such. It's not fantasy lala land, the housing market is way too crap here in the Netherlands to get through buying a house and getting a mortgage unscathed 😂 but we compromise and talk about it and we both always want to make it work and we both always think about the other's happiness.
I think the calibration that would help us understand your perspective is how typical this type of thinking is/was for you. Were huge, life-changing decisions fairly easy for you to make? Were you...
I think the calibration that would help us understand your perspective is how typical this type of thinking is/was for you. Were huge, life-changing decisions fairly easy for you to make? Were you a romantic who would expect to have this kind of reaction eventually?
Oh very much atypical - that's what I meant by sceptical, down to earth people :) I didn't believe in that sort of thing at all, really. I figured people find those who they want to marry by...
Oh very much atypical - that's what I meant by sceptical, down to earth people :)
I didn't believe in that sort of thing at all, really. I figured people find those who they want to marry by either 1) meeting someone, hitting it off (attraction), dating, getting to really know them, then it slowly grows into a real relationship; or 2) having a friend turn into a romantic partner after realising the attraction (or not feeling attraction until they were a friend, if you're demi).
I did have two more of those moments in my life I should say, which is how I recognised it when I felt it for a person. Those were when I knew what I wanted to study, and when I knew where I wanted to go to university.
It's really difficult to explain the feeling. I meant it when I said it was just like 'oh, there you are'.
Nothing else seemed to much matter either. Not that there was 12.5 years between us, not that he lived 2.5 hours away, nothing. And then it didn't end up mattering. The only agegap related issue we've ever really had is that I - in my opinion - make a really funny Dora the Explorer reference every time we plate hamburgers, but he's never seen Dora the Explorer so it's unfortunately lost on him. And the distance didn't matter, because we just spent entire weekends together and would alternate houses, until we moved in together.
Anyway, long rambling that boils down to me being someone who would've never expected that sort of romantic movie type of crap to happen actually did happen.
The question isn't right. There is no person you "should" marry, unless you're an 18th century European aristocrat or other player in a multi-generational Imperial politicking situation. You'll...
The question isn't right. There is no person you "should" marry, unless you're an 18th century European aristocrat or other player in a multi-generational Imperial politicking situation.
You'll know if the person you're with is someone you want to marry because you'll feel like you want to marry them. If you don't think that then... don't marry them!
It's also important to remember that marriage is just a legal state. It doesn't really change anything about your relationship as human beings. You're still the same people the day after as you were the day before. So if you want to spend your life with a particular someone just.. do that. Maybe you'll both want to get married, maybe you won't.
Maybe you'll spend 15 years together and then find out that actually one of you quite likes the idea and the other hadn't even thought of it so you get married then (happened to me). Maybe it'll be cheaper to get married than to draw up the relevant documents to ensure everyone has legal rights over the kids or shared property should one partner die (several friends of mine). Maybe you'll get married, spend 25 happy years together then get amicably divorced at 60 because your lives are going in different directions (another friend last month).
I feel like it's important to note that there's not any particular reason to think that everyone has a singular person that they are going to be happy in a single monogamous relationship with for...
I feel like it's important to note that there's not any particular reason to think that everyone has a singular person that they are going to be happy in a single monogamous relationship with for the rest of their life. Some people seem to find this, some people don't. Sometimes people that appear to have found this actually spend their lives hiding their misery from everyone outside their marriage. Some people seem to be genuinely happy (on net) for their whole lives with their spouse/life partner. Some people have multiple life partners. Some have little (or big) polycule families. Some don't have any life partners at all, but have shorter relationships with many people, either in sequence or simultaneously.
I've been married to my wife for almost 4 years. We've been a monogamous couple for almost 13 (!!). Before that, I had dated a lot of people, which I think was a good thing. I had had some relationships that lasted a week, some that lasted several months, some that lasted years. I learned a lot about what I was like in different relationships and what I liked in my relationship partners. I learned how to be a good partner myself.
With my wife, everything built slowly. At each point that we decided to move forward in our relationship, we both found that we felt like it was past time to take that step, so we did. After two years of dating, an opportunity arose to move into the same apartment building (different apartments), and we both thought "well, we're already spending nearly every night together, this'll make that easier for sure". Then it was time to move across the country for work, and we both thought "well, I really don't want to be on the other side of the country from you". And then it was time to get a dog, and move again, and get another dog, and move again, and at some point we both started thinking "we seem pretty committed to this relationship, do we want to get married? Why?"
For us, getting married wasn't itself a life change. Unlike moving in together, or adopting a dog (or a second dog), or moving across the country together, we didn't think anything would change after we got married (we were right). Rather, marriage was a way for us to tell our families and friends "this person is maximally important to me — I'm starting a family with them, and they're going to be here for a while. You should get to know each other." The framing for our wedding was: let's get all our favorite people in one place so that my favorite people and my wife's favorite people can spend time together and become one big group of our favorite people.
Now we have our first kid, and we're eyeing a seconsd, and I feel endlessly lucky to have found my wife exactly when I did, when both of us were single and compatible and ready to try something new and meaningful. Our favorite thing about our relationship is how well we solve problems, for ourselves and each other and our family. We are able to talk through what we're feeling without feeling judged or ashamed (mostly). We're able to work together to find solutions for the problems we're facing, or just comfort each other when there are no solutions. We're a good team. And we love each other with a deep, knowing love. We really understand and care about each other. We want to meet each other's needs.
But all of that came with time (a lot of time!). We're completely different people now than when we first met. We grew together, rather than apart, and we keep growing together, it seems.
A big question to ask yourself is why you want to get married in the first place. Is it because that's what people are expected to do, or it feels like you'll be missing out on a major life step...
A big question to ask yourself is why you want to get married in the first place.
Is it because that's what people are expected to do, or it feels like you'll be missing out on a major life step if you don't, or you hope it will fix the ache in your soul, or you've always dreamed of your wedding day? If the answer is yes, you might not be ready to get married.
Is it because marriage has practical benefits (e.g., immigration, children, health insurance)? These are valid reasons to seek a legal partnership, but ask yourself: would you still want to spend the rest of your life with your partner even if legal marriage weren't an option, or would you prefer to cut your losses and find someone else to marry in that case? If the answer is that you'd want to stay, you might be ready to get married and to your partner, but if the answer is that you'd rather move on, you might be ready to get married but possibly not to this person.
Is it because you love your partner so deeply that you feel almost like you have to marry them? If the answer is yes, I'd take that as a good sign, but I'd caution against getting married just yet. In my opinion, you should get married only after the novelty of the relationship has worn off and you can think soberly about what exactly marriage to this person would look like — and, not to put a downer on things, but what divorce with this person might look like, too. If you can't think of any potential risks or downsides to spending your lives together, you might be too twitterpated to get married (yet).
Your partner should ask themselves the same questions, and you should make sure that you're generally aligned: both of you want to get married and specifically to each other, both of you are hoping to get the same (or at least compatible) things out of marriage, and your relationship has matured sufficiently that you can talk productively about issues you might run into (like differing ideas about housework, budgeting, raising kids, illness, in-laws, infidelity, recovering from lost passion, etc.).
Apart from all that, how much do you and your partner just plain like each other? Are you best friends? If one of you ended up in an accident and you couldn't have sex anymore or do any of your favorite romantic activities anymore, would you still love hanging out together? Would your relationship still be fun and interesting?
How's your compatibility? Does your relationship energize you or exhaust you? If something bad is going on in your life, does telling your partner make you feel better or worse? If you have to work on a project together or organize an activity together, does it leave you feeling closer or further apart? If your partner became depressed or ill or lost their income, do you like the idea of taking care of them, or does that sound awful?
If both of you can answer these questions to your mutual satisfaction and there's no glaring reason why you shouldn't get married, but you still have cold feet, think about where those cold feet could be coming from. Do you often get cold feet before making large or lifelong decisions, or are you getting uniquely bad feelings about this relationship? Are you (and/or your partner) someone who tends to jump into big decisions and then regret them later, or are you (and/or your partner) someone who routinely gets anxious before big decisions even when they're the right decision and you're ultimately happy you made them? Do any of your friends or family share your reservations, and if so, what are their concerns?
This is really great insight! OP, I'm not sure where you are in life and relationships, but you don't necessarily have to get married, and I don't think everyone's relationship style or lifestyle...
This is really great insight! OP, I'm not sure where you are in life and relationships, but you don't necessarily have to get married, and I don't think everyone's relationship style or lifestyle is necessarily suited to it.
For me, I wanted a person in my life with whom I could live with and be intimate with and make a family unit with. That doesn't require marriage, but I wanted a life partner. That also meant that I needed to find someone 1) that generally had similar interests, and that I enjoyed living and adventuring and talking with, 2) that I felt able to communicate with, and in particular able to disagree with, and 3) also wanted to be my life partner. I dated a few different people that failed critically on at least one of these points - I didn't feel able to disagree with a couple, and one just straight up did not listen to me, and one I found horrifically boring after a couple of years and I grew to actively dislike him. With all of the people I dated seriously, I felt committed to trying to make things work and only realized it wasn't working when some critically awful thing happened. I personally couldn't recognize when my love and effort weren't enough.
When I met my current husband, I had very low expectations initially. He was really cool and very easygoing, and he was also really supportive. There are times (now and also back then) where he could be really obstinate, or where it took multiple conversations to explain my feelings, but we were always able to get to a place where we understood each other, even if we didn't agree. We were both at places in our lives where we felt ready to be married, and I think that's also a really important criterion to marriage. When you feel ready to settle down and do the family thing, if you do, it's important to find a person that's also there. If I had met my spouse in my 20s, I don't think I would have been ready to settle down and likely would have polluted our relationship in some way. Timing was genuinely really important for me.
I don't think there's necessarily a way to know "the one". I've met some people I felt deeply connected with, and we are good friends, but personally I think there's a lot of other life mechanics that determine whether someone makes a good life partner/spouse. I agree with the adage that "love is not enough"; for me, both people need to be on the same page emotionally and try to be there for and support each other. It is an every day kind of thing, where you choose to be there and be supportive even when you might be tired and need a time out. I would recommend just doing the thing, live your life and see what happens.
There are things we look for when dating or meeting someone interesting - values and goals that align well enough, sexual and emotional compatibility, absence of red flags, having a fun time...
There are things we look for when dating or meeting someone interesting - values and goals that align well enough, sexual and emotional compatibility, absence of red flags, having a fun time together etc. Once I've met someone that feels right, I tend to hold my horses until I've had at least a couple major disagreements with them and gotten to see and experience their negative personality traits (which every human has), and they mine. That's when I know.
Most people can get along fine when it's just a normal, fun day without extra challenge. But in life, we occasionally face challenging situations and get into arguments. The way you and your partner go through those is extremely important. If the way you resolve conflicts repeatedly leaves one or both of you feeling hurt or unheard, your happiness is going to be eroded over time. If conflict resolution works well, with both people expressing themselves openly and feeling heard, and if your partner's worst traits are tolerable for you (and vice versa), that relationship is built to last.
As someone who has never been in a relationship, this question is regularly on my mind as well. I'm aware that this is likely due to me fearing rejection, and that I should just throw myself out...
As someone who has never been in a relationship, this question is regularly on my mind as well. I'm aware that this is likely due to me fearing rejection, and that I should just throw myself out there and see where things goes. But the other part is when imagining what a hypothetical relationship would look like, it just feels like a lot of work, and the reward doesn't seem worth it. Like, I'm barely able to manage time for myself, now I need to find time for a whole other person?
To build onto your question, I guess "the one" in my case would be someone who'd make me feel like I want to find time for. But after so long not having come across such a person, does it mean I should keep looking and wait till this unknown feeling make itself known one day, or maybe it's time to revise my expectation and follow some other more "objective" guideline?
It's probably lucky for me that I've only found out about "incel culture" as a concept pretty late otherwise I could have been swept into it for sure.
How is your friendship life, do you have a variety of types of friends of different gender? I don't know about you at all so this isn't a snap judgement just a curiosity: there are some people I...
How is your friendship life, do you have a variety of types of friends of different gender? I don't know about you at all so this isn't a snap judgement just a curiosity: there are some people I know who find it hard to get into a romantic relationship because they don't meet a lot of people they invest time into getting to know on a deeper level. Some people only discover folks they want to spend time for only after they've got lots of practice making themselves spend time on "okay" people: that people grow on them after a while from "meh" to "after what we talked about / experienced together today I'm in love with them".
That sounds like me haha, my social circle are colleagues and a couple of friends from uni who are still nearby so not much variety. We mostly just talk about work or catching up, our hobbies...
That sounds like me haha, my social circle are colleagues and a couple of friends from uni who are still nearby so not much variety. We mostly just talk about work or catching up, our hobbies don't match so conversations usually don't grow well there. There were few occasions that I run into someone with the same interest, but even then I still struggle to keep the conversation going, so maybe I just don't know how to talk (and/or listen), at least not in a way that could deepen a relationship I guess.
I had similar feelings first couple years out of college. Never been in a relationship, I was trying to get myself together in terms of living on my own, in a new apartment, in a new job. I didn't...
I had similar feelings first couple years out of college. Never been in a relationship, I was trying to get myself together in terms of living on my own, in a new apartment, in a new job. I didn't have the effort or interest in pursuing romantic relationships. Focused on being independent and on my career, making friends. And that's okay. I thought about relationships in terms of thought experiments but never acted on them. At some point I felt like I adjusted to my new lifestyle and routine, and the next step was to find a life long partner, so next I had to consider romantic relationships. I mentally became more open to the idea, and when I had an opportunity to date someone I was interested in I took it, over time decided to commit to our relationship and now we are getting married :)
I think everyone has their own time line of when they will be ready. Or maybe marriage isn't necessarily your goal and that's okay too.
You are your only "the one". Even in the best case scenario, where you find someone with whom it just clicks and everything feels natural, that's no guarantee that it will stay that way. People...
You are your only "the one".
Even in the best case scenario, where you find someone with whom it just clicks and everything feels natural, that's no guarantee that it will stay that way. People change, you'll change, and something that was once beautiful and sweet can turn into poison for both of you. Someone can go from saying they want to grow old together to leaving you alone and penniless within a shockingly short span.
This doesn't mean it's not worth it to look for someone you love and love to be with. But there is no perfect pair for you out there with whom everything is going to magically work. If there were, I'd still be married to mine. Relationships are hard work and it's impossible to guarantee they won't eventually break. Plenty of things like that are worth doing regardless, but don't make them the foundation for your entire life and personality. You need to invest in and protect yourself first and foremost.
I agree overall with all the comments that there is no one. I think there are multiple ones, and that you're really trying to find someone that clicks well with you. That's not to say that it's a...
I agree overall with all the comments that there is no one. I think there are multiple ones, and that you're really trying to find someone that clicks well with you. That's not to say that it's a perfect match, relationships are still a lot of work. But when the times get tough, they will work together with you as a team. It'll be the both of you figuring the tough times out together, even when it feels like the tough times are trying to pit you against each other.
That being said, here were some early signs that my current partner is a one. Almost all of this happened in the first couple of years of the relationship.
Several people already thought we were married/engaged, and I didn't bother to correct them. It wasn't that I wanted to be married at this time, it's that I was happy enough being with him I didn't think it really mattered what state people thought our relationship was in. In previous relationships, I would have corrected the person speaking.
I really hate dancing. I have a difficult time telling where my body is in space, and multiple people have told me in public that I am bad at it and should probably stop. That being said, I still enjoy it when I'm able to let go and let the music take me. The first date me and my partner took to a club, I danced with him without a second thought. I just felt really comfortable around him, and that the way I dance wouldn't change the way he saw me. Not only that, I really wanted to dance with him.
We just so happened to move in together right as covid was starting. I don't think we would have done it then if we knew a pandemic was going to happen, would have seemed like a good chance things will go wrong when you're stuck together 24/7 and it's a relatively young relationship (1.5 years old). But, it was fine. There was of course some uncomfortable moments, and we did have periodic arguments, but it was just really natural to adjust to each other.
So, it kinda feels cliche, but I think it's really when you know it's working, you know. You feel comfortable being yourself, and you want your partner to be themselves too. Me and my partner also have done couples counseling, cause at one point our relationship was having a breakdown in communication. I'll remember that the therapist also said a good sign a couple will make it, is if they respect each other, even when they're angry at each other. So, I presume that is also a good sign of finding a one.
All of this of course presumes that the relationship is not abusive (which is also a sign that respect is missing from the abusive partner). In which case, you may feel some of the things I listed above, but it is being used against you by your abuser. If you feel like you're walking on egg shells around them, even if you feel the above, that is a bad sign. Just thought I would throw this out for anyone who needs it.
After 15 years with my highschool sweetheart, beginning and finishing our respective university curriculum (semi long distance), moving together and getting stable jobs, marriage seems like the...
After 15 years with my highschool sweetheart, beginning and finishing our respective university curriculum (semi long distance), moving together and getting stable jobs, marriage seems like the natural next step.
Moving together to see if we could really live together was the perceived hardest challenge (turns out it wasn't hard).
My answer might differ from others, but after 2 failed relationships in 2 years, those two being the only girls I had in 30 years, loving being single... it was tough to find "the one". So I...
My answer might differ from others, but after 2 failed relationships in 2 years, those two being the only girls I had in 30 years, loving being single... it was tough to find "the one". So I listened to the others who said you will never find someone if you set such high expectations. So I took the time to find out what I reaaaally wanted in a girlfriend.
I figured that if I loved gaming/playing, with people and alone, then I wanted someone who could give me that. I wanted someone that was able to communicate well, someone that let me be who I am and is willing to work with me.
My girlfriend is not the prettiest, she has her issues, she has her mood swings. But she has what I really wanted. And for that I will love her to death. She has tons of qualities that I "discovered" through the relationship and it's still so fun to be with her.
It is work though. If you are unwilling to compromise, to take blame or to self-reflect, you're doomed. You will never be happy. There are some things that to you are evident, some things you're like "you must do it this way". But the reality of life is that we all see life from our point of view. But our point of view is not the "truth".
Find the one you're willing to work for. Not the one that "fits all criteria". Because you'll really find that unless you spend a TON of time with someone, you never truly know them. You think they fit the criteria, but you'll have many surprises...
Relationships take work, and pop culture taught us that finding the one meant finding a relationships that works without any kind of effort.
You don't find the one, you find someone that wants to be your one and that you want to be the one of.
I think that's kind of what they are asking though. I don't think many of us think there is "one" person for everyone, but I'd say this is the heart of their question: "someone... you want to be the one of". How do you know that's what you found? I think that's really obvious in hindsight, but not everyone ends up with that.
It's important to listen to your gut. You'll have lots of relationships and if your gut is telling you to move on it's probably a good idea to listen. If you imagine getting married to that person does it fill you with dread or joy. There are hints you're moving in the right direction. Do you feel seen? Do you feel understood? When you think of their intention do you jump to positive or negative conclusions. If those are all positive, awesome, sounds like someone you want to be with. Then you move into the work period. If that isn't there to begin with there is no point to work on it.
Oh, I just knew. We're both pretty sceptical, down to earth people, but we were also both like "oh so this is that 'love at first sight' thing. Huh."
We met on a Friday, had our first date that Tuesday, and decided to be exclusive that Friday after. I knew I was going to marry him then. He felt the exact same way.
Celebrated 10 years together last August, married for 5.5 😄
Sorry that I can't be more helpful, it wasn't even a big event. Just like a very knowing feeling of 'oh look there he is, that's the guy. Great, let's start planning our lives together.'
Edit: There were also 0 doubts about any major relationships milestones. Moving in together was essentially a foregone conclusion and more of a logistics discussion at the end of my studies after our first 2 years together. Getting married was never like a 'are we ready for this' sort of talk either. I feel like we moved in together after 2.5 years in April of 2019, and it seemed natural to start looking at engagement rings that summer.
Then 2020 happened and instead of planning a wedding, we (and others around us that had been together for the same length of time) went 'welp, this is terrifying. If you end up in the hospital, I am legally nothing and no one to you. Let's get married and we'll have the party after the world is back to normal'. So we got married in January 2021 at the courthouse.
Edit2eletricboogaloo: all this to say that the relationship itself is pretty much like any other relationship I think, in terms of having its ups and down, fights and such. It's not fantasy lala land, the housing market is way too crap here in the Netherlands to get through buying a house and getting a mortgage unscathed 😂 but we compromise and talk about it and we both always want to make it work and we both always think about the other's happiness.
I think the calibration that would help us understand your perspective is how typical this type of thinking is/was for you. Were huge, life-changing decisions fairly easy for you to make? Were you a romantic who would expect to have this kind of reaction eventually?
Oh very much atypical - that's what I meant by sceptical, down to earth people :)
I didn't believe in that sort of thing at all, really. I figured people find those who they want to marry by either 1) meeting someone, hitting it off (attraction), dating, getting to really know them, then it slowly grows into a real relationship; or 2) having a friend turn into a romantic partner after realising the attraction (or not feeling attraction until they were a friend, if you're demi).
I did have two more of those moments in my life I should say, which is how I recognised it when I felt it for a person. Those were when I knew what I wanted to study, and when I knew where I wanted to go to university.
It's really difficult to explain the feeling. I meant it when I said it was just like 'oh, there you are'.
Nothing else seemed to much matter either. Not that there was 12.5 years between us, not that he lived 2.5 hours away, nothing. And then it didn't end up mattering. The only agegap related issue we've ever really had is that I - in my opinion - make a really funny Dora the Explorer reference every time we plate hamburgers, but he's never seen Dora the Explorer so it's unfortunately lost on him. And the distance didn't matter, because we just spent entire weekends together and would alternate houses, until we moved in together.
Anyway, long rambling that boils down to me being someone who would've never expected that sort of romantic movie type of crap to happen actually did happen.
The question isn't right. There is no person you "should" marry, unless you're an 18th century European aristocrat or other player in a multi-generational Imperial politicking situation.
You'll know if the person you're with is someone you want to marry because you'll feel like you want to marry them. If you don't think that then... don't marry them!
It's also important to remember that marriage is just a legal state. It doesn't really change anything about your relationship as human beings. You're still the same people the day after as you were the day before. So if you want to spend your life with a particular someone just.. do that. Maybe you'll both want to get married, maybe you won't.
Maybe you'll spend 15 years together and then find out that actually one of you quite likes the idea and the other hadn't even thought of it so you get married then (happened to me). Maybe it'll be cheaper to get married than to draw up the relevant documents to ensure everyone has legal rights over the kids or shared property should one partner die (several friends of mine). Maybe you'll get married, spend 25 happy years together then get amicably divorced at 60 because your lives are going in different directions (another friend last month).
It doesn't matter.
I feel like it's important to note that there's not any particular reason to think that everyone has a singular person that they are going to be happy in a single monogamous relationship with for the rest of their life. Some people seem to find this, some people don't. Sometimes people that appear to have found this actually spend their lives hiding their misery from everyone outside their marriage. Some people seem to be genuinely happy (on net) for their whole lives with their spouse/life partner. Some people have multiple life partners. Some have little (or big) polycule families. Some don't have any life partners at all, but have shorter relationships with many people, either in sequence or simultaneously.
I've been married to my wife for almost 4 years. We've been a monogamous couple for almost 13 (!!). Before that, I had dated a lot of people, which I think was a good thing. I had had some relationships that lasted a week, some that lasted several months, some that lasted years. I learned a lot about what I was like in different relationships and what I liked in my relationship partners. I learned how to be a good partner myself.
With my wife, everything built slowly. At each point that we decided to move forward in our relationship, we both found that we felt like it was past time to take that step, so we did. After two years of dating, an opportunity arose to move into the same apartment building (different apartments), and we both thought "well, we're already spending nearly every night together, this'll make that easier for sure". Then it was time to move across the country for work, and we both thought "well, I really don't want to be on the other side of the country from you". And then it was time to get a dog, and move again, and get another dog, and move again, and at some point we both started thinking "we seem pretty committed to this relationship, do we want to get married? Why?"
For us, getting married wasn't itself a life change. Unlike moving in together, or adopting a dog (or a second dog), or moving across the country together, we didn't think anything would change after we got married (we were right). Rather, marriage was a way for us to tell our families and friends "this person is maximally important to me — I'm starting a family with them, and they're going to be here for a while. You should get to know each other." The framing for our wedding was: let's get all our favorite people in one place so that my favorite people and my wife's favorite people can spend time together and become one big group of our favorite people.
Now we have our first kid, and we're eyeing a seconsd, and I feel endlessly lucky to have found my wife exactly when I did, when both of us were single and compatible and ready to try something new and meaningful. Our favorite thing about our relationship is how well we solve problems, for ourselves and each other and our family. We are able to talk through what we're feeling without feeling judged or ashamed (mostly). We're able to work together to find solutions for the problems we're facing, or just comfort each other when there are no solutions. We're a good team. And we love each other with a deep, knowing love. We really understand and care about each other. We want to meet each other's needs.
But all of that came with time (a lot of time!). We're completely different people now than when we first met. We grew together, rather than apart, and we keep growing together, it seems.
A big question to ask yourself is why you want to get married in the first place.
Is it because that's what people are expected to do, or it feels like you'll be missing out on a major life step if you don't, or you hope it will fix the ache in your soul, or you've always dreamed of your wedding day? If the answer is yes, you might not be ready to get married.
Is it because marriage has practical benefits (e.g., immigration, children, health insurance)? These are valid reasons to seek a legal partnership, but ask yourself: would you still want to spend the rest of your life with your partner even if legal marriage weren't an option, or would you prefer to cut your losses and find someone else to marry in that case? If the answer is that you'd want to stay, you might be ready to get married and to your partner, but if the answer is that you'd rather move on, you might be ready to get married but possibly not to this person.
Is it because you love your partner so deeply that you feel almost like you have to marry them? If the answer is yes, I'd take that as a good sign, but I'd caution against getting married just yet. In my opinion, you should get married only after the novelty of the relationship has worn off and you can think soberly about what exactly marriage to this person would look like — and, not to put a downer on things, but what divorce with this person might look like, too. If you can't think of any potential risks or downsides to spending your lives together, you might be too twitterpated to get married (yet).
Your partner should ask themselves the same questions, and you should make sure that you're generally aligned: both of you want to get married and specifically to each other, both of you are hoping to get the same (or at least compatible) things out of marriage, and your relationship has matured sufficiently that you can talk productively about issues you might run into (like differing ideas about housework, budgeting, raising kids, illness, in-laws, infidelity, recovering from lost passion, etc.).
Apart from all that, how much do you and your partner just plain like each other? Are you best friends? If one of you ended up in an accident and you couldn't have sex anymore or do any of your favorite romantic activities anymore, would you still love hanging out together? Would your relationship still be fun and interesting?
How's your compatibility? Does your relationship energize you or exhaust you? If something bad is going on in your life, does telling your partner make you feel better or worse? If you have to work on a project together or organize an activity together, does it leave you feeling closer or further apart? If your partner became depressed or ill or lost their income, do you like the idea of taking care of them, or does that sound awful?
If both of you can answer these questions to your mutual satisfaction and there's no glaring reason why you shouldn't get married, but you still have cold feet, think about where those cold feet could be coming from. Do you often get cold feet before making large or lifelong decisions, or are you getting uniquely bad feelings about this relationship? Are you (and/or your partner) someone who tends to jump into big decisions and then regret them later, or are you (and/or your partner) someone who routinely gets anxious before big decisions even when they're the right decision and you're ultimately happy you made them? Do any of your friends or family share your reservations, and if so, what are their concerns?
This is really great insight! OP, I'm not sure where you are in life and relationships, but you don't necessarily have to get married, and I don't think everyone's relationship style or lifestyle is necessarily suited to it.
For me, I wanted a person in my life with whom I could live with and be intimate with and make a family unit with. That doesn't require marriage, but I wanted a life partner. That also meant that I needed to find someone 1) that generally had similar interests, and that I enjoyed living and adventuring and talking with, 2) that I felt able to communicate with, and in particular able to disagree with, and 3) also wanted to be my life partner. I dated a few different people that failed critically on at least one of these points - I didn't feel able to disagree with a couple, and one just straight up did not listen to me, and one I found horrifically boring after a couple of years and I grew to actively dislike him. With all of the people I dated seriously, I felt committed to trying to make things work and only realized it wasn't working when some critically awful thing happened. I personally couldn't recognize when my love and effort weren't enough.
When I met my current husband, I had very low expectations initially. He was really cool and very easygoing, and he was also really supportive. There are times (now and also back then) where he could be really obstinate, or where it took multiple conversations to explain my feelings, but we were always able to get to a place where we understood each other, even if we didn't agree. We were both at places in our lives where we felt ready to be married, and I think that's also a really important criterion to marriage. When you feel ready to settle down and do the family thing, if you do, it's important to find a person that's also there. If I had met my spouse in my 20s, I don't think I would have been ready to settle down and likely would have polluted our relationship in some way. Timing was genuinely really important for me.
I don't think there's necessarily a way to know "the one". I've met some people I felt deeply connected with, and we are good friends, but personally I think there's a lot of other life mechanics that determine whether someone makes a good life partner/spouse. I agree with the adage that "love is not enough"; for me, both people need to be on the same page emotionally and try to be there for and support each other. It is an every day kind of thing, where you choose to be there and be supportive even when you might be tired and need a time out. I would recommend just doing the thing, live your life and see what happens.
There are things we look for when dating or meeting someone interesting - values and goals that align well enough, sexual and emotional compatibility, absence of red flags, having a fun time together etc. Once I've met someone that feels right, I tend to hold my horses until I've had at least a couple major disagreements with them and gotten to see and experience their negative personality traits (which every human has), and they mine. That's when I know.
Most people can get along fine when it's just a normal, fun day without extra challenge. But in life, we occasionally face challenging situations and get into arguments. The way you and your partner go through those is extremely important. If the way you resolve conflicts repeatedly leaves one or both of you feeling hurt or unheard, your happiness is going to be eroded over time. If conflict resolution works well, with both people expressing themselves openly and feeling heard, and if your partner's worst traits are tolerable for you (and vice versa), that relationship is built to last.
As someone who has never been in a relationship, this question is regularly on my mind as well. I'm aware that this is likely due to me fearing rejection, and that I should just throw myself out there and see where things goes. But the other part is when imagining what a hypothetical relationship would look like, it just feels like a lot of work, and the reward doesn't seem worth it. Like, I'm barely able to manage time for myself, now I need to find time for a whole other person?
To build onto your question, I guess "the one" in my case would be someone who'd make me feel like I want to find time for. But after so long not having come across such a person, does it mean I should keep looking and wait till this unknown feeling make itself known one day, or maybe it's time to revise my expectation and follow some other more "objective" guideline?
It's probably lucky for me that I've only found out about "incel culture" as a concept pretty late otherwise I could have been swept into it for sure.
How is your friendship life, do you have a variety of types of friends of different gender? I don't know about you at all so this isn't a snap judgement just a curiosity: there are some people I know who find it hard to get into a romantic relationship because they don't meet a lot of people they invest time into getting to know on a deeper level. Some people only discover folks they want to spend time for only after they've got lots of practice making themselves spend time on "okay" people: that people grow on them after a while from "meh" to "after what we talked about / experienced together today I'm in love with them".
That sounds like me haha, my social circle are colleagues and a couple of friends from uni who are still nearby so not much variety. We mostly just talk about work or catching up, our hobbies don't match so conversations usually don't grow well there. There were few occasions that I run into someone with the same interest, but even then I still struggle to keep the conversation going, so maybe I just don't know how to talk (and/or listen), at least not in a way that could deepen a relationship I guess.
I had similar feelings first couple years out of college. Never been in a relationship, I was trying to get myself together in terms of living on my own, in a new apartment, in a new job. I didn't have the effort or interest in pursuing romantic relationships. Focused on being independent and on my career, making friends. And that's okay. I thought about relationships in terms of thought experiments but never acted on them. At some point I felt like I adjusted to my new lifestyle and routine, and the next step was to find a life long partner, so next I had to consider romantic relationships. I mentally became more open to the idea, and when I had an opportunity to date someone I was interested in I took it, over time decided to commit to our relationship and now we are getting married :)
I think everyone has their own time line of when they will be ready. Or maybe marriage isn't necessarily your goal and that's okay too.
I'm still at the point where I need to sort out my life routines I suppose. If my path would turn out similar to yours, guess it'd be alright.
You are your only "the one".
Even in the best case scenario, where you find someone with whom it just clicks and everything feels natural, that's no guarantee that it will stay that way. People change, you'll change, and something that was once beautiful and sweet can turn into poison for both of you. Someone can go from saying they want to grow old together to leaving you alone and penniless within a shockingly short span.
This doesn't mean it's not worth it to look for someone you love and love to be with. But there is no perfect pair for you out there with whom everything is going to magically work. If there were, I'd still be married to mine. Relationships are hard work and it's impossible to guarantee they won't eventually break. Plenty of things like that are worth doing regardless, but don't make them the foundation for your entire life and personality. You need to invest in and protect yourself first and foremost.
I agree overall with all the comments that there is no one. I think there are multiple ones, and that you're really trying to find someone that clicks well with you. That's not to say that it's a perfect match, relationships are still a lot of work. But when the times get tough, they will work together with you as a team. It'll be the both of you figuring the tough times out together, even when it feels like the tough times are trying to pit you against each other.
That being said, here were some early signs that my current partner is a one. Almost all of this happened in the first couple of years of the relationship.
So, it kinda feels cliche, but I think it's really when you know it's working, you know. You feel comfortable being yourself, and you want your partner to be themselves too. Me and my partner also have done couples counseling, cause at one point our relationship was having a breakdown in communication. I'll remember that the therapist also said a good sign a couple will make it, is if they respect each other, even when they're angry at each other. So, I presume that is also a good sign of finding a one.
All of this of course presumes that the relationship is not abusive (which is also a sign that respect is missing from the abusive partner). In which case, you may feel some of the things I listed above, but it is being used against you by your abuser. If you feel like you're walking on egg shells around them, even if you feel the above, that is a bad sign. Just thought I would throw this out for anyone who needs it.
After 15 years with my highschool sweetheart, beginning and finishing our respective university curriculum (semi long distance), moving together and getting stable jobs, marriage seems like the natural next step.
Moving together to see if we could really live together was the perceived hardest challenge (turns out it wasn't hard).
My answer might differ from others, but after 2 failed relationships in 2 years, those two being the only girls I had in 30 years, loving being single... it was tough to find "the one". So I listened to the others who said you will never find someone if you set such high expectations. So I took the time to find out what I reaaaally wanted in a girlfriend.
I figured that if I loved gaming/playing, with people and alone, then I wanted someone who could give me that. I wanted someone that was able to communicate well, someone that let me be who I am and is willing to work with me.
My girlfriend is not the prettiest, she has her issues, she has her mood swings. But she has what I really wanted. And for that I will love her to death. She has tons of qualities that I "discovered" through the relationship and it's still so fun to be with her.
It is work though. If you are unwilling to compromise, to take blame or to self-reflect, you're doomed. You will never be happy. There are some things that to you are evident, some things you're like "you must do it this way". But the reality of life is that we all see life from our point of view. But our point of view is not the "truth".
Find the one you're willing to work for. Not the one that "fits all criteria". Because you'll really find that unless you spend a TON of time with someone, you never truly know them. You think they fit the criteria, but you'll have many surprises...