More Than Mary Tumblr, How Do You Know When You've Met The One?

How Do You Know When You’ve Met The One?

As someone who is single and looking for someone to share my life with…

(Writing that actually has major implications beyond falling in love I haven’t thought about in a long time.)

…this is an interesting note to read, especially during the holidays when singles tend to feel lonely. But perhaps being independent is something we should celebrate. We aren’t burdened by a bad relationship or capitulating to someone else’s desires/schedule/family. We are enjoying the season in a way that makes us happy.

Now, there is the flip side, which I would probably argue there are more pro’s to being in a relationship. As I often tell my frustrated friends, not every companion you have has to be “the one.” You can live, love, enjoy, and learn from a relationtionship with someone who isn’t the one. It’s not a waste a of time, it’s part of the journey.

Below, Jaclyn and Tatiana offer their insight as to how you know if you’re in “a journey” relationship , or if you’ve found “the one.”

How do you know when you have met “the one?” — By jaclynday

I guess that’s the million dollar question, right? And to complicate matters further: there’s the stories of people remarrying after a spouse died and purporting the fact that you can indeed have more than one soul mate.
I think that a lot of women get trapped into idealizing their future spouse. He must be this tall, this intelligent, this accomplished, this wealthy and so on and so forth. It becomes “I want to meet the one, but only if he has these qualities.”
I think that in order to be truly happy in a relationship, you have to throw preconceived ideas out the window entirely. Yes, physical attraction and an emotional “connection” are important, but so is happiness. So is contentment. So is the next 60-80 years of your life.
Here’s what I think: you’ve met the one when you are happy. Realistically so. When you can look someone else in the face and see their flaws AND what you love about them, you’re off to a strong start. If you’ve met “the one,” you won’t be fooling yourself into thinking that major problems will go away with marriage or with time. You’ll acknowledge that there are things that you need to work on and that he/she needs to work on, but it’s not deal-breaking. It’s encouraging. You can work through these things together! That’s the attitude that signals a good start.
Tanya and I were actually talking about similar stuff to this last night after we had dinner and we both agreed on a very good test to know if you are with the right person and vise versa:
Imagine your loved one has been completely ravaged in some tragic accident. Maybe they are burned beyond recognition. Maybe they can’t feed themselves, walk, work. Would you still stay with them? Is your love deep enough that everything cliched about a relationship can fall away and what still remains is you and him/her? And you’d be satisfied with that? Yes, it would be hard: but would you stay? Would your significant other stay? If your answer is yes, maybe you’ve found the one. :)

December 23, 2009

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