From finding love with each other after their first marriages to becoming the first couple of the United States, former President Joe Biden and Dr. Jill Biden have built a strong marriage that has lasted more than four decades.
Joe and Jill met in 1975 after the politician’s first wife, Neilia Hunter Biden, and infant daughter Naomi “Amy” tragically died in a car crash in 1972. The educator, for her part, had finalized her divorce from Bill Stevenson just before being introduced to Joe.
As their relationship progressed, it became serious fast as she began helping Joe care for his sons, Beau and Hunter. The former senator proposed to his now-wife five times before she agreed to marry him.
“[After each proposal], I said, ‘Not yet. Not yet. Not yet.’ Because by that time, of course, I had fallen in love with the boys, and I really felt that this marriage had to work,” she told Vogue in November 2016. “Because they had lost their mom, and I couldn’t have them lose another mother. So, I had to be 100 percent sure.”
The couple wed at the United Nations chapel in 1997. Though Jill has been there for Joe as he continued to grow in his political career, the 46th U.S. president has also supported her along the way. He stood by her side as she pursued her various degrees, and he gave Jill her doctorate degree in 2007 when she graduated from the University of Delaware.
Scroll down to see Joe and Jill’s love story through the years: