Woman Was Ready to Close the Door on Her Ex for Good, Then She Got a Text and Realized ‘He Had Changed So Much’ (Exclusive)

“I was so hesitant to say yes,” admits Ally Mazzilli

NEED TO KNOW After breaking up and getting back together a few times, it seemed like things were over for Ally and Christian Mazzilli Then, he texted her out of the blue asking her out — and over dinner that night, the couple decided to leave their tumultuous past behind and start fresh The couple ended up tying the knot in 2023 and say now say their love is stable as can be Ally Mazzilli and her husband Christian started dating when they were still just kids in Canada, but their path to the altar didn't follow the traditional happily ever after trajectory.

"We dated our last year of high school," Ally, 34, tells PEOPLE. "We were in love and obsessed with each other." But when Ally went to college while Christian, 35, stayed back to take a gap year, the first cracks began to form.

"We just did not survive that first year of university. We broke up multiple times," she says, adding with a laugh to Christian, "You were just so jealous back then." After what turned out to be the final breakup, there were several years where they just didn't speak.

During that time, life continued for both of them separately. Ally eventually reached a point where she tried to fully close the chapter and start dating somebody new, going so far as to block Christian from calling her or contacting her on social media. Even then, he found a loophole.

"He would literally email me," she recalls with a laugh. For Christian, the experience was different. "I never stopped loving her," he tells PEOPLE.

But in their mid-20s, life brought them back into each other's orbit when Christian sent Ally a text, asking if she wanted to get dinner. "I was so hesitant to say yes," she admits. Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

But that night, as they got Mexican food together, things felt different. "I just felt like the person I was sitting across was not the person that I knew when I was 18, 20," Ally says. "It felt like he had changed so much and I had changed a lot, too."

What made this second beginning different wasn't that they picked up where they left off — it was that they didn't. "We need to pretend that this is, like, day one," Ally remembers the two deciding together. "And I kid you not from that conversation on, we never talked about the past again.

It was like it didn't exist." These days, life looks a lot different for the couple. To start with, they own a farm now, which is a very different lifestyle than "city girl" Ally could have imagined for herself, or Christian, a former model.

"He became a farmer when we first started dating," she says. In fact, farming ended up being a test of sorts for the pair after Christian moved to Alberta for 8 months, while Ally stayed behind in Toronto. "In the past that would've broken us up," he says.

By the time the couple bought their own land, Christian was ready to pop the question. "I proposed on her birthday, on our farm, in our log cabin," he says. For Ally, everything about the proposal was perfect — from the dinner they went to beforehand to the "random casino" they visited as a newly-engaged couple.

They went on to tie the knot in 2023. Reflecting on their journey of a love story, Ally says that the twists and turns were just indicative of where they were in life. "We had young love together and it was wild and fun and it was passionate," she says.

"And now we have stable love." From his perspective, Christian simply says, "We just started riding the wave and the wave never stopped." Read the original article on People