Here's How To Know Once & For All If It's Really The Right Time To Get Engaged

With celebrity engagements happening at a lightning-fast rate (hello Priyanka Chopra and Nick Jonas! Hailey Baldwin Bieber and Justin Bieber!), you may be wondering if it's the right time to get engaged to your partner. Many of these celebrity engagements we see in the news happen super fast, but the truth is, we don't have access to every detail of those relationships like you do for your own. While we may not know the exact intimate conversations Priyanka and Nick had leading up to their engagement and how many private fights they've found solutions for, you're certainly able to reflect on your own relationship to determine if you're ready to take that next step.

Bonnie Winston, celebrity matchmaker and relationship expert, offered many ways to know you're ready to get engaged. But her number one suggestion? Listen to yourself. You'll know when you know.

"I believe people have to trust their gut and not ask their mother, their [friends], or read a book [to know]," Winston tells Elite Daily.

Winston says that if you've met your significant other's friends and family, are comfortable going to the bathroom in their house, and are open with one another, you could be ready to get engaged to your partner.

Beyond those reasons, Winston says you should be having intimate, vulnerable conversations with your partner if you're considering marriage.

"When you cry in front of each other, feel vulnerable, share deep secrets, and are generally open," Winston says you could be ready for marriage at that point. If you aren't sharing yourself emotionally with your partner, you two may not yet be at the point for engagement or marriage.

Winston also cites giving each other the passwords to your phones as a potential indication that you trust your partner enough to build a life together. Sharing an iPhone password is basically a modern-day equivalent to sharing your diary with someone — if you trust someone with your phone, you can be pretty sure you trust them.

Furthermore, talking about building a family together points to that being a path you want to take with that person. Also, going on a trip together could really test you two as a couple. How they respond to unexpected flight delays, how they deal with traffic, and — gasp — if they clap when your plane lands could determine whether you see yourself with that person in the long run. Conversations you have and situations you go through will shape your opinion of whether or not you could be engaged to your partner and be with them for life.

"When you travel together and survive it, or have a fight and makeup and not breakup," Winston says, could also indicate you're ready to get engaged with your S.O. Once you've weathered difficult things together and proven you come out stronger as a couple, that could be evidence that your partnership can withstand the many situations life could throw your way. But you don't need me to tell you that. If you know you're ready, you know.