How much times does it take to really get to know your partner?

The other day, I had a very interesting conversation with my best friend about how long it takes to really get to know somebody.  Things are now getting serious with her relationship of a month and as expected, some of her friends and family are worried!  Her mother told her that a friend of hers, who is a couples therapist, says you have to be with someone for 9 months in order to really know who they are.

I 100% disagree.  I believe that there is NO such thing as a timeline as to how much time it takes to get to know someone.  It takes many different situations and events in order to see every side of your partner -- good and bad life events. 

Here is where my issue is.  Chuck and I have been together for a year now - that's excluding the multiple months that we communicated through emails while first getting to know each other.  And if you had asked me a couple months ago if I truly know him, I would've said yes.  I've seen him sick, tired, happy, excited, angry, sad, and many other emotions throughout the past year.  But I was wrong.

Now, we have experienced a tragic event in which I believe these events change who people are.  If you were to have asked me three weeks ago if I knew who Chuck truly was, I would have said no.  He was a completely different person then I had known before because he was the one experiencing this life altering tragic event of loss.  In a sense, I had to relearn to love the new man in front of me.  And let me tell you, I fell hard.   

As Chuck was going through his changes (and he still is), I was mourning the loss of my old Chuck. This new Chuck was different which upset me, but I now see that he was just enduring the hardships that have transformed him into his new self. 

Although his new self is very new and we still don't really see the details of him yet.... is amazing.  At the funeral, I looked at Chuck with awe.  For the past three weeks, I've been trying to describe it in my journal, but I absolutely CAN NOT come up with words to describe how I was feeling about him!!!  It was a mixture of feelings of adoring, prideful, and so impressed - I sat there thinking.... How could this be my man!!  How could I find a man that was so strong and stepped up to the plate to do the hardest thing anyone could ever imagine.  The vivid images of him and his powerful actions will never be forgotten.  And wow, he did it with such pride and strength.  And watching him that weekend, I fell in love with him so deeply.  I've seen his dark, and I've seen him at his worst... and to see him fight through it and now shedding a little light... I want all of it!!  

I believe that the time it takes to get to truly know someone depends on the time it takes to remove the masks and see the real dark in that person...

 if you can love that dark, then you're set for life.  No matter what our future holds, I will always think the absolute world of him.  He showed me that even his dark side is so lovely.