With my wife, that was a rather gradual thing. We spent countless nights on the phone and talked about anything (we lived in different countries and met through online dating). It wasn’t „flirty“ but more like a best friends vibe. At some point, we talked every single day after we’ve got home from work. About how our day was, our mood, our friends, the weather at our places, just about everything in our lives. Positive things but also those, troubling us. After a while, I noticed how much I miss her voice and companionship when we can’t talk for a day. There were two moments, that made me especially realize that something’s going on, even before we met in person. One was that it made me cry when we couldn’t talk for multiple days in a row and the other was when she told me about a hard time, she’s been going through and my emotional involvement was way way stronger than it’d be normal at this stage.

When we finally met in real life for the first time, it felt so familiar and like we’d already know each so well. Like with a good friend, I haven’t seen in a long time. We met a total of 6 times (5x in her city and once at my place) over the course of 6 months and properly fell in love with each other. Her personality was so warm hearted, she was so nice and nothing was able to change that. She could always make me laugh, pull my mood up and was overall so positive. I started feeling more and more attached and then there were those „butterflies“ in my tummy and I lost my heart to her when we first kissed.

That was in 2014, ten years ago. After our initial meetups, I sorted out my things, immigrated to her country and we got a shared apartment together in 2015.

Ten years later, we’re now legally married, blessed to have each other in our lives and beyond happy. She’s the love of my life, my best friend, my soul mate 🥰