A friend sent me a link for a two minute interview of a couple who have been married for 56 years. That's a half a century of shared life. The interviewer asked them to skirt around the word love and find other ways to express their experience. 

"When I look in his eyes... I see me."

"When all the music is gone and all the noise is gone and all the conversations are gone, there is still that bond between us."

It is likely that when he mentioned that there is a lot of water under their bridge, that some of it was murky. The details are irrelevant, as he pointed out. The emergencies and arguments and slammed doors and accusations have floated away. All that is left is the bridge between them.

"I can't imagine myself without him. Which is scary... and it's real."