Earlier this month Joel’s parents celebrated 50 years of marriage. When I asked how they made it to 50 years, his mom said:

“You have to want to stay married.”

7 years ago today, April 30, 2010, Joel and I broke up. It was the single best thing that happened to our relationship.

We’d been dating for 4 months and one of us (Joel) was having second thoughts about whether it was right. One of us (me) wouldn’t settle for love with reservations. So we broke up. Because we (mostly he) didn’t know if we wanted to stay together. And we (mostly me) knew that we needed to be sure.

If you’ve heard this story before, you’ll know that I was incredibly devastated by this break up. Devastated in a way that perhaps I shouldn’t have been after dating someone for 4 months. Devastated in a way that I’d only been one time before. I was heartbroken. I couldn’t eat (contain your shock, I know) and survived on vanilla Greek yogurt and minute rice mixed with butter and ketchup. I chain smoked and paced on my breaks at work. I slept and I cried.

But I never, for a single second, let Joel know how miserable I felt. Because I knew, without a single doubt, that if we got back together, it needed to be because he was sure of his choice and not because he felt emotionally bulldozed by me. Instead, after briefly losing my ever-loving shit for the unsavory details of our breakup, I thanked Joel. I thanked him for teaching me that my heart could accommodate love because I thought it might have been broken after I lost Ed. I thanked him for making me feel, even if the ultimate feeling I experienced was loss.

And then, I did what every gal does after break up: re-activated my match.com profile. (Guys, tinder wasn’t even a thing. I really missed out.) You might wonder whether people who break up with their boyfriends should be eating taco salad at Jose’s Blue Sombrero  9 days after a break up. The answer is yes. I’m a big fan of faking it until you make it. I date therefore I am (okay).

Nonetheless, faking isn’t easy. Mostly I could hardly go through the motions and relied upon good friends to make it  happen. On one early occasion, when Anna Marie was straightening my hair for a movie date and I was bemoaning my fate I said “I wish I was going out with Joel.” She said, in her signature southern-belle-turned-fierce-feminist way:

“Honey, Joel’s not asking you out anymore.”

And that was it in its truest form. Joel wasn’t choosing me anymore- and I couldn’t and wouldn’t make him.

So I’d go out to lunch with one guy that was fun but wasn’t Joel and then maybe go out to dinner and a movie with another guy that was sweet but wasn’t Joel. Maybe I’d take a nap in between. They all thought I was lovely and that was flattering. I enjoyed their company but they didn’t listen to NPR. (Side note: I’d never even heard of NPR before dating Joel). They didn’t tell me that pearls were innovative because they turned an irritant into something beautiful when I questioned whether wearing them made me pretentious. They didn’t think my trivia about peanuts being legumes or the invention of the ampersand was particularly fascinating. They weren’t Joel who, by the way, still wasn’t choosing me.

But they were, collectively, as important to our relationship as either Joel and I were. First, their subtle presence in my life in the form of delayed or unanswered texts hastened Joel’s decision making. He knew the risk he was taking everyday he didn’t choose me. Hey, that’s the price of doing business in the big city! #naturalconsequences

But second, and most importantly, they helped me realize how powerful I was in defining my future. They helped me realize the power of my own choice. Joel wasn’t choosing me, that much was clear. But it takes two to choose to be in a relationship and this experience posed an important question- what and who did I want to choose?

It seems ridiculous to say that I chose my husband while we were broken up, but I did. I dated a handful of men who were perfectly acceptable. They were each successful, smart and good looking- mostly importantly, they were each choosing me. But I couldn’t choose them. Because they weren’t Joel. Joel was everything I never knew I always wanted until I met him. Under his arm, my head fit perfectly on his chest. See generally:

It took two months but Joel came to his senses and, with no reservations, chose me. I let him linger for a bit, but knew this would be the beginning of the most ultimate choice of my life. I can’t say there wasn’t some hesitation and a loooooooootttt of questions, but I can say that nothing ever felt wrong about this choice.

We got engaged a little over a year later. To hear Joel tell the tale, he was pretty sure I’d say no, at least the first time, if only to teach him a lesson about what if feels like to not be chosen. (Side note: I said yes the first time, though saying no was tempting.)

But he didn’t ask “Will you marry me?” He didn’t ask if I chose him.  He asked “May I marry you?” He asked for permission to marry me, a fact I’ve teased him about repeatedly since that night because… who does that??  I don’t know why he asked me this way- maybe he was just frazzled in the moment. But maybe it was because he knew we already chose each other and that marriage was just a formality in comparison to the magnitude of that choice.

When I wrote our wedding ceremony, I focused on the idea that modern marriage is one of the most personal choices we make in life. The person we choose to marry speaks volumes about who we are, what we want, where we’re going. Our spouse is a reflection of us, so we should choose carefully. Rumi, from our ceremony:

The minute I heard my first love story,

I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was.

Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere.

They’re in each other all along.

What our beautiful ceremony failed to anticipate is ALLLLLL the choice that comes after “I do.” What I didn’t know, and probably couldn’t know, at the time was that you must make choices every. single. day. after that. Big choices. And little choices. And little choices that lead to big choices. So many choices- all of them relating back to the ultimate choice to stay married.

It’s the choice of where to live and where to work. It’s the choice to embrace the 437 annoying things your partner does daily. It’s the choice to pick up the dish sitting on the end table and put it in the sink before the baby gets it without first taking a picture and sending it to your spouse 9 out of 10 times- #sorrynotsorry about time #10, I have my limits.

It’s the choice to stop complaining about leaving the closet light on because, ultimately, it doesn’t matter. It’s the choice to limit your eye rolls to an acceptable level during any given conflict, no matter how innocuous. It’s the choice to relent and soften in an argument even though you think you’re right and you’re mad as hell. It’s the choice to break bad habits. It’s the choice to avoid pushing the buttons you’ve learned by heart even when its so tempting and you feel entitled to do so.

It’s the choice to try to make someone else happy even if you can think of a dozen reasons they aren’t making you happy on that day. Its the choice to fully accept an apology and let go of your annoyance even if you have reason to doubt its sincerity. It’s the choice to calmly communicate a fact that “like, seriously, why don’t you know this?!?!” with no such incredulity in your voice. It’s the choice to only share said incredulity with your group text squad instead.

It’s the choice to not submit your application for Nick’s season of the bachelor- even though, “duh you live in Wisconsin and so does he and Canadian Vanessa is not right for him!” It’s a choice to let go of everything that your partner isn’t because of everything your partner is.

In our vows, Joel and I promised to “never stop trying.” At the time, I knew this vow was important, but looking back on all the silly vows about “loving” and “cherishing” I now know that our vow to never stop trying is the single most important one we made.  To never stop trying means to never stop choosing. Sure, we love each other. That’s easy. But choosing to stay married after a particularly tough Tuesday at work and a messy and exhausting dinner hour? That’s the hard part. That’s when the choice to stay is more powerful than the act of loving or cherishing.

Falling in love with Joel is the easiest thing I’ve done in my life. Choosing to stay there, that’s how you get to celebrate 50 year anniversaries. 4.5 down- 45.5 to go!

Here’s a little interview Joel and I did for our wedding for you to enjoy with special commentary on what 50 years of marriage should look like.

* Disclaimer: This blog is in no way insinuating that people should choose to stay in marriages that are abusive in ANYWAY. It also should not be taken as an oversimplification of the many choices that go into whether a marriage should continue. You deserve to be happy, at whatever cost. Above all else, choose you!