November 2, 2025
Our three daughters are married. But it wasn’t too long ago that they asked me and my wife – how would you know if the person you are with is “the one?” The one who could happily love for the rest of your life.
The question is important and timeless. The answer is surrounded by the usual caveats – you never really know with great certainty, people do change over time and can drift apart and everyone has flaws. But I told them that for me, there are several indicators that a person is the one:
- You want to spend time with them. That time can be watching TV or visiting exotic countries.
- When you see them, you smile and find that your heart rate picks up a bit.
- Your values, beliefs, and life goals are similar.
- You find them physically attractive; there are moments of lust,
- When they are in pain, you instinctively take steps to remove the pain.
- When they are threatened, you instinctively try to protect them.
- You call them your best friend.
- You know what they are thinking by looking at their face.
- Over time you find a rich accumulation of shared memories and a deep joint history.
- The boundary between you progressively becomes blurry. While there will always be two unique people there is a part of you, that gets larger over time, that is a fusion of the two of you.
If you answer yes to many, perhaps all, of these indicators you have a deep love. You have a treasure that is life’s greatest gift.
And please be careful of wandering into the trap of constantly thinking that there might be someone better. You might wait too long.