Recently Reddit user Evening_Newspaper_35 asked the married men of the community, "What differentiated the woman you chose to be your wife compared to other women?"
They didn't hold anything back and revealed when they felt confident they found their significant other. Sometimes the road was messy, and other times it was simple — you know when you know.
So, here are some married men who knew they found love once they met their now-wives:
1. "She's the first woman I dated with whom I felt I could just be myself around. I never had to 'impress' her, or felt like I needed to be anyone else — just me."
"This — a thousand times this. Before meeting my wife I had only ever pursued one other woman. I had a checklist — someone funny, kind, beautiful, etc. — and this woman checked every box. I thought that meant she was perfect for me, but it also made me terrified to be in her presence. 'She's so smart and mature – I can't let her know that my greatest achievement is beating the Endless Setlist in Rock Band 2. She's so sophisticated, she likes opera and classical music — I can't let her find out that 90% of my music is from video games and anime soundtracks.
To be fair to her, she never actually said anything to make me think she was that judgmental. This was all of my insecurities just running wild. She and I have remained good friends to this day.
When I met the woman who would one day be my wife, I never felt that terror or insecurity. She made me feel completely safe just being myself. That hadn't even been on that old checklist. It had never occurred to me that I should look for that, and it ended up being the most important thing."
2. "She never weaponizes my feelings against me like my ex did. She's seen me at my very worst emotionally when my ex was finished destroying me, and she never made me feel bad about it. From the beginning, she made herself the one person in the world I could confide in without my heart being ripped apart. In doing so, she made herself the one person in the world I could trust completely. To this day, almost 18 years after we first met, she's never once violated my trust. I'm old enough to know how unusual and special that is."
3. "On our third date, I drove her home after a wonderful time. We watched a movie at my place and started holding hands in the middle (we were young and inexperienced, so we moved slowly). We kissed before we started driving, and then, on the way to her place, my car had a major meltdown. My cruise control burned out and something fused (PT Cruisers are death traps) and I was unable to brake fully. Got off the freeway doing about 40 mph, and I had to pull my brake and hope for the best. She never panicked — she just offered suggestions and remained calm. Once we were safe, she called Triple A. I figured she could handle just about anything if she could handle that experience. We've been together for 10 years and married for six."
4. "I could trust her to build with me and not run out when things got bad."
"[I agree]. Five years ago we lost everything — everything got repossessed. My wife called me at work and told me what was happening. When I got home there was nothing left except for a bed and a piece of shit old table and two chairs. We had a one-month-old baby, and our power was cut about an hour after I got home.
When the lights went out, I had my head in my hands and was defeated. She got up and left the room. I remember thinking this is it. She's taking the kids and leaving — no way she's staying.
She was gone for about two minutes — I thought she was packing bags. She comes back with a candle and the Monopoly box. We sat at that busted old table until 3 a.m. playing Monopoly — the best night of our marriage.
She is a legend! Best wife ever."
5. "After our first big argument during our dating phase, I was sick with a runny nose and fever. She went to the drugstore and got some medicine and such for me. Even when she was mad at me, she still thought about helping me, and that's how I knew she truly cared."
6. "She was very different from the other women I had dated. She genuinely seemed interested and engaged. She would text me first, call me just because she wanted to talk, laugh at my jokes, make me feel special, and give me a lot of compliments."
"The other women I was going out on dates with were real sticks in the mud. Putting forth no effort whatsoever, never texting first — I always had to lead the conversation.
It just seemed like a lot of the women I was coming across were more than happy to put the burden of our interactions on me, and they were simply there to react to whatever I did or said. I was their 'dancing monkey,' and if I danced enough for them, I would 'get a treat.'"
7. "I'm somewhat of a weirdo — simple things in life bring me joy. Avoiding cracks while walking on sidewalks and anywhere else with cracks (including tiles at the store if I can help it). Stepping into really small puddles (small enough that if I stomp on them, it won't make a mess). When I'm hungry, I sometimes dance in the kitchen when I cook. Is singing included? Is it loud, offbeat, and in the wrong pitch? I shall not confirm or deny this, but perhaps sometimes. To put it plainly, she puts up with all of my daily BS, and I love her for it! She always responds best when I ask strange, unusual questions about life and random spur-of-the-moment questions off the top of my head."
8. "She can see right through people. She can size anybody up and have them figured out in two minutes."
9. "We're engaged to be married, but for me, it was that she was seriously interested in understanding me and being patient with our differences from the start. I usually don't say much when bothered by something, but she now knows quickly if I'm upset about anything. She's done a great job at making me comfortable to express it. We've both become super patient with each other in how we communicate discord/hurt and handle those conversations, and it's made the types of things that killed prior relationships be pretty mild or non-issues."
10. "Other girls felt like I was visiting a place. My wife makes me feel like I'm home."
11. "I had fun doing nothing with her. Life isn't all about having extreme adventures. If you can have fun doing nothing, then the typical days of an entire lifetime will be enjoyable."
12. "[It's because] she's very different from me. She loves the urban scene, I love the woods. She loves loud reggaeton music at all times, I cherish quiet. She doesn't see eye to eye with gaming, I'm quite fond of it. I love the cold, she HATES it. This list could run on forever, but she will watch me play no matter what. Listen to me talk about knots, a new gadget, leave the urban lifestyle for a while, enjoy the quiet, and join me north of the polar circle. And she will never complain — on the contrary, she shows deep interest when I tell her a story so boring that even the dust leaves the room."
13. "We loved each other more than other things. We both had prior serious relationships. In both cases, our exes had higher ambitions than staying in our home city, raising a family, and growing old together. But for us, that was what we were both looking for. My wife is a catch — she's pretty and easily likable. Just about any guy looking to 'settle down' would have been happy to have met her."
14. "She knew who she was and what she wanted, part of which for the latter was me. Neither of us felt like we needed the other to be complete. But, that being said, we just felt comfortable within each other's company. A few years later we went ENM (ethical non-monogamy) and then eventually poly. It was then that I learned to truly appreciate her for the woman she is, the life we've built together, and the future available to us."
15. "She taught me new things. She's unpacked my psyche for me in an enlightening (and at the same time pragmatic way). She's eased the suffering, and, in a couple more ways completely transformed the lives of different family members of mine. She works so hard and yet takes such delight in things. I could go on."
16. "Talking with her felt so fresh! After meeting so many women and going through the same conversations in a similar manner, she made me excited and want to go back for more."
17. "She's a very capable [and independent] person and doesn't 'need' me to do anything for her. She can run the chop saw and build stuff and carry heavy things — she built our forever home with me with her own hands."
18. "When we fight we are fighting about the issue at hand instead of against each other. It's a small detail, but a VERY big one. In all of our arguments and fights, I have never felt the relationship was in jeopardy."
19. "We're both the same type of weird. We laugh at the same stuff while our friends make weird faces about it, we hate most of the same things, and we both have a sense of humor that only we appreciate. She's my everything."
20. And finally, "I didn't know what I wanted, but I knew what I didn't want. I was desperate to leave behind certain elements of my background and upbringing. I'm still working on maintaining the positive and jettisoning the negativity. She was none of those things — she's from a completely different world. She's not a narrow-minded, parochial, blue-collar person with a chip on her shoulder and something to prove. She doesn't have a, 'I'd sooner lose an eye than give in on anything' mindset. Another girl from my background and I would have been easy, but nasty against the world."
Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.