How he never gave up on me and helped me learn the art of holding on to relationships

I've never known the beauty of having 'friends for life' because I've never had friends who have been in my life for more than six to seven years. I've never had the chance to call someone 'best friends forever' because I'm alien to the definition of 'forever'. I don't have chuddy-buddies or school friends or college friends who I can meet once a few months and reminisce about all the memories from back in the years.This has never meant that I am unfriendly or don't have friends in general. All it means is that either they leave me due to some or the other reason or I haven't been able to keep them close to me over the years. I do have friends, but they are like seasons, they come and go and with every few years, I tend to have a new set of friends. I was too blinded with the thought that I had to be a certain way, do things to please people or try to fit in, in order to keep them in my life. And when I couldn't do that, I automatically started distancing myself from people not knowing they didn't expect any of my blinding thoughts from me.
My mom always used to ask me about my friends who I used to talk about when I had them in my life. She noticed how I suddenly stopped talking about them over a few years and then start talking about new people in my life. It was my mom who put this thought in my mind, "Why do you think you keep losing friends? Is it just them at fault, or it is you who hasn't learned to keep them in your life?" This question hit me hard and to date does when I think of it. It made sense to me. Probably it's me who eventually stops making efforts and ultimately loses friends. This is when someone came around and made me learn how to not give up on people.
This one person had always been around, through my SMS language phase, changing study course phase, finding my art phase, jobs, cities, boyfriends, basically through all my highs and lows. Even when I didn't realize that I kept giving up on this person every few months, I wasn't the one being given up on. No matter what I put him through, knowingly and unknowingly, he never gave up on me. It was only when I started to see things clearly and take life seriously, I understood what 'never give up on people' actually meant. And that was taught to me by none other than my life partner, my soulmate.
I'm so grateful to have him in my life, to not just stand by me through thick and thin, but to make me learn how to tackle the highest of high and lowest of lows. I now know how to keep people in my life, how to not have crazy notions about what people expect out of me. I know how to be myself and let people stay around me along the way. And all of this made me realize that my life partner eventually turned into my first best friend and a blessing as well.