Easy

I was engaged back when I was 27. I met a man who swept me off my feet, who showed his adoration in numerous ways, which at the time just blew me away. He wrote me cards, sent me faxes in the age before emails. I received buquets of flowers and declarations of love after only only 2 weeks.
I remember even then I was uneasy.
How can you love someone after 2 weeks?
I questioned him. I let some time go by before I began to believe in his love,
though in retrospect I think I was in love with someone loving me.
After 3 months, we got engaged.
It was then that it began to unravel.
He became irritable, I became insecure.
He became distant, I became worried.
Something changed, and changed terribly.
I started feeling like this was just wrong, but I was paralyzed with the feelings of knowing it is wrong, and not understanding why.
I ultimately called off our engagement when we had been dating a year.
I learned why I could not marry him in therapy.

I look back on this phase of my life, knowing full well I would be divorced if we ever did get married. I was smart even then, when I was nieve and loving the idea of someone loving me. But even then, it was not enough.

I met my last long term relationship the year I graduated from graduate school. I was 30. We dated for a year and a half. After 6 months I knew everything I wanted to know about him. We had moments where we connected and it felt so good, but for the most part I felt miles between us when it came time to talk, to communicate, to understand each other. It was frustrating, but I loved him. He was everything I wanted at the time. So I waited.
After a year and a half, I realized that he would never posess the one thing that I wanted, the most important aspect of a relationship, and the reason I had not married: I wanted a connection. I wanted communication. I wanted to be able to talk to someone and have them listen and understand and not look at me like I was speaking a foreign language. I knew I needed this, and went looking. Of course, looking and wanting, especially wanting a child with said man did not work. We all know what I decided: at 37, I underwent IVF and had my sweet boy Aidan.
In deciding to become a single mother, I had to come to terms with the fact that I doing that would mean that I may never marry. That I may never be in a relationship that fulfils me like I wanted and was waiting for. Yes, I spoke of this happening for me at some time in the future, but no one who has a kid on their own does it without knowing that you make a conscious choice to make the pickings for a mate even smaller than they were before you had a kid. I was okay with that.
I came to terms with this very likely reality.

Fast forward 5 years. Aidan is 4. In my mind I have always believed in the connection that I desired. I wanted that so badly that I was willing to be single forever until I found it. My mother tells me I always believed this. Almost a year ago my BF falls from the sky. Someone I have known for nearly 13 years. Someone I saw occasionally througout the years, who has always been cheerful, open, and so sincere. He is someone who lights the room with his happiness, kindness and willingness to talk about anything. When he asks you how you are, he really wants to know.

It has been almost a year, and he is still the wonderful man that he was a year ago when I sat across the table and gazed into his sparkling blue eyes, and really "saw" him for the first time. He is the person I called at 11pm after a big fight with a friend and sobbed into the phone. He is the man who refers to my gynecological issues as "ours" and calls me beautiful when I talk him on the phone. (and he means it) He is the man who will only say he loves me when he has had too much to drink, but who tells me "I'm the one" in a way that I don't question. He notices when I am upset, does not get riled when I am irritable or angry, and says "I want to talk more about this, but I have to go, we'll talk about this later okay?" (and we do)
He is the communicative, stable, funny, smart, endearing, supportive man I always thought I would never find, but was willing to risk it all to wait for. The easiest relationship in my life.
Truly and utterly amazing.