I was young and naive the first time I talked about being in love forever. Those dreams of growing old together and loving each other forever filled my head while lost in the romantic notions of what forever should be. I was young, in love, and determined to not be a divorce statistic as we journeyed towards our happily ever after. And then it happened. We grew up and only one of us kept trying to grow together. So when he told me it was over, the word forever was ripped from my world.

I struggled with this idea quite a bit. I had always wanted to reach those big wedding anniversary milestones. I wanted to be that cute old couple in the parking lot, still holding hands. I wanted to spend forever loving and being loved by the one person I had chosen and in that moment had chosen me. So when he closed the door on my idea of forever, forever was stuck behind the closed door too.

As my marriage ended I switched from optimist to realist and removed the word forever from my vocabulary. I had learned, the hard way, that my willingness to grow and dedicate all my energy to make a relationship work wasn’t nearly enough and have since learned to balance the energy for myself too. When your romantic idea of forever includes someone else, you are trusting in that person to walk the forever path with you. You can hope they’ll move forward with you, but the reality is, happily ever after and a love that lasts forever doesn’t often happen, especially if you’ve given your heart to someone who didn’t value and honour it. In the end, you can only control your own thoughts and actions towards it.

But then one night my tainted view of forever shifted. As I lay in bed with my partner, I realized he was making me hope and long for forever again. That word, I was so adamant no longer had a place in my life, didn’t even reopen the door, but crashed through like the Kool Aid Man to announce that forever had returned to my world. And as the new realist me weighed the hope with the reality of the situation, the optimistic side rejoined to show me, it’s okay to still want, acknowledge, and work towards a forever with someone. Forever was never a bad word, it was just connected to the wrong person.

Through the love of my partner, I have reclaimed the word forever. I’ve reclaimed it as a hope of forever that can continue to evolve over our lifetime. It has become the constant longing that what we have between us remains solid and that our love and connection continues to grow forever. And the longer we’re together, the more I feel like we could really be the couple that makes forever a reality. With him, every day we take towards our forever is a gift.

The road that led me here gives me the knowledge that this time I have a better chance of being successful. This time I’m part of a relationship with strong foundations and a genuine desire for the best for each other. Life will always throw surprises and each one so far we have conquered together with the utmost love and support. No matter what is ahead of us, every day I get to wake up beside a man that makes my heart feel alive and each night utter peace returns as we collapse from our day. This is a man who has shown me he loves me unconditionally and is on this journey with me as we grow together. And because of him, I’ve been able to reclaim the word forever and that longing for our love to last forever. And as cliché as it is, forever is genuinely not going to be long enough for the depth of this love.