Here’s The Truth About When You Will Find Your ‘Forever Person’

We’re all searching for our ‘forever person.’

Right?

You know who I’m talking about. The person who you meet and just know – without having to state it – that you’re going to be in it for the long haul together.

Maybe they have perfect answers to all of your questions. Maybe they engage in a series of subtle behaviors that makes your heart soar. Maybe they just have that je-ne-sais-quoi, that makes you want to hang up your single status for good and surrender to a never-ending romance.

Except for one tiny caveat, which is this:

As long as you are searching for your ‘forever’ person, you are never going to find them.

Because forever people aren’t found.

They are not soul mates who were packaged up at birth with a secret label under their skin identifying them as the person you’re meant to grow old with. Forever doesn’t work like that.

Forever isn’t a status you lock down on your eighth date when they answer fifty questions correctly or do thirty-three micro things right.

It isn’t the prize you earn for keeping your abs toned and your hair highlighted and for using the exact right flirty emoji every single time.

Forever isn’t a dating level that you unlock – mastering the ‘first date’ trivia and dodging conflict grenades until you’ve earned enough bonus points to cash in for a lifetime of relationship security.

Forever is never a guarantee – in any relationship, for any two people, ever.

Because forever isn’t something you find inside of somebody else. It’s something you build as a team.

Forever happens through a series of choices that two people make – day in and day out, for as long as they’re invested in loving each other. Forever happens through the conscious act of choosing each other – through every fight, every trial, every wholly unglamorous bump in the road that makes both of you want to run for the hills.

Forever isn’t about a magical sense of compatibility that saves you from any future trials. It’s the ongoing commitment to keep choosing each other. Through every challenge. Through every struggle. Through every argument that pushes your limits.

Forever happens one day at a time.

It doesn’t click into place when an engagement ring gets chosen or a priest declares you legally bound.

Forever is what happens when thousands upon thousands of individual days end up adding up to a lifetime spent together.

There’s nothing magical, mystical or incredulous about meeting your ‘forever person.’

Because you’re never going to meet someone who can guarantee forever right away.

But if you’re willing to put in some damn hard work, you might just be able to build a forever from scratch.