Ask HN: How did you meet your spouse?

And I guess a follow-up: how did you know? Half of me thinks that you have to work hard and be diligent to make it work, and the other half thinks it's just a matter of good interaction between your natural selves.

High school chemistry partner. We never dated in high school and ended up running into each other later in college. That's when we started dating. We've been married now for 27 years.

OkCupid. Commented on a blog post she made, we started chatting on there, eventually I took a Greyhound out to meet her seven months later. Ended up moving to the US from Canada to be with her.

We started talking in 2007 and we've been married for seven great years, with a one and a half year old daughter who keeps us on our toes.

A local speed-dating event. 15 years together this upcoming February, and we have a middle-school age daughter who is a joy (I thought they were supposed to be challenging at this age?).

I met her on a trip during senior year of high school and I pretty much was smitten from the moment I saw her. We were playing cards and she was my partner though we didn't know each other. She talked some serious trash and was super confident and smart. After the 4 day trip, she went back to her boarding school and we wrote letters back and forth (the 90's were so quaint) with the occasional long distance phone call. We ended up attending the same college and were already dating by then. We got married many years later after growing apart and growing back together. I'm always in awe of couples who manage to stay together as they transition to adulthood. You are each very different people from start to end.

The hard work of the relationship is in being your natural selves, in maintaining open communication with your partner and yourself. You have to know what you want and communicate it to your partner and you should encourage your partner to do the same. It's very easy to build resentment and bottle those feelings up. That said, remember that beyond being the best partner you can be, you are not responsible for your partner's happiness.