Regardless of politics, there is one thing we can agree on: Joe and Jill Biden are absolutely adorable as a couple. Their love and devotion to one another has provided hope and inspiration to many people through some very turbulent times.
However, even the biggest fans of this power couple don’t understand the depths of their relationship. That’s why we put together the definitive timeline of Joe and Jill Biden’s relationship.
Keep reading to learn how it started, how it’s going, and every sweet little moment in between!
1975: First meeting
It all started back in 1975 when Joe Biden’s brother introduced Joe to Jill Taylor Jacobs. At the time, Joe was 33 years old and a senator whereas Jill was 24 and a senior in college.
Because of the age disparity, Jill didn’t think things would work out. As she later told Vogue, “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.’”
But the date went really well. Things were looking good… at least, until Joe proposed to Jill.
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1977: Multiple proposals and a marriage
Surprisingly, Joe Biden had to propose to Jill five times before she said “yes.” But she had some very noble reasons for delaying her answer. She was mostly thinking about the well-being of Joe Biden’s sons Beau and Hunter. Their mother, Joe’s first wife Neilia Biden, had died in a car crash in 1972 along with Joe and Neilia’s one-year-old daughter Naomi.
“I said, ‘Not yet. Not yet. Not yet,'” Jill said each time Joe proposed. “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.”
Eventually, Jill accepted the fifth proposal and the two were married at New York City’s United Nations chapel in 1977. And they took young Beau and Hunter with them on their honeymoon.
It would only be a few years later before the happy couple had their first child. They welcomed baby Ashley into the world in 1981. This was a very happy time… right up until Joe started his first run for president.
1987: Joe’s first presidential run
When you think about Joe Biden’s presidential run, you’re likely thinking of the 2020 election. However, Biden first ran for president back in 1987. Although he’d likely be happy if everyone forgot about it!
That’s because his brief campaign was filled with scandals, including allegations of him plagiarizing speeches and even lying about his academic and legal record. Joe Biden said little about this. But as The New York Times notes, he simply acknowledged “I have made some mistakes” when he resigned from the election that September.
However, Jill Biden stood by her husband the entire time. In her memoir When the Light Enters, she wrote, “As a political spouse, I’ve found that my stoicism often serves me well.” She continued: “In 1988, when Joe’s first presidential campaign started to look bleak, people were constantly looking for cracks in our team. We all felt scrutinized, but I refused to show weakness.”
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1988: Medical scare
This was a bleak period for Joe Biden. Shortly after his failed presidential run in 1987, Joe had two brain aneurysms that required multiple operations. However, Jill posed proudly with Joe after he was discharged from the hospital.
They would spend much of the next 20 years keeping a low profile (or at least, as low a profile as a senator and his wife can keep). But two decades later, both of them would become household names.
And in the calm before the storm, they each made some very unexpected moves!
2007: Calm before the storm
In retrospect, 2007 represented a real “calm before the storm” for the couple. Joe Biden would become vice president in 2008, but he had no way of knowing this at the time.
Perhaps that is why he poured so much energy into his own memoir entitled Promises to Keep. And he offers effusive praise to Jill in that book, writing, “She gave me back my life.” He writes that in the wake of his first wife’s death, Jill “made me start to think my family might be whole again.”
As for Jill, she used this time to focus on her education. In 2007, she earned a Ph.D. in Education from the University of Delaware. And a very proud Joe Biden was the one who handed her the diploma!
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2008: Becoming vice president
In 2008, Barack Obama chose Joe Biden as his running mate. After Obama won the election, Joe Biden became the vice president of the United States of America.
This led to some cute moments between Joe and Jill. For example, she held their thick family Bible when Joe was sworn in as vice president in 2009. And she made waves of her own as an English professor at Northern Virginia Community College, showing the world her commitment to education and to her students.
One unexpected development that helped Joe Biden’s career was the rise of meme culture. Fans of Barack Obama and Joe Biden created an endless stream of memes playing up a “bromance” between the two, casting Joe as a comedic foil to a more serious Obama.
But the next major event for the Biden family was not at all funny. Instead, it was one of the biggest tragedies of their lives.
2015: The passing of Beau Biden
The next few years had plenty of emotional highs and lows for Joe and Jill Biden. For example, they made many diplomatic trips together, including when the two visited Israel in 2010. Jill sometimes served to help with Joe’s PR during certain public appearances, including joking with a New Hampshire campaign rally in 2012 and supporting him during the 2012 Democratic National Convention.
After President Obama won his 2012 re-election bid, Jill once again held the family Bible for Joe to be sworn in. At this point, the couple was on top of the world… but everything came crashing down a few years later.
In 2015, Joe’s eldest son Beau Biden died of brain cancer. Joe and Jill were deeply affected, and this event largely motivated Joe to not run for president in 2016. But as the 2020 election neared, Joe was ready to commit to running for president once more.
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March 2020: Joe and Jill on the campaign trail
It has been a point of pride for Jill Biden that she kept teaching while serving as second lady. She did not want to be defined simply in terms of her husband’s career and enjoyed making a difference in her student’s lives.
But in 2019, she took a break from teaching to help Joe with his presidential campaign. And this led to some high-profile moments on the campaign trail.
During one such moment while Jill was giving a campaign speech, Joe playfully bit her finger when she wasn’t looking. This caused many eyebrows to raise, though most people eventually brushed this off as Joe being flirtatiously goofy in public.
Things were a bit more serious when protesters tried to storm the stage on Super Tuesday in March 2020. Jill personally fought these protesters off. It was a tense moment, but Joe lightened things up once he took the stage.
As USA Today reports, Joe quipped “Whoa, you don’t screw around with a Philly girl, I’ll tell you what.” He also joked that he was being assigned Secret Service protection “because they’re afraid Jill’s going to hurt someone.” But he put the jokes aside to issue a very sweet statement: “I tell you what man, I married way above my station.”
A few months later, Jill gave voice to words that perfectly described both the country and her love for her husband.
August 2020: The keynote speech
Perhaps the sweetest moment on the campaign trail come when Jill delivered the keynote speech for the Democratic National Convention. She gave this speech from the Delaware high school classroom where she used to teach. And the speech itself drew heavily on her relationship with Joe Biden.
In this speech, Jill says, “Love makes us flexible and resilient…. It allows us to become more than ourselves, together. And though it can’t protect us from the sorrows of life, it gives us refuge, a home.”
She then seemed to echo Joe’s thoughts that marrying her had made his family whole again. Jill said, “How do you make a broken family whole? The same way you make a nation whole: with love and understanding and with small acts of kindness.”
This seems to be the perfect summary of their entire relationship!
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November 2020: Election victory and a new beginning
Joe Biden ultimately won the 2020 presidential election. And during his victory speech, he made sure to offer his wife the praise she deserved.
“She has dedicated her life to education, but teaching isn’t just what she does — it’s who she is. For America’s educators, this is a great day: You’re going to have one of your own in the White House, and Jill is going to make a great first lady.”
Joe also called himself “Jill’s husband” during the speech, perhaps in response to those who want to define Jill Biden as merely “Joe’s wife.” And a couple of months later, history repeated itself: for the third time, Jill Biden held the family Bible for Joe to be sworn into office.
Becoming the president and first lady is a major change for the couple and represents a new beginning. But it looks like they will approach these new challenges with the grace, humility, and devotion which has defined their relationship for the last 45 years.