What was your “realization” moment?

I often joke with FH that I decided I've marry him when I saw a MASSIVE spider on my door literally the size of my whole hand extended (Australian problems) and he just pulled off his shoe and killed it without blinking.

For real though, I have been with FH since I was quite young and I broke up with him a year into our relationship because I was having doubts. A week later we got back together and after losing him I realised I didn't want to live my life without him in it.

What a good question! It was a Saturday night and I think we went to dinner with his mom and afterwards he washed his mom’s and my car. I remember thinking “his guy could be out partying on a Saturday night, yet he chose to spend it washing his mom and my car”. 🤔 it’s very simple and not romantic per se, but that was a big stand out moment for me. He wanted to take care of us, it was an act of kindness and maturity, and a huge turn on 😂😂😂

We have been together since we were 15, we are 23 now and will be 24 when we get married. I've known since we were 16 and I felt so much love, but watching him be an amazing father to our 1 year old daughter just reinforces it.

All the little things he does for me, that he has since dating. But I had that moment this week actually. We were taking engagement photos and we were told to stand a certain way and look into each others eyes. And when we did, it was like butterfly’s all over again. Our intimate life has been really good since, too!

Awww, these are so sweet.

My moment was about 3 weeks into dating, when I was interstate speaking at a conference. He texted me to say good luck for my presentation, and I said they'd moved the agenda around and I'd already spoken. Well... asked if he could call that evening to see how it went!

And after years of internet dating where people wouldn't even remember I was AT a conference let alone remember what time I was supposed to speak or think to ask how it went... for him to want to call and talk about it on the phone like it was 1995? I absolutely melted.

The other moment that really underscored it for me was on holiday in Vanuatu, a few months before we got engaged. We were climbing up these cacades and the path was really wet, clay-based and so it was super slippery. And at a few points, he just turned around and instinctively held his hand out to make sure I didn't fall. It was one of those moments where I fell in love with him all over again and I thought, this is absolutely the one.

Um.

Love at first sight.

Seriously, after seeing DH, then talking to him non stop for 20 minutes, and then spending rehearsal with him, and then walking to my subway stop with him, I texted my dad and my best friend.

"I just met the perfect guy."

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand, apparently, I went home and told my roommate, "I MET THE ONE."

So. Yeah.

In my defense, he was wearing a Phillies shirt, outside a theatre in NYC. So, he was an actor who loved my favorite sports team. (We were, in fact, set up.) I was a complete goner from the moment he opened his mouth and talked baseball to me.

Ive been with my FH for ten years. I knew 10 years ago that he was the one.

I told my friend I was done dating about a week after we hung out for the first time. He was different than other guys and wasn’t just looking for a hook up, and we had many of the same values. Plus he actually wanted to get married one day, I’d met so many guys that were not interested in anything serious/long term at all!
But over time it was a lot of little things. Almost a year after we started dating he got into a car accident and had to go get checked out at the hospital. He had to have an x-ray or something done so they made me step out of the room. While I was waiting In the hall, this little old man was out there as well and asked “is that your husband in there” and I told him “no my boyfriend”. It really hurt my heart to say that and I realized I wanted to be able to call him my husband, eventually lol. I still think about that old man and his wife.

We had been dating for 4 months and he had been away for work for about 3 weeks. My grandma (who he did not get to meet yet) passed away. He left California on a flight to make it to the wakes. He had to immediately get back to work but the fact that he flew cross country for 24 hours is when u knew

It was driving home from our first date (after months of texting). We had spent over 4 hours just talking. We didn’t even realize the place had closed until one of the servers said they closed a half hour prior. I just remember driving home and saying to myself “well crap, this is it”.
Obviously the relationship had to build but the longer I knew him the more sure I was.

I think mine was when I realized that he accepted me for who I was. Like my mom, I have depression, not as sever as hers, but I have my days. All of my other boyfriends, one was extremely bad, never understood nor tried to. Their go to was, 'just be happy, life isn't that bad' or 'try to get over it'. I always felt different from them and their family/friends, and was constantly changing my personality and identity to fit in with them. The worst one was big into manipulation and would cheat on me constantly and I knew it, but he used my depression against me, saying I was delusional and just going through some things and to move on. BIG into gaslighting.

During the first few months of me dating my FH, I had a bad episode and instead of him scolding me and telling me I was crazy like I was used to, he just sat with me and let me cry. To him it wasn't anything, but to me it was everything. He's my rock and my safe place!

These are all so sweet 💜 and while they’re all unique to each individual, every story seems to remind me of little moments I had with my fiancé before we were engaged that helped build up the relationship and love even more. Cheers to all of our special partners! 🥂

This is silly, but...

We weren't dating yet. Our science teacher bred finches, and he brought them in to share with the class. This boy (my husband), with the long dark hair and bright green eyes, that looked like your typical teenage rebel (and a reputation to match - he was one of the "misfit badasses", think John Bender from the Breakfast Club), is the first to volunteer to hold one of these tiny, tiny birds, and he is so excited about it.

I watched him reach out and take this itty bitty bird with the greatest tenderness I've ever seen, sweetly pet its little head, and just sit there over the moon that he had this tiny creature sitting chirping on his hand. He was just sitting there smiling softly at it, like it was the most precious thing.

Turned out, the misfit badass was a big honking softie.

The little bird went hopping up his forearm, so I walked over and set my fingers against his arm to get it to hop up on to my hand. When I looked up, our eyes met, and there was just this look that I was like .... wow. That was it for me.

Funny enough, if you asked him when he knew I was the one, he would tell you... the finch story! Years after we got together, we did a "what was the moment you knew" activity, and it was the first time we'd ever talked about it. He went first and it turned out to be the finches! The way he tells it is that the pretty brown-eyed girl he'd been gazing at across the classroom for months walked up and touched his arm, and he felt like he'd been hit by lightning. (Maybe that was why he looked at me the way he did? Whatever it was, it worked.)

View Quoted Comment You’re kidding! This is so romantic, it sounds like it’s straight out of a movie. I don’t know if I’ve asked my fiancé when his “moment” was since we got engaged...I need to ask right now

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THAT IS AWESOME!!!! lol so sweet!!!

I always say the night we met, but I really think it was 2 years ago, 5 years into our relationship.

I had already been living with him at his parents house for quite sometime, he had gone out with his friends while I stayed home and he got into a horrific accident. When I answered the door at 11 PM to two police officers telling me he was in an accident and was in the hospital, I knew in that moment I could not live without him. I have never felt so much pain in my entire life.

Thankfully he recovered, when he woke from his medically induced coma his eyes found mine in a room filled with doctor's, nurses and his parents. He had never looked more handsome to me in his life, and two years later he asked me to be is forever.

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I've often joked that we sound like an 80s teen rom-com. The rebel and the nerd-next-door fall in love in their high school science class. (And we are still that different twenty years later... he's a creative director and I'm an engineer. Still rom-com-esque polar opposites.)

I'd be curious to see what he says! I had never thought about it before we did that activity.

For me, it was 1.5 months into dating Ryan. We planned a day trip to the beach. As soon as we crossed into New Jersey, his check engine light came on,..we found a Pepboys and got the car fixed and then continued on to the beach. We barely touched our phones, it was just the 2 of us, hours away from friends/family, just enjoyed each others company and the beach. Between him not getting upset about the car and just taking it in stride, me helping GPS navigate, and reapplying suntan lotion on him, and him on me, and then major trust test: changing out of bathing suits into clothes one at a time in the back of his car with blankets covering all windows.. without either of us peeking. Having only each other while in NJ was an interesting step in our relationship and I knew by the end of that day on the car ride back home, that I would marry this man. That he was the ONE....

this past August, right after our 2 year dating anniversary, (Aug 5, we went to beach on Aug 7) leading up to August we had told each other we had surprises for one another since it was our 2 year dating anniversary, and we were spreading the gifts out from Wed August 5- Sunday August 8..... well, August 6th he waited til dinner time to give me his gift for the day, it was a card, in the card, was money, as I continued to read the card he explained how he had talked to my boss, found out how much I make in 1 day, got me the day off, (basically Ryan paying me for missing a day of work (a friday)) so that I wouldn't miss the money for bills, and said to spend the rest of the night packing since we would be doing a surprise day trip to the beach again!!!! I cried!! LOL. I was in shock, he had 1. surprised me REAL good, and 2. had planned everything out for the perfect friday at the beach. had gotten his car all checked out, no issues, memorized the route to Cape May, NJ, bought us a safety bag for phones/wallets with combination lock, a list of stores he wanted to take me to on the Mall, going to Sunset Beach at sunset, ... just everything was so perfect... he said he was watching weather that whole week leading up to this day... it was 50/50 chance of rain on Friday... said it was MY call if we went to beach Friday or waited til Saturday to go... i said let's go Friday... when we left the apartment complex it was overcast. by closer to Cape May, the sun was trying to peak out... by the time we stepped on the beach the sun was fully out, and it was hazy over the ocean. as the day went on, it cleared up perfectly! clouds stayed in the distance over the land. While we were out in the waves, we saw several boats out, some whale watching ones, at one point i freaked myself out thinking I saw a shark..... Ryan pointed out there were a bunch of "triangles" in the wake behind one of the whale watching boats, and as we watched some jumped up!!! It was a pod of dolphins!! I saw several jump out myself, definitely dolphins!!! That's the first time I had seen them in person, let alone that close! maybe 20/30ft away!!

We decided together on a place to eat dinner at, we chose the Pier House right across the street from the beach... THE FOOD WAS AMAZING!!!!! I HAD THE BEST SALMON EVER THERE. it had an orange sauce on it that was caramelized...a bit pricey, but worth the money!!! We then checked out the different stores on the mall and of course hit the Fudge Kitchen for fudge/taffy ...then hit Sunset Beach to watch the sunset..... got back on the road to come home and as we hit the highway, it started pouring down rain, pretty much the whole way home... IT WAS AN AMAZING, FUN DAY!!! SO PERFECT, and we are STILL talking about that beach day 8 months later as if it was yesterday! Ryan and I have both said multiple times, how it seems our beach trips and the conversations we have bring us closer together and how we just feel like we were meant to be together.

My husband and i started off as friends. and while we got to know each other as friends, i just... knew. i absolutely knew even before we went on our first date that he was my soulmate. but i had this moment twice.

so the first time was when we were just friends and i asked him what career did he consider going into [he's currently a school counselor] and he said a lawyer was the other thing he considered but he didn't want to end up doing that because law school and that corporate lawyer life felt like you had to compete all the time and he just wasn't the type to try to screw people over or anything. and honestly in that moment i thought "yea because you're a thoughtful, considerate person" and it just dawned on me that it was what i wanted in a partner, that HE was what i wanted as a partner.

the second time was when we finally were boyfriend and girlfriend and it was maybe a couple months into our relationship, i wasn't feeling well. i had a headache but i still wanted to go out. and he said "no, you should rest up, you're precious to me and i don't want anything to happen to you". that's when i really felt like "wow yea this is REAL".

I don't know that I had a specific moment, but if I did it would actually be something I did. We had known each other since 2012 but didn't start dating until very late May 2019. For me, there is a distinct difference between dating and boyfriend/girlfriend. We officially became bf/gf in July 2019. Sometime in May he mentioned that he was really hoping to visit his sister that year but didn't think he could afford it. (We live in CA, she lives in KS.) In early June (when we were dating but not yet bf/gf) I started looking at plane tickets to take us out to NE and KS. (NE is because one of my best friends lives there and I'd wanted to visit her since she moved out there about 5 years previously. In late June I bought tickets for us to fly out to NE for 5 days in Nov (a few days before the best friend's birthday). I booked a rental car so we could make the 3 hour drive from the friend's place in NE to his sister's in KS and stay with her for a night before driving back up. I also planned to swing into IA on the way back to NE to take him go-carting. I surprised him with the trip on his birthday in Sept (though I told him months previously to get those dates off work) and surprised him with carting while we were there. As in, I told him we were taking a detour but didn't tell him where and he had no clue until I turned onto the street, he saw the building, and started yelling with excitement about it. I think it was sometime in June that it just punched me in the face that I had just dropped about $1000 to take a guy I was dating halfway across the country to both meet one of my best friends and visit (and have me meet) his sister. My financial situation is not good enough for me to just do stuff like that whenever and that was a HUGE investment for me. But I did that without even thinking about it. It was then that I knew there was just something so special about him and us that I would not even think twice about giving him the world if I could. That was definitely something I had never experienced before and the most I'd ever spent on an ex before was about $200 to take us both out to a super nice dinner with drinks.