I got married less than a year after meeting my husband. We’ve been together for 35 years now.

My husband Jay and I got married in our early 20s after a whirlwind, long-distance romance — he was a sailor in the Navy, stationed in Virginia, while I lived in Florida.

We met in February, got engaged in June, and married in October. During that time, we relied on daily phone calls and frequent letters to get to know each other. By the time we said “I do” at our small wedding in front of a dozen friends and family, we’d only spent about two weeks together in person.

Getting married didn’t end the long-distance part of our relationship. Jay was still in the Navy (and would be for another 25 years) and was often gone more than he was home. But we continued to write daily letters — snail mail, that could take weeks or months to arrive — and squeeze in phone calls whenever he was on shore leave, counting down the days until our next reunion.

I’m not sure anyone except us thought it would last. But from the beginning, we had an “us versus the world” mentality that made us feel like we could handle whatever life threw our way. This year, we’re celebrating 35 years together.

We stay in constant communication

We committed not just to marriage, but to truly being each other’s port in a storm. No matter what the challenge, we turned to each other first rather than seeking advice or validation from friends or family. Communication, which was the backbone of our long-distance relationship, is still important to us.

From long, daily letters and brief, expensive phone calls during long Navy deployments, to today’s constant texts, emails, and hours-long conversations at night and on the weekends, we’ve always found ways to stay connected. Our days are a flurry of links and photos, texts and memes, emails and “I love yous.” If I don’t hear from him in two or three hours, I’ll check in. These gestures may seem ordinary early in a relationship, but after 35 years, they have added up to something extraordinary: a marriage built on daily connection.

It’s that ongoing dialogue that has kept us emotionally close and prevented misunderstandings from festering into resentment. We’ve had very few big conflicts over the course of our marriage, partly because we share the same values and outlook. And when we don’t, we talk about it until we find common ground.

We give each other room to grow

Over three and a half decades together, both of us have changed in ways we never could have predicted. Our interests, careers, and even personalities have evolved. Instead of resisting those changes, we’ve learned to embrace them. We celebrate each other’s achievements and respect each other’s independence, knowing that growth keeps us moving forward together.

A big part of that growth came from the time we spent as a couple before becoming parents. We waited much longer than most couples and didn’t have children until we were in our 40s. That delay gave us years to figure out who we were — both individually and together — before adding kids into the mix. Those early decades of just us built a strong foundation and a shared identity as a couple before facing parenthood together and discovering an entirely new facet of our relationship.

We still make time for each other

The Navy years are behind us. We have two teenagers, and Jay is 10 years into a teaching career. Even now, with busy careers and family life, we carve out time just for us. It doesn’t take a big getaway (though I wouldn’t say no if someone wanted to wrangle our teens and pets for a week) — often, it’s a short drive to run errands, a weekend coffee date, or chatting after dinner or before bed about our day and what’s coming up.

We also talk about the future. We talk about what our lives will look like when our kids are in college, what we’ll do when we are retired, what kind of life we’ll want as empty nesters, and when it’s just the two of us once again. It’s these little rituals of sharing day-to-day life and looking forward to what comes next that remind us that our relationship is the center on which the rest of our lives revolve.

We keep choosing each other

People often say marriage is hard — but for me, it has been the easiest part of my life because I’m never carrying the weight alone. Sharing the workload has always been important in our relationship — whether it’s household chores, parenting responsibilities, or supporting each other’s careers — but just as important is acknowledging those efforts. We say “thank you” almost as much as we say “I love you.” Even when it feels like a given, expressing gratitude reminds us that we’re still lucky to have each other.

Looking back, I’m amazed at how far we’ve come — from a young couple who barely knew each other to partners who have shared a lifetime of memories, weathering storms side by side, and always remembering that the person next to us is our partner in all things. The odds may have been against us at the start, but our commitment has stood the test of time because we keep choosing each other, day after day.

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