Well OBV I am ace and so is Tom, so it's a good thing everything worked out as it has!

Yeah, the determined to make it work thing is tough - I'm never quite sure where the balance lies between "relationships take work and you shouldn't assume everything's going to be easy" and "wow, it's really time you cut your losses". I am both stubborn and loyal and also a bit obsessive about FORWARD MOVEMENT AND PROGRESS so it can be hard to effectively write off nearly seven years and start from scratch. But it's worth doing, of course.