Along with the new wrinkle on my forehead and the increasing severity of hangovers, getting older has also brought me something a lot more welcome — it's brought me a little bit of wisdom. With each passing year, we understand more about ourselves and our relationships. My significant other and I have been together for over five years, and I've had some of the best experiences of my life with him. We've also had some pretty difficult ones. While I'm not sure there's one true secret to making things work, I do know that it's possible if you're both really in it together.
We've changed over the years and so has the nature of our love. We've experienced the excitement of falling hard for each other, we've challenged our resilience with a move across the country with each other (and a very grumpy cat), and we've started over in a new city with no money and few friends. We've celebrated births of family members together and mourned the loss of them, too. We've experienced the novelty of the honeymoon phase wearing off and a deeper, more peaceful kind of love settling in. Falling in love is easy; staying in love is something you have to work at daily. Over the years I've seen little signs (often at the time not realising what they were) that helped me decipher what true love really is and what that means. Here's what I've learned.
— Additional reporting by Maya Berry