How do you know if you’ve met The One?

First you date and get to know each other quite well, coming to the realization that you and he WISH to marry. Than you have a few years of engagement, a sort of "marriage lite," in which you two deal together with marriage type responsibilities such as spending/saving/budgeting issues, dealing with each others families, negotiating differences without fighting, and so on. 

The idea is that people are wearing their "good behavior" hats during courtship, dating, convincing the other to marry. But during the challenges of engagement that "good behavior" hat comes off and the "true colors" are revealed. This is the time when one or both may realize that just because two people love each other it doesn't mean they're good for each other, doesn't mean the marriage is going to work out.

Marriage isn't about love. It's about trust and respect, about commitment and mutual support, about willingness to sacrifice and reluctance to let the other sacrifice, about not agreeing on everything but agreeing on how to deal with disagreement. 

My G/F  dropped hints like a B-52. More I thought about it, the more I liked it. I did not go in with unrealistic expectations. She  took the words out of my mouth, that any relation ship takes work, never always smooth sailing. (She had been  married 40 years, previously.) I also said I could not Substitute  for her late husband, could not ever equal him.  She said she didn't expect me to. 

   When I popped the question, I had a "speech" prepared.    Even called a married friend and my brothers  for advice. 

  But something told me, when its Right, you Know it. Less I said, the better

I asked a family member the same question (they have been married 35 years)they said there is no timeline for when it will happen, how, or with who but they did say that it's just a feeling and you will know the feeling it is in your heart. 

you'll probably just know