Before officially being sworn in as the 46th president of the United States, Joe Biden penned a heartfelt tribute to his wife, Dr. Jill Biden. In his sweet message on Inauguration Day (Jan. 20), the commander-in-chief revealed his sweet nickname for the first lady. “I love you, Jilly, and I couldn’t be more grateful to have you with me on the journey ahead,” the president tweeted along with a video of him and Dr. Biden holding hands. The first lady retweeted the moving post, adding a purple heart.

The first couple was introduced by Joe’s brother Frank Biden. In a previous interview with Vogue, Jill recalled, “I was a senior, and I had been dating guys in jeans and clogs and T-shirts, he came to the door and he had a sport coat and loafers, and I thought, ‘God, this is never going to work, not in a million years.’ He was nine years older than I am! But we went out to see A Man and a Woman at the movie theater in Philadelphia, and we really hit it off. When we came home . . . he shook my hand good night . . . I went upstairs and called my mother at 1:00 a.m. and said, ‘Mom, I finally met a gentleman.’”

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Joe, a widower and father to sons Hunter and Beau, proposed to Jill five times before they tied the knot in 1977. The English professor explained to Vogue, “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. Because they had lost their mom, and I couldn’t have them lose another mother. So I had to be 100 percent sure.”