Three months in, what are you like?

Already thinking about the trip in September.Steady. They can tell exactly where they stand with you.Full of ideas. You have made it fun to be in your life.Useful. You have already sorted two things out for them.

They come home upset. You:

Ask, and then say nothing for a long time.Stay nearby, make them something, and do not push.Drop everything. It is now the subject of the evening.Give them room, and check in properly in an hour.

What are you best at?

The logistics of a shared life. Nothing gets forgotten.Making sure it never becomes two people co-existing.Knowing what is actually wrong before they have said it.Loving somebody without any hedging whatsoever.

Your worst habit in a relationship:

You absorb things until, one day, you don't.You solve, when you were being asked to listen.You take about a year to say anything true.You need a lot of room and you are bad at explaining why.

How do you show love on an ordinary Tuesday?

The thing they were dreading is booked and paid for.The tap works now. You did not mention it.You ask the second question, and you want the answer.You are there, easy to be around, asking for nothing.

What do you need from them?

Not much, honestly. Consistency, and no sudden weather.That they say yes to things. Enthusiasm is the whole thing.Patience while you get there, and no ultimatums.Closeness. Rather more of it than the average person wants.

A fight is starting. You:

Want a resolution tonight, with actions attached.Go very calm, which they occasionally find infuriating.Try to understand what is underneath it before answering.Go quiet, and it takes days for the whole of it to come out.

Pick the thing you would be accused of:

Brilliant at the fun parts, useless at the admin.Turning their feelings into a project.Being a bit much, occasionally, on a bad week.Being hard to reach even when you are in the room.

What makes you feel secure?

A plan that you both agreed to.Being needed for something practical.Time. It is the only thing that has ever convinced you.Being told, out loud, more often than is strictly necessary.

Ten years in, what would you be like?

Exactly the same. That is rather the point of you.Still making them laugh, still suggesting something daft.Somebody who knows them better than anyone ever has.Two lives that still genuinely choose each other.

What do you get wrong at the start?

You organise before you have asked what they want.You are so unbothered they cannot tell you are interested.You are enormous fun and slightly hard to pin down.You start improving their life before being asked to.

What would you want them to say about you?

"Nobody has ever listened to me like that.""They were slow, and then they were completely there.""I have never once doubted it.""They loved me and never tried to make me smaller."