Certainty

Apropos of nothing, I was listening to Billy Joel's Scene from an Italian Restaurant on the way home tonight when I thought of the topic of this post:
When did you know you were going to marry your husband or wife?

I remember lying on the couch with my head on his lap while waiting to have dinner with his family.  I felt, for the first time perhaps, centered & whole.  I realized that this was who I wanted to be with for the rest of my life. To use BFF C's phrase: I had found my person.

It wasn't fireworks and lightning bolts.  It wasn't love at first sight.  It was just a dawning realization that this is where I want to be and who I wanted to be with. It was a certainty.

I also remember that he was So Not Ready.  Not even a little bit.  It was two years later when he proposed.  We had been together three years at that point and to be honest, I was beginning to think that we weren't going to get married.  Although I didn't doubt that he was still my person.

Fast forward almost twenty years later & here we are.

How did you know?  Was it lightning & thunder? was it just assumed? was it a surprise?