How long was it before you realized you were in love with your significant other?

I think I knew before we met in the flesh. That was 8 years ago.

About a month, that was nearly 7 years ago.

Couple months.

Three months is when I decided I really liked him but it wasn’t until about a year and a half after we were married that I actually fell in love. It was a little out of order, but lucky for me it worked out.

Even a few weeks is too soon for love. You obviously have a very strong attraction for this woman (good start), but love is something that grows through sharing adventures and trials.

Talk to us after you have nursed her through the flu and thought she looked beautiful with a red nose and after vomiting.

There is nothing to be gained by telling her at this point. In our culture, the L word puts pressure on a relationship. (Does the other person have to say it back? What if the other person does not feel it yet?) It changes the whole dynamic.

What you have going right now is the first wonderful flush of growing attraction. Why not just enjoy it for a while? If after six months or nine months, you feel the same, then think about telling your love.

I’m pretty sure I knew that long before we started going out—but that was because I had liked him for so long and had become good friends with him even though I didn’t think anything was ever going to happen between us. But I truly did care about him and I did love him. For that reason, I pretty much dropped the L-bomb very quickly after we started going out. Didn’t seem to affect anything negatively.

I was so young when we met (18). I would say it took me awhile to know for sure, for sure. But in retrospect I knew right away. And I started suspecting it a couple months after we met. We’ve been happily together for eight years now. ((I waited a year to tell him btw)).

About a month. However, he decided the day we met and told everyone at work the next day that he was going to marry me.

And we waited 9 months before actually getting married. That was twenty years ago so we must have done something right.

Ten years.

Took a while for this relationship – around a year.

Maybe 3 days. sorry, misremembered… More like 2–3 weeks.

@kevbo Exactly how I felt the first time I took her out. Glad I’m not alone.

@RandomMrdan, I believe it.

2 days. We met while I was working at a gas station. I was working the over night shift, I gave her directions. She was really cool, but I was too shy to do anything. The next night she came back to see me. She stayed until I got off. We hung out until she had to go to class, by then I was hopelessly in love. That was 5 years and 4 states ago.

It took me one night… the night we met. She came to my mom’s house (sister’s friend) when i was visiting on the day of my sister’s birthday. We were all going to go out later that night.. i saw her and was stricken. Later that night I drove my sister. picked her and a friend up and we headed to a house party where she didn’t know anyone. So I started a conversation and was amazed… we played some drinking games (she sat next to me the whole time) and had an amazing time… we dropped off her friend and tok my sister to an irish pub (now our favorite hang-out). We had Irish Car bombs.. she told me about her hometown growing up (Mazatlan Mexico.. friggin’ paradise) and i told her about my adverntures in rural medicine. We ended the evening by having breakfast at an all night joint around 5 am. Next day I went to her house to watch the Charger game… once that was over we went to a BBQ at my mother’s house for the family celebration part of the birthday. By the time i had cracked open my first Heinekken i was in love.

(P.S. we are engaged.. we just haven’t set a date :P)

@Dr_C great story! I met this girl through my brother, she graduated from the same school as me a couple years behind me. And she’s now down here in Law School at Ohio State. The moment I took her out and was talking to her, I just had this feeling…words can’t quite explain. I never even really knew her from school, which is somewhat ironic.

I’d known him (but not very well) for few years before we became friends (and then best friends) and once I started to get to know him better I started falling in love with him. By the time I had confessed my feelings for him I was head over heels and so, although I had known him for years before I was in love with him, I was in love with him before we became a couple.

My husband told me he loved me about nine days after our first date. And I was able to say it back, without hesitation. I meant it. I was head over heels for him. Three years and one beautiful baby later, I still am. ; )

A little over a month but I’d been infatuated with him for almost a year before we ever started seeing each other; he never gave me the time of day- I’m not his type of usual choice. I’ve got to agree with @Marina when she brings up the going through some yucky stuff together to know if you’re really there in your head for the girl.

By the end of our first date, I knew. So did he. It was unlike anything I’d ever felt before, though I’d certainly been in love before. Heck, I’d been married before! On the phone the day after that first date, I felt like an awkward 6th grader saying, “I really, really, really, like you. That’s all I’m going to say for now.” He laughed and said he knew exactly what I meant. We actively resisted using the L word for about six weeks, ending every phone conversation with a sly “you know.” When he broke down first, I nearly sobbed with relief as I returned the words.

@augustlan: Who is fooled by the “I really, really really like you”? tee hee hee

@augustlan so he was “in like with you”? hawt! Did he take you to the Hanna Montana show afterwards? or was it the Jonas Brothers? :p

I know! It’s ridiculous. I was in my late 30s when we met, and he’s nine years older than I am!

Wow, so many people here knew right away, and they’re still together. That’s great!

@hungryhungryhortence When I was in love, we spent months telling each other, “I really, really, really like you.” It’s kind of fun saying that and grinning at each other knowingly.

@Haleth: yeah… I tell my guy he’s turned me into a big ole mush head goober cause we do a lot of that grinning, nose rubbing, “you are special” stuff. It makes me feel like I’m 15yrs old or something :D

After our first weekend together, so 2 weeks-ish <3

When you know; you know you know :P it’s a feeling like nothing else. Can’t be described; can’t be contained.. It just simply is.. And it feels like you have forever<3 it’s wonderful..

I fall in love with him over and over again – the first time I realized I was in love with him was probably a couple of weeks after talking to him

Great Answer @ElleBee. ; )

Tough question.

Boyfriend #1: Met, slept together a few weeks later, starting officially dating a few weeks after that, said “I love you” 3–4 months after that. (I probably knew within 2 months of dating.)

Boyfriend #2: Met, were friends for 3 years, slept together 3 years after meeting, said “I love you” six months after sleeping together. (I probably knew only a month earlier.)

Boyfriend #3: Met, were on-and-off friends for 5.5 years, started liking each other 3.5 years into that friendship (while I was still with boyfriend #2), started talking intensely after breakup with boyfriend #2, planned a rendezvous for 2 months later, rendezvoused, sexed, said “I love you” 10 hours later. (And love has never been better.)

I guess the answer is… it seriously, seriously varies.

My parents did the same thing I did – my dad knew right away and my mom figured it out within about a month.

She was a chemical engineer for a big company and hired a grad student as a summer assistant. She fell off a ladder in the lab one day and he caught her. He took the opportunity to ask her out. She went do a dance with him a couple of nights later but wore a skunk fur to make him not like her (skunk fur always still smells a bit like skunk, but especially so in hot and humid weather). Instead of being turned off, for the rest of the courtship he kept her outside – he took her on hikes in the woods and picnics.

At the end of the summer, when he had to go back to grad school, he asked, she said yes, and the following June they were married. That was 59 years ago, and he still thinks she’s pretty.

Only took a few weeks after we met. It seemed to happen quicker than I really wanted it to. I wasn’t looking for love (and of course that is when it comes along).