In honor of cuffing season, today I’m talking with one of my favorite couples about how they’ve managed to maintain their eight year long relationship through many different life stages.

They share where their love story began, the ways that it’s changed along with each of their lives, and the lessons they learned along the way. By retelling stories of living through long distance and differing experiences of transitioning to adulthood, they offer us their best advice on how to grow closer: focus on communication and invest in learning each other's love languages.

When you’re still figuring out who you are, balancing your individuality, your friendships, your multiplying responsibilities, and your relationship can be difficult. We talk through some of the ways that they’ve overcome challenges (ie. dating someone with a different religious background or wanting to prioritize career) and how humor is sometimes the best path towards mutual understanding.

If you’re teetering the line of whether or not to commit, getting to hear how their relationship helped them learn about themselves and their personal goals in life might provide you with the optimism you need to fare forward.