Column: What kind of love lasts 20,000 dinners at home?

And I ask myself: What kind of love did they choose?

Because that’s what real love is. A choice.

Repeated through decades. Made not in candlelit moments, but across kitchen tables, in waiting rooms, in the stillness after arguments, and during the long, slow days when love isn’t exciting, but essential.

And here’s what every woman should be asking, not in year five, or ten, but before she says yes: What kind of life will I live beside this man, not just now, but for the rest of my days?

If you marry at 25 and live to 80, that’s more than 20,000 dinners at home. But it’s more than that. It’s also midnight feedings, diaper changes, and long nights spent pacing with a crying baby in your arms.

Will he wake up without bitterness when the baby cries at 3 a.m. and I’m too sore, too tired, or still healing from giving birth? Will he serve in the quiet ways that don’t get praised, the ways that matter most?

Twenty thousand nights of deciding what to cook, where to sit, what stories to tell, what battles to let go of. Is he the man I want to sit across from, not just during anniversaries or celebrations, but during ordinary Tuesday nights, while we pass the rice, talk about our children, and grow old in our routines?

Will he stay when the kids have grown, when the house goes quiet again, and it’s just the two of us?

No more school programs. No more packed lunches. No more loud living rooms. Just the hum of a shared life and the question, “What now?”

Will he still be here, kind, constant, unchanged in devotion, even when everything else has changed?

We often ask if a man is fun, charming, strong, successful. But here’s a deeper question: Am I choosing a man who will outlast the seasons?

Can he carry me through sickness? Through funerals? Through decades of responsibility and routine?

And one day, when life has slowed down and the world no longer calls our names as loudly as it once did, when the titles, achievements, and applause have quieted, will he still choose me?

When I am no longer the most beautiful woman in the room, when the lines on my face trace the years we’ve lived, will he still see me as his home?

If I go first, will he bury me gently, with love still in his eyes, not just for who I was, but for every version of me he witnessed through the years? Will he carry my memory with tenderness, not bitterness?

And more than that, will he be strong enough to carry our children through their grief? Will he know how to anchor them when they feel the weight of my absence? Will he be the kind of father who reminds them, not just through words but through presence, that they are still safe, still loved, and still held?

Because choosing a man is not just about who makes you laugh today.

It’s about who will hold the line when the hardest chapters arrive, and who will still be standing at the end, with gentleness in his hands and faithfulness in his spine.

Will his name sit beside mine on the tombstone, not as a symbol of what was convenient, but of what was real? We don’t think of these things when we’re in love. But we should. Because the only love worth giving your life to is the kind that stays.

The kind that shows up to every birthday, every hospital visit, every Christmas, every ordinary dinner, every New Year’s Eve, whether the table is full or it’s just the two of you in silence.

Before you give your heart away, please ask: Is he the kind of man who stays when the world stops applauding, when the children are grown, when the fire turns to embers, and all that’s left is commitment?

Because someday it won’t be about grand gestures. It will be about who carries the grocery bags, who remembers your medicine, who helps you up the stairs, who sits beside you in a doctor’s office, and who holds your hand when the room is too quiet.

And this matters just as much: Are we becoming the kind of women who can meet that kind of love with the same unwavering grace?

It’s not enough to want a faithful man. We must also be faithful women. Steady, forgiving, patient, rooted in purpose, not just in desire. Because in the end, love isn’t made in the good days.

It’s made in the silent ones, the stormy ones, the long ones.

So before you say yes, before you take his last name, or dream of your first home, ask the question that echoes beyond the aisle, beyond the honeymoon, beyond the years:

When it’s just us again, and the world has moved on, will he still be here? And more importantly, will I still want him to be?

Because love is not made of grand beginnings. It is made of 20,000 dinners. Of staying through decades. Of presence when no one is watching. Of choosing one another long after the reasons to leave would have made sense to everyone else.

And in the end, when the noise quiets, the children move on, and life settles into stillness, all that remains is one final truth. You do not need a perfect man. You need a man who will stay. And you must become the kind of woman who knows what that’s worth.