Ten years of marriage is a beautiful thing. It’s a tapestry woven with shared memories, inside jokes, and a deep, comfortable understanding of each other. My husband, Tom, and I have built a wonderful life together. But if we’re being honest, after a decade, two kids, and a mortgage, some of the spontaneous passion and giddy excitement of those early days can get buried under the routine of daily life. Our love is deeper and stronger than ever, but it’s a calm, steady flame rather than the blazing fire it once was. That is, until our daughter, Lily, inadvertently helped us rekindle a spark we hadn’t felt in years.

It was a quiet Sunday afternoon. Lily was on her tablet, giggling to herself. "What’s so funny?" I asked her. She showed me the screen. It was a website, a love calculator, with a uncluttered and vibrant interface. She had been testing her name with all her favorite cartoon characters. "Look, Mom," she said, "Me and Spider-Man are 85% compatible!" Tom and I chuckled. It was cute and harmless fun. "You and Dad should try it!" she insisted, her eyes wide with excitement.

Tom and I exchanged an amused glance. We were more accustomed to discussing grocery lists than our "compatibility score." But we decided to humor her. "Alright, let’s see what the internet thinks of us after ten years," Tom said, playing along. We sat down on either side of Lily, a sense of playful curiosity taking over. With a "just for fun" attitude, I typed our names, "Tom" and "Emily," into the two boxes on the screen. Lily watched, captivated, as I clicked the "Calculate" button. The result appeared instantly. 95%.

For a moment, both Tom and I just stared at the number. Then, a slow smile spread across Tom’s face, and he looked at me. I felt my own face break into a grin. We both started to laugh. It was such a silly, meaningless thing, but seeing that high number felt… surprisingly wonderful. It was like getting a gold star for our relationship. In that moment, looking at each other and laughing, we weren’t just click the up coming post "Mom and Dad" on the sofa with our daughter. We were Tom and Emily again. I felt a flicker of that same shy, giddy sweetness I used to feel when we were first dating and he would give me a compliment. It was a delightful, unexpected rush of nostalgia and affection
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That little 95% score became the unexpected theme of our evening. After we put Lily to bed, the lighthearted mood lingered. "I can’t believe we’re a 95%," I said, teasingly. "I thought after ten years of my snoring, we’d be down to at least a 70%." Tom laughed. "The algorithm has spoken," he said in a mock-serious voice. "It clearly has a high tolerance for snoring.
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This playful banter opened a door. We started reminiscing, not about bills or parent-teacher conferences, but about the beginning. We talked about our disastrous first date where I spilled coffee all over him. We recalled the mixtape he made me that we both thought was so cool at the time. We talked about the moment we first said "I love you" and how nervous we both were. We were dusting off romantic stories that had been sitting on a shelf for far too long, and it felt incredible
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That simple love calculator, introduced to us by our daughter, had acted like a small pebble tossed into the calm, comfortable lake of our long-term marriage. It created beautiful, happy ripples that disrupted the placid surface of our routine. It didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know deep down, but it gave us a reason to celebrate it. It reminded us that beneath the layers of responsibility and daily life, the core of our connection was still there, and it was still incredibly strong. It was a reminder that our love story was still being written. That night, we didn’t just feel like a married couple; we felt like a couple who was still falling in love. And for that, I have a silly online game and my curious daughter to thank
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