He has supported me through tough life events, and I have supported him through his own. Wilson has encouraged me to stand up to my abusive mother and given me the strength to set boundaries. He shows me his love not in big flashy gestures, but in the quiet, meaningful moments when I need him. We have had conversations about our future and how we want our lives to look. In every conversation, it seems like we are on the same page.
I thought he would remain simply "first," but we're happily in love nine years later. Yet, there's one big milestone that we haven't reached: our first time living together. Unlike most couples, we've never shared a space for more than a few weeks. People are always shocked when they hear how long we've been together. The first question they usually ask is, "Why hasn't he proposed yet?" Their eyes widen even more when they find out I'm not going home to him.
Because I haven't slept with anybody else for decades, my sexual skills don't feel transferable; they are specific to Lisa Lisa and I met at university in 1996, when we were 19. Since I've known her, she's grown from a willowy teenager into a middle-aged woman and I've become a middle-aged man with a belly and a bad back. But a 30-year relationship isn't about how you look.
We had sex the following year, and it was pretty meh; of course, we were only teens. We never had a hot relationship where we would have sex multiple times per day or in crazy places; she just never cared for anything other than straight penis-in-vagina sex. I always felt I was missing something, and during that time, I had multiple affairs.