Our wedding day was magical, but it wasn’t the best day of my life. The best day of my life was the one at the beach, when you took my hand to dance alone by the sea at sunset, and in the cab back to the train station – nine days after we got together – you referred to me as your fiancee to the driver.

That thrill in the back of the cab, that’s the thrill I felt six months later when you got down on one knee at midnight in the park, and it’s the thrill I wake up with every morning now. Husband! I still can’t believe I get to call you that.

Everything, everyone, tells us this will fade. The dancing in the kitchen. The four-hour dinners. The daily joy of it. We’re still in the honeymoon phase, they say. To hell with them! How funny, this marriage thing, when nothing about day-to-day life is different, yet everything has changed. Life before seemed like an almost unending expanse; I didn’t much consider the end. Now, I’m suddenly aware that I – that we – have a finite number of days: days we get to spend alone before we have kids; days we’ll spend as a family together; days with grandchildren.

I didn’t dare imagine I could find a partner, a buddy, a love like you. How wonderful, to be a team together in the world. I can’t wait to be old and still holding hands with you in the street, to be old and still dancing in the kitchen. I can’t wait to be old, husband, and still in love the way we are now.

• Tell us what you’re really thinking at mind@theguardian.com