Today marks fifteen years since I asked my husband to be my boyfriend. I had never had a boyfriend before him, and honestly, for a while I made sure it stayed that way with him too. He says when he first saw me on the steps of our medical school on the first day, he knew he would marry me one day. A few months later, he made his move. He asked me out on a date, and I innocently invited our friends not knowing it was a date. He was not too pleased, although now we look back laughing. He asked to watch a movie with me, and I made sure to keep some distance from us while sitting to watch a pirated version of “40 year old virgin”. All our friends kept telling me the same thing, that he was good, that he was kind, that he was steady. I heard them. I just wasn’t ready to hear it for myself yet.

We would have these heart to hearts, walks while studying, talks about our fears of not passing our fourth term class, and he was always a source of comfort for me. One day, I saw what everyone else kept telling me. We were all together, everyone talking over each other the way friend groups do, and I looked over at him just standing there, not trying to be anything for anyone. And something in me finally settled. I saw it, the kind, wholesome soul everyone else had been telling me about all along. I just needed to get there on my own time.

I think about how lucky I am that we were friends first. How that friendship held through every single no, and never once turned into resentment or pressure. He stuck around for the long game, he says now, and there’s a quiet confidence in that phrase that still gets me.

I won’t pretend it’s all been easy because it hasn’t. The early years of our marriage were rough. We fought a lot in the way two people do when they’re still figuring out how to become a we instead of two separate I’s. Over time, the fighting eased and our values started lining up, and I thought we had found our footing. Then we had kids, and that foundation got shaken all over again.

I was immature about a lot of it. I let myself get pulled toward everything except us. That was on me, and I can see it clearly now in a way I couldn’t back then. My husband isn’t perfect either, and he is constantly putting in the work too. He has only gotten more patient in general and more tuned in to what I actually need rather than what I say in the heat of the moment. And I’ve tried to meet him there, keeping my eyes on us as a whole instead of just getting distracted by the periphery.

We still argue in front of the boys sometimes, even though we try so hard to save it for later, behind closed doors, after bedtime. It doesn’t always work out that way, though. And more than once, one of our sons has looked up at us mid-argument and asked us to please stop squabbling. It stings every time, but it also grounds us. It’s a reminder, from the smallest people in our house, of exactly who we’re supposed to be for each other.

We’re still not perfect. We’re still working on it, on purpose, every day. But I’m sorry for the parts of the past that were mine to own and I know he is too, and I value how every year we keep choosing each other and we get a little stronger.

Last year, my husband gave me the sweetest gift I could imagine for our 11th marriage anniversary: he wrote me a blog post, this exact title above, in his own words. He knows me well enough to know that a simple picture and a loving note will outlast just about anything wrapped in paper. This year, it’s my turn to hand the words back to him.

Fifteen years of choosing each other, again and again, in ways loud and quiet. Fifteen years of embracing the everything we are.