'I think I settled in my marriage... but I think that's okay.'

I'll never forget the advice my mother gave me when I was fresh out of one of those painful, all-consuming relationships in my twenties that left me feeling completely lost. 

Crying on my childhood bed after returning home with my tail between my legs the second time I'd stupidly taken him back (he cheated. Again), she said to me gently: "I think sometimes the best way to choose a long-term partner is to make sure they love you just a tiny bit more than you love them."

At the time, I rubbed it off as unromantic drivel. What kind of person aims for a relationship in which they're not swept off their feet by that giddy, addictive, can't-get-enough-of-him-hurts-so-bad love? 

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I cringe at myself, looking back, but that's what young love is for. 

18 months later, I met Joe*.

He was the polar opposite to my Mr Toxic ex (who by that point I'd taken back one more time before finally calling it off).

He was kind, and funny, and stoic in a way that reminded me of someone from the forties, boarding a train to go off to war. 

He was a gentleman, and remains one of the most uncomplicated people I've ever met. 

We fell in love gradually, and then all at once, and while soon I couldn't imagine life without him, I kept wondering if the lack of that 'butterflies' feeling meant that, deep down, we weren't really meant for one another. 

When, a year later, he proposed, my 'yes' was immediate. But so was the niggling doubt that love was meant to feel more… exciting. 

It was then that my mother's words came back to me, and I realised that perhaps I was looking at the exact proposition she talked about. I loved Joe, and I knew that deep in my bones. But I also knew that he probably loved me a smidge more. 

20 years on, I still love Joe. We love each other in the way that two people who have shared life's most intimate moments together do, with a depth that is more like family than passionate romance. 

We've got a gorgeous daughter together, and, devastatingly, lost her brother at nearly full-term.

We've seen each other at our worst, lived through the death of a parent each, and struggled with all the normal things too: sleep deprivation, money troubles, becoming ships in the night and then suddenly having a little bit more time together, once our daughter started high school. 

But occasionally, I still wonder if the love we have is the kind of love other people talk about when they use words like 'soulmate'. Mostly when I read posts online where other women talk about their long-term partners with the kind of passion usually reserved for the leading male in a fairy smut novel.

Is our love the kind of big, pre-destined love that they write those novels about? Probably not. 

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We rarely want to rip each other's clothes off at the dinner table (but when we do rip each other's clothes off, at a sensible hour in the sensible darkness of our bedroom, we still have fun.)

We don't write each other love notes — we text each other shopping lists.

But our conversation is easy, and our respect for one another has rarely wavered. I genuinely believe that respect has been what got us through some of the darker times.

With Joe, my nervous system is regulated in a way that I'm beginning to understand I might have taken for granted all these years.

His love has never been restrictive, and as a result, we've both been able to pursue the passions that make us who we are.

We have our own lives, a big circle of friends and in that, the pressure has been eased off needing the other person to be 'everything' in our lives. 

So when that question pops up again, all these years later, and I wonder if I 'settled' with my stable, dependable Joe, perhaps I'm thinking about the word all wrong. 

I didn't 'settle' — I am settled. 

And I think I chose right.

*Names have been changed to protect privacy.

Feature image: Canva. (Stock image for illustrative purposes).