The only way to know if a man is the one you should marry | Sheila Dean

Last week I had a mother-daughter date night with my daughter Lisa, usually dinner (with closed-door conversation) and a movie. This week it was Eat pray love. I thought the movie was so, but a trailer for an upcoming romantic comedy got me thinking.

He asked the question: how do you know you are in love? I can’t answer this question for everyone, but this is my story.

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I knew I was in love when I came home late one night to find my boyfriend Dale had jumped in to move my trash to the curb.

When I turned the corner around midnight and remembered that the garbage pickup was in the morning and saw that Dale had done it for me, I thought, “Wow! I love this guy.” Dale did everything right from the start.

Two days before our first date, he called to say he was looking forward to it.

He called me the morning after our first date to say he had a great time and hoped we could do it again. He was the first to use the word “love”. And if that wasn’t enough, he was a great cook, and for someone like me who lived off microwave fries, that was a no-brainer.

Yes, he was a goalkeeper. Or was he? Oh, I was in love, but frankly, this realization scared me to death because now I had to think about the bigger question – was I in love with the right person for the right reasons?

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Love, as I learned so painfully, was not enough. I’ve been in love before. I got divorced. And I didn’t just mess up in marriage. More than once Mr. Right turned out to be Mr. Oh-So-Wrong; my relationship confidence was a 2 on a scale of 1 to 10.

I wanted to get it right this time, but my confidence was so shattered that I came very close to assuming I was wrong, no matter how effectively Dale swept me off my feet. As time went on and I fell more and more deeply in love with Dale, I kept asking myself, how do I know if he is “the one”?

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I thought back to committed relationships that had gone wrong and asked myself if I had missed some “don’t do this” signs.

I had. I realized that every time I committed to a relationship that wasn’t working, I ignored the little voices that would have protected me if I had listened and trusted rather than rationalizing. These warning voices – my intuition – were always right. Hmmm…did I realize something? Yes really.

The only way to know if a man is the person you should marry is:

Turns out there are scientific studies proving there’s a lot to this intuition thing, but I didn’t know it at the time. All I knew then was that in every situation when my intuition spoke up, I ignored it. I rationalized my gut feelings and convinced myself that everything was very peachy keen.

This time, however, I spoke to those little voices. “Come on,” I said aloud, “talk to me.” Tell me what’s wrong with this picture.” Nothing. Silence. “No, really,” I begged, “talk to me. Silence again. Well, what do you know?

Not a single little voice told me to run and fast. Every part of me—my brain, my heart, and most importantly, my intuition—said, “Go for it!” That was 14 years ago and I haven’t regretted it for a second.

Dale and I are now happily married and I can’t imagine life without him. Diamonds are not a girl’s best friend. Your intuition is your best friend. If you want to know if you’re right, don’t overthink it. You’ll end up exhausted and confused. Sit quietly and ask your intuition to speak to you. Pay attention. And trust those little voices. They do not lie.

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Shela Dean is a relationship coach, retired attorney, and author of Frequent Foreplay Miles, Your Ticket To Total Intimacy.