There have only been a few times in my life that I can remember being truly inspired, moved and humbled. One involved meeting Esther Williams (the film star from the 1940s and ’50s MGM musicals – you know, the ones with the elaborate water spectacles). This was the early 1990s, when she was doing publicity for a line of bathing suits she had created that were being sold at department stores like Macy’s and The Broadway. Being the little faglet (and movie buff) that I was, I waited in line for an hour with sheet music of “Baby It’s Cold Outside,” the Oscar-winning song that she introduced in the 1949 musical Neptune’s Daughter. When I finally got to meet her, I stood in front of her for a few seconds, speechless. At nearly 70 years old, she was a little puffier but still had the same bright brown eyes that I remembered from my television, and the same brown hair curved like a wave over her forehead. I pushed the sheet music in front of her, struggling for something to say, when she started singing the lyrics: “I really can’t stay… I’ve got to go ’way…”

What else could I do but join her (in perfect pitch, I might add)?

What I’m trying to say is that in my 36 years, such moments as this – where I’ve been awed and transfixed – have been rare, but it happened again recently while interviewing subjects for this story.

Which brings me to, well, frankly, this story. A story about love. But what is love? Love is a force of nature (oh wait, that’s the tagline from the movie poster for Brokeback Mountain).

OK, so this is a story about everlasting love. And no, it’s not just a perky Gloria Estefan song; I’m talking about long-term relationships. They do happen, right? But who do they happen to? And how do they work? What’s the secret to long-term relationships? What are the challenges?

I remember my first boyfriend, from eons ago, and how I was so exuberant about our budding relationship that I made us (and several of my very understanding friends) celebrate our one-month anniversary. And our second month. And our third (you get the picture). Because we all know that one month in a gay relationship is equal to about two years in the real world, right?

But in writing this article, I met couples who have been together for seven, 16, 20, 30, 34 and 39 years. They must be doing something right. But what is it?

How did they do it? How do they continue to do it?

My first boyfriend (yes, the same one I celebrated the one-month anniversary with) once said to me that relationships shouldn’t take work – they should just come naturally. They should be easy. If they become work, especially hard work, then the relationship is over.

To say this ex-boyfriend was unmotivated would be an understatement. Two years into our relationship, he got a job in Las Vegas with the “Siegfried and Roy Show,” where he danced on the Mirage’s hard metal floors until his knees went out (I’m not gloating, that’s just the rumor I heard).

But I knew even then that he was wrong. Relationships take work – and yes, hard work. They are constant work, but as I said in my marriage vows to my husband, Ted (yes, we were married in Brooklyn last summer), it’s the best kind of work. One that produces immediate and long-lasting results: happiness, security, trust, friendship and love (here is where I started sobbing uncontrollably with joy – it’s all on video).

The problem is that, while I was growing up and when I started dating, I never really had any gay relationships that I could reference. Heck, I didn’t really even have any straight relationships to look up to; my parents had divorced when I was 6 and most of my friends’ parents were divorced. Are these role models needed? Is there some sort of design to follow in order to have a successful long-term same-sex relationship? What’s a young, sensitive, romantic, movie-obsessed, rosy-cheeked, thin-wristed gay kid to do?

When I meet Jerry and Bob it is at Jerry’s office – the home of Jerry and David’s Cruises and Tours for over 15 years. You might recognize their catchy slogan, “Come Cruise with Us!” or maybe they’ve booked you on an RSVP Cruise. No doubt they’ve sent many in the GLBT community out on the Love Boat.

The couple met in San Diego in February 1967 when Jerry was brought to Bob’s house for dinner by a mutual friend (shades of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?). The two hit it off so well that they were soon making trips to the brand new San Diego Opera.

“We started in the back row,” Bob tells me, “and now we have sixth row center! We haven’t missed a year since then.”

So for several months, it appears, they had a lively friendship, but I wanted to know the goods. When did the two finally… well… say, “We’re a couple?”

“It was Sept. 30 of that year,” says Jerry. “Bob wanted to have a serious talk….”

Uh-oh, I think to myself. I’ve heard that before and usually it’s not good news. But the two men assure me it was good news.

“That’s when we agreed we wanted to be in a serious relationship,” they say, almost in unison.

“We are each other’s best friend. And,” Bob adds, “it gets better and better each year.”

The two men even share a hobby together – boating.

“We love our boat and spend a great deal of time together on it,” Bob tells me.

“That was one thing that was remarkable about meeting each other; we both had this mutual interest in water and boating. And we both love to cook.”

In the 39 years they’ve been together, they’ve owned five boats. Each boat has been christened Rob-Rome (a combination of their two names), and they are now on Rob-Rome V. At various times, they’ve lived on their boats, but now they just try to spend every other weekend on it.

“Our favorite thing to do is ‘swinging on the anchor,’” they divulge, which sounds a bit rigorous and exciting (not to mention slightly dangerous), but they assure me that it has little to do with actually physically swinging on the anchor (as I, er, had pictured) and more to do with floating peacefully, and safely anchored, out in the harbor under the moonlight with the gentle lapping of the water against the side of the boat.

Sigh.

On that romantic note, I ask what it is that’s worked so well for them for 39 years (even typing those numbers raises goose bumps on my slightly hairy forearms and prompts me to add exclamation points). Thirty-nine years! Tell me! Please! I beg (well, not really, but I thought saying that would provide some dramatic tension).

“I’ll tell you,” says Bob, with a serious tone so that I lean over in my chair toward him. “What’s worked for us is a deep mutual respect and friendship, and a deep-seated love that grows every year.”

“And,” says Jerry, “candlelight dinner every night.”

“Candlelight dinner?” I ask. “Really?”

“Yes,” they chime back.

“Oh, and lunch by phone,” Bob jokes.

“We always give friends and family, people that we know, candles as gifts because that’s what’s worked for us,” Jerry tells me.

So that’s the secret! Candles. I refrain from making a joke about the fear of open flames and instead move to my next question: “How do you deal with conflicts or misunderstandings?”

“Well,” says Bob, “if we have any conflicts – and by now we’ve hopefully worked through most of the more serious ones – we always make sure to apologize for whatever the conflict is or whatever drama it might have incited.”

Of course, they add, snuggling at bedtime and in the morning doesn’t hurt either.

“I’m all about the snuggling,” I say.

Next, I wanted to know about the scene here in San Diego when they were first getting together. Were they out and about on the weekends? Did they hang out with other couples?

“Well, there was The Brass Rail, but that was more in the ’80s,” says Jerry.

“But we’ve never been much into the bars. We couldn’t really handle the smoke – except WD’s on Fifth,” Bob pipes in.

“WD’s on Fifth?” I ask.

“It’s where Lips is now.”

I wonder whether or not I should reveal that I knew WD’s on Fifth fairly well in my heyday, which was the early 1990s, when I was a wee 20-something. It was where I once sang “Chicago” at the piano after a few too many rum and Cokes. (I promise this is the last reference to my singing.)

“Oh, yes,” I decide to reveal instead, “I remember they had the best cheese-fries.”

The revelation goes unnoticed as Jerry and Bob then tell me about the group of friends they’ve been having monthly dinners with for over 10 years.

“We call them our chosen family,” Jerry says. “It’s 25 to 30 people, and only two of the group don’t have partners. We’ve been blessed with a lot of friends.”

“There’s also a gay yacht club based in Orange County, Horizon Yacht Club,” Bob adds. “Two-thirds of it is made up of couples and the rest are singles. They have get-togethers about every month, usually around Catalina.”

“Is it important,” I put forward, “to surround yourself with other gay couples?”

“Gay or straight, having couples to interact with and relate to is important, but not essential,” Bob tells me.

“Though when we first got together,” interrupts Jerry, “we had a couple of friends, Vern and Ray – who had been together for seven years – that we spent a lot of time with. I remember being very impressed by that. Wow! Seven years!”

“And,” he continues, “they’re still together after 45 years.”

Being together for 45 years. It seems almost unimaginable, yet Bob and Jerry are just six years shy of that mark.

When I ask the couple if they have a word or label they feel that they use to define their relationship for other people, they don’t hesitate.

“Life partner,” says Jerry.

“Well, life partner shortened to ‘partner,’” Bob interjects.

“We’re not really comfortable with the labels husband or wife,” Jerry adds.

“But we did take part in a mass commitment ceremony,” says Bob.

“Yeah, but I couldn’t get him in a veil,” jokes Jerry.

“Honey, you’re the one who wears a veil!”

They wish they could get married and have the rights that straight couples have; rights that they deserve after 39 years. They’ve recently sought the advisement of an attorney regarding domestic partnerships.

Through the window of Jerry’s office I notice that the sun is beginning to set.

“We’re going to the boat tonight,” says Bob, “candlelight dinner. We love to have dinner on the boat. I just can’t wait!”

I don’t want to keep them waiting. But I ask them for one final statement: “Words of wisdom for other couples and singles about long-term relationships?”

“Don’t think it could never happen to you – a relationship, I mean – always be open to it,” Jerry beams.

“We genuinely and truly love to be with each other. Our relationship is a huge blessing for the two of us,” Bob says, smiling over at Jerry (which I’ve caught them doing numerous times throughout the interview).

“We’re always finding little things to do together – like just having dinner together – and making it special every time.”

“We’re thankful for each other. Even after 39 years.”

Bill was 23 when he first met Bob (not the same Bob as in the previous interview), who was 16 years his senior. This was in 1969, back before Bill was known as Caterer Bill Bond, making tasty dishes for many of the community’s parties and functions. It took almost two years – and Bill’s marriage to and subsequent divorce from a woman – for the two men to find love and commitment with each other.

“Bob was even at the wedding,” Bill recalls, with a light, sentimental tone. “At the reception, my grandmother took Bob by the arm, pulled him closer to her and told him, ‘Frankly, Mr. Smith, I think he would’ve been much happier with you!’”

Bill wasn’t yet out to his family. It wasn’t until after the divorce, when his mother began to hint around at his remarrying, that he came out to them.

And after the two got back together, Bob was known as Uncle Bob to everyone.

“But there was no mimicry of other couples – straight or otherwise – involved,” Bill tells me. “Our relationship was a normal course of action.”

Bob, a second generation San Diegan, had been an interior designer when they first met. And together they formed a catering business, initially known as A Catered Affair, in 1977. The new name, Caterer Bill Bond, came in the mid- 1980s around the time that Bob had the first of four strokes.

“Bob was everything you can image. Best friend. Lover. And, because I was younger, he was like a father figure to me.”

After his debilitating strokes, it was Bill who became the father figure and caregiver.

“But Bob was always appreciative, always aware. And he had the most unbelievable sense of humor.”

One thing he learned about relationships, he tells me, is that when you begin one, you need to start thinking like you are in a relationship – about all things. You’re not single anymore, and your focus needs to be on supporting and loving the person you are with.

“The thing with Bob is, we always talked things through: conflict, disagreements and misunderstandings. It was always a give and take.”

As he tells me this, I’m reminded of my sister Allyson, who told me once that she and her husband made a promise to each other that they will never go to bed angry. If they have a disagreement they will always make sure they’ve resolved it before they go to bed. She and her husband have been married almost 20 years.

“It’s about mutual respect,” says Bill, “and really treasuring the person you are with. Because you just don’t know from one day to the next what can happen.”

Joyce and Linda are from the same small town of Feeding Hills, Mass. In fact, they met as children. Joyce, who is eight years older than Linda, used to work in her grandparents’ corner grocery store and knew Linda’s family.

“It was the first place I was allowed to go as a child,” says Linda, who now runs the Chiropractic Clinic of Hillcrest on Second Avenue.

“I remember when I first noticed Joyce, I was about 6 years old. She was cleaning the store windows and I noticed how beautiful her hands were.”

Joyce, who is currently the executive director of the Greater San Diego Business Association, seems amazed that Linda was so observant as a 6-year-old.

“It started as a friendship, obviously,” Linda continues, “between a teenager and a kid. She was 17 and I was 9.”

“I was the playground director,” Joyce says.

“And she was a teacher,” Linda adds. “I was in her homeroom.”

“I was also her catechism teacher,” Joyce says, and they both chuckle.

“I was in love from childhood,” Linda exclaims.

According to Joyce, they had a remarkable friendship from the start. Joyce would loan her books that they would then discuss after class.

“I was a nerd in overdrive! But she actually talked to me about the books,” Linda recalls.

Through the years, as they both grew into adulthood, they kept in touch. In the early 1970s, they were both studying philosophy in Boston – Joyce at Boston University and Linda at Harvard.

It was New Year’s Eve in 1972 – they were babysitting – and they had what they both describe as a “meeting of the minds as well as the spirits.” And, except for a couple of separations due to work or school, they’ve been together ever since.

Joyce and Linda moved to San Diego in 1975, and in 1978 opened what they describe as a lesbian ice cream store, the Amazon Sweet Shop, in the college area.

They were a distinctive shock to the neighborhood: two out, political lesbians, bringing in more out political lesbians for ice cream, readings and other functions.

“We were there to do some educating.”

They folded the sweet shop in 1984 when Linda did her residency in Northern California. But as soon as Linda was done, they were back in San Diego.

According to Linda: “One of the values we have in our relationship is not limiting ourselves as individuals or resenting each other. Sometimes we compromise, sometimes we take turns.”

And Joyce adds, “We’re not joined at the hip, and we don’t wish to turn into each other.”

“But we learn from each other, that’s the spice,” says Linda. “If I weren’t with Joyce, I’d be trying to get her number!”

They both agree that one of the keys to the success of their relationship is that they were friends for so long before being lovers.

“Is that the secret?” I ask them.

Well, that and therapy.

Long-term couple-hood, they tell me, is a mix of hard work (see?) and grace. It’s OK, they say, to get help in your relationship through therapy.

“From time to time, we’ve gone to therapy together and apart. We get help; then we can grow and change together,” Linda says. And she follows up with a quote from author and healer Sondra Ray: “Love will bring up your demons. No amount of prestige, education or money will make you any more worthy of love than you are now.”

“Furthermore, we let each other be different, and we let each other have time alone,” Linda adds.

On that note, I ask them if they came to these conclusions and these designs for their relationship on their own, or did they have any role models, other relationships to look up to or emulate.

But they both agree that they didn’t really emulate anyone or any couple. In the ’70s, they say, they were looking to create history, to invent it. They weren’t looking back at it.

“The women’s movement was bringing us all to a consciousness.”

And speaking of consciousness, I ask for their take on the whole marriage issue. Not surprising, they too would like all of the legal rights of marriage, but they feel that being queer and a couple is a lot easier than it was when they first got together.

“We looked over our shoulders all the time then,” says Joyce. “But now things are much more open.”

They are registered domestic partners.

In closing, they offer me this advice:

Never threaten to leave in an argument. No matter who you’re with, you need to find ways to work out the issues.

And finally, the way you stay together is not to break up!

Words to live by.

Teresa, a senior community program representative supervisor (say that five times fast) for the HIV Neurobehavioral Research Center at UCSD, tells me that she had seen Rose out for awhile, but it was one night at The Flame, when Teresa asked her to dance to Gloria Estefan’s “La Conga,” that sparks began to fly.

“She whipped me around the dance floor,” Rose explains, but except for a few moments of conversation, they both were too shy, or just not ready to pursue each other.

But the seed had been planted.

It took another night at The Flame, several months later, for the two women to get their nerve up to invite the other out.

“She asked me flat out,” says Rose, “‘Want to fool around?’”

They both laugh.

“But it was more than that. I went outside to get some air. I was looking at the moon and said to myself, ‘You can go home now or go back in and your life will never be the same.’”

Well, Rose decided to go back inside. And the rest, as they say…

But they decided to wait a year – until May 19, 1986, before moving in together (Wait, are they really lesbians?). And it wasn’t always easy. There were obstacles to overcome – both women got into recovery. In fact, they did so just one day apart.

“It was a benefit to do it together,” Rose says. “The free and fun year was great, but the recovery year was tough. However, we made it through and learned how to communicate and compromise. “

“It was,” Teresa adds, “as if a higher power was saying, ‘You belong together, you two!’”

“We even had to learn how to fight – we kept saying to each other – we never fight. But through this we learned how to respect each other and to navigate.”

Which, I tell them, goes back to the thoughts I had as a young teenager in love with my first boyfriend: That relationships are work. Relationships, we all agree, are about learning to be honest with each other, saying things you don’t always want to say but need to.

Being able to listen.

And, as Rose puts it, “dealing with the past and working on the present and future.”

In the 10th year of their relationship, they had a commitment ceremony at the (old) Gay and Lesbian Center. A real celebration with 150 people. They take me into their bedroom to show me the portrait of the two of them, painted by their friend, Julie Warren, that hangs over their bed. I notice that the smile they are wearing in the portrait – big, wide and glowing; eyes sparkling – is the same smile they are wearing tonight as they speak about their love for each other, their struggles together and the rewards they now reap as a family (with two adorable dogs, Leah and Chucho).

The first 10 years was the learning, growing and unfolding, they say. The last 10 years has been the living. Now they’re in a comfortable place.

You’ve read about them in the pages of the GLT and other publications, you’ve seen their line of sexy, tight-fitting denim, Rufskin, in various magazines, on “Queer As Folk” and on the butts of numerous patrons of Rich’s, but did you know that they’ve been a couple for 16 years? With all that glamour and excitement, how do these two make it work (and still end up looking so fabulous)?

“Luck of the draw,” they joke to me in a recent e-mail. “No, really. This may sound like a cliché, but communication is very important in our relationship. Also, trust and love are the best allies. Having similar interests and tastes has also been a key element to our relationship – to the point that we even now work together in our denim business.”

But can that be difficult sometimes, both of them working together and living together and being together almost all of the time?

“We are competitive just enough to influence one another, but we can settle easily without an argument. We don’t really even feel the time passing by in our relationship,” they respond.

“What about role models?” I ask. “Were there any relationships that you looked up to for inspiration or guidance?”

“Not really. When living in Paris, we had a few friends that were living as a couple, but we didn’t really look after them for inspiration. Doug’s parents are still together and maybe somehow this helps with staying together.”

And how do they define their relationship? Are they hubbys? Significant others?

“We find ourselves saying ‘partners’ most of the time. In our closest circle of friends we often use ‘boyfriends.’ But, joking aside, ‘husband,’ is thrown about by our friends due to the fact that we have been together so long.”

Finally, I ask them if they think that same-sex couples often mimic straight relationships. Because when I think of Doug and Huber, I picture other powerful, albeit straight, couples in the public eye, like Demi and Ashton.

“Not really,” they reply. “A couple means two people without mentioning the sexual orientation.”

Touché.

Speaking of power couples…

Ali’s amazing and beautiful debut book of prose fiction, The Beautifully Worthless, came out last year (Eileen Myles calls it “an outrageous act of kindness”), and her wife Anna Joy Springer’s book, The Vicious Red Relic, Love, is forthcoming. They both teach at UCSD (where Anna Joy runs the T.M.I. &ndAsh;Too Much Information – reading series. This week’s performances are from the infamous Sex Workers Art Show).

The two met in 1999 when they were touring with Sister Spit, which Ali describes as “12 women in two vans traveling the country for six weeks reading their poems and stories.”

They didn’t get together until the New Orleans stop of the tour, but, according to Anna Joy: “We both had the same vision, a common definition of what the parameters of our relationship should be. And that’s important.

“Love is part of it, yes, but a common vision is even more important,” she adds.

Ali says: “We met at a place where we were old enough, and had had enough and were ready. When I was young, I was so impulsive. But with this relationship I had to stop and ask myself, ‘What do you want in the long run?’”

The two didn’t move in together for a year.

“Not very lesbian of us, I know,” laughs Ali.

“We both love each other and support each other – we’re very compatible in what we do, what we enjoy doing. We’re both writers, we both love animals.”

It seems, then, that there is no common trend, I say. Because I’ve talked to couples who also enjoy their differences and the fact that they have separate identities and lives and space from each other. And then I meet couples like Doug and Huber and Ali and Anna Joy who often work and live together.

But, according to Anna Joy, “We both have our support systems, too.”

“It’s cool, though, to be in a relationship with another writer,” she continues. “And, yes, sometimes difficult – we’re both artists. It makes sense to me when she needs time away to write, or I when I need time away. We understand each other.”

Ali and Anna Joy were among the hundreds of others who went to San Francisco in 2004 when the city began offering same-sex marriage licenses.

“It was so intense,” Ali enthuses, “to be a part of it – all those couples.”

And so, I ask them, how do you two refer to yourselves? Girlfriends? Wives? Married?

“All the terms feel stupid,” Anna Joy says. “I call Ali my partner, and sometimes I call her my pal. She’s the person I want to go through my life with, but where’s the word for that? We’re making it up as we go along. Taking from the old models and trying to refashion them to something that applies to us.”

“But marriage is not a sellout or assimilating,” adds Ali. “That’s preposterous. How can you say to anyone that this kind of freedom is not good?”

Later, Anna Joy e-mails me to add to her interview a list of things she feels helps to keep a relationship going: the ability to make up songs for the dogs together, common spiritual interests, the desire to be a witness to another person’s vicissitudes, the ability to admit mistakes and laugh at one’s own ego, the ability to separate friends and interests (and separate bedrooms or personal spaces that are just for the one person to be in without being interrupted), and the ability to take the relationship a day at a time while still having flexible goals.

All of these sound achievable, right? And overwhelming and exciting and inspiring and exhausting and wonderful.

But isn’t that what relationships are all about?

That and candlelight dinners.