on coupling

I haven’t been writing much lately, and I’ve been remiss in updating this newsletter, but I’ve had reasons for that. In the past five months, I had a hysterectomy, resigned from my tenure-track job, turned in the draft of my essay collection to my editor (Roxane Gay), my son graduated high school, I taught a workshop and did a sold-out event in Minneapolis with Roxane, and Lindsay Hunter, and J. Vanessa Lyon (all of whom I like and admire so much!). Then Rich and I went to Mexico, and when we got back, we got married. Honestly, even writing those sentences has left me a little breathless. It has been, to say the least, a lot.

I have so much to say about all of it—about how I let my body betray me for years before deciding to excise the source of my misery, about how I let my job betray me for years before deciding to excise that source of my misery, about how nervous I am for this new book (which is even more vulnerable than my last book) to be in the world, about how my son has achieved more than I ever could have dreamed of, and how I am so stunned and proud of him and just so absolutely relieved that he’s going to a good college, and we made it. Reed and I, together, we made it.

I want to write about all of these things, but it’s too much for one post, so I’m going to write about the biggest event—Rich and I got married.

At the end of my last marriage, I was still so in love with my then-husband, but I knew that what we had wasn’t working. I remember saying that to him, and he knew it was true. He said quietly, “You’ll find someone else.”

“I’ll never find someone else,” I said. “But I think I’d rather be alone than be with you.”

And I was alone—for a long time—for years, in fact. When I met Rich, in the year after I finished my PhD, I didn’t think that I would ever fall in love with him. He was goofy, nerdy, and young, and I thought that we’d just hook up for a while before I moved to the next city. But then, years passed, and we loved each other, then we lived together, and now, we’re married. Sometimes, and I am not kidding about this, I wonder if I’m living in an alternate reality where this is not real. That’s how not real it feels. I am not sure how Rich and I made it this far when both of us were so goddamned avoidant that it took us four and a half years to even move in together. We’re both Capricorns, I guess, so we’re loyal, and we don’t give up easily. I honestly don’t know. Like I said, it’s still hard for me to believe.

But I don’t need to tell our love story. I’ve told that in different places, and there will be more of it in this next book. I can say that some of it was happy, and some of it was sad. Some of it was angry, and some of it was just so, so hard, but always, there was so much love between us, and somehow, we found a way to make it work.

There is a lot of anti-marriage sentiment in feminism these days, and I get it. Statistically, marriage benefits men more than women; there just isn’t a way around that. A week or so before my wedding, I had drinks with Maggie Smith, Saeed Jones, and Dawn McCombs. We talked a bit about my wedding, and Dawn said (not unkindly), “I can’t believe that you’re getting married again.” I knew what she meant. She wasn’t questioning my relationship. She was questioning the entire premise of marriage, and those kinds of questions are very valid. Why would someone who suffered as much as I did within the patriarchal institution of marriage want to do it again?

The answer is simple: I just still have hope.

I still have hope that it can be different this time. I still have hope that Rich and I can be equals. I still have hope that my son can have a father-figure in his life who isn’t critical and mercurial. I still have hope that I can be myself within the context of a lifelong partnership. I still have hope that partnership like this can last for a lifetime. I just still have a whole lot of hope.

The night before my last wedding, I cried in my parents’ kitchen, and my mother hugged me and said, “You don’t need to do this.” But I did need to do it. Something in me—a soul contract maybe—needed to do it, needed to enter into that partnership with a man who would hurt me, needed to coparent a child with him, needed to exit that partnership in the most painful way possible, and then, needed to learn how to love and trust again, which frankly, just really sucked.

I don’t have a more lyrical way of saying that, so I’m saying it the way that feels the most authentic to me. LEARNING HOW TO LOVE AND TRUST AGAIN SUCKS.

It is so hard to love and trust when someone has been through what I’ve been through, but here I am, and to be completely honest, I can’t say that my trust is at 100%. I’m still working on that part. But my hope is at 100%.

This time, the night before my wedding, there were no tears. No nerves. I slept soundly because, even if this marriage doesn’t last—and I know that I’m not supposed to say that, but when you’ve been through what I’ve been through, it’s hard not to think of it—I’ll be okay. I’ll be okay because Rich would never hurt me like my ex hurt me. I’ll be okay because I’ve been through the worst, and I survived. I’ll be okay because my son is becoming his own person, and I can see in him that he’ll be okay.

In the first year that I lived in this apartment—the apartment where we had our little living room wedding a couple of weeks ago—I talked to the psychic, Chrissy Tolley. I was scared for my future—starting a new job, moving my child again, and trying to figure out how I would survive. Chrissy was alarmingly accurate. She told me that I would be too progressive for the conservative Christian institution I was teaching at, but that, the sweetness of my students would be a gift (and oh how true this was!) She told me that Reed “is kind of accidentally popular wherever he goes, and he’ll be okay” (and oh how true this was!) She even told me that Reed might end up in online school, which I thought would never happen (but oh how true this was!) She told me that my ex-husband would divorce again (oh how true this was!) She told me that I “couldn’t disappoint Bob” (my cat), and a few years later, after he’d died unexpectedly from mouth cancer, I found the notes from that session in a journal, read those words, and cried because I’d needed to hear them. She also told me (about Rich), “Not being abusive is not enough” and that I didn’t need to be so scared to introduce him to Reed—that I was doing that more for myself than for Reed.

I remember later telling Rich that “not being abusive is not enough” when I realized that I wasn’t getting enough from him. I might have even admitted that I’d stolen the line from a psychic, but either way, he listened. He started to give me more, and eventually, it was everything (even more than) that I needed. I also remember telling myself that Reed would be okay if he met the man in my life, and then being so thrilled when they turned out to genuinely like each other.

Reed gave the sweetest toast at our wedding (in his socks because it was that kind of wedding), and I was so touched and overwhelmed that I can't remember all of it, but he did such a wonderful job. He was confident, and funny, and articulate. He mostly talked about Rich—about how he first felt like Rich was a part of our family when he made banana bread French toast for Reed and his friend--about how Rich's sense of humor is really dumb, and how I act like I don't like it (but I secretly love it)—about how Rich and I are very different from each other, but it works because we complement each other.

Towards the end, he said that he realized he'd talked more about Rich than me, but that it's harder to talk about me. He said, "My mom and I have been through a lot," and though he is a very stoic person, for a moment, I thought his eyes misted over. He said that we'd had so many changes in his lifetime, but he thought moving to Columbus was the best thing that had ever happened to us, and he joked, "I mean, let's be honest, you guys getting married is probably the smallest change in our lives right now!" This is true. Then he looked at me and thanked me for waiting so long to bring someone into his life. He thanked me for always putting him first. I bawled through the entire thing.

I’m glad that I waited for so long too. I might have been waiting more for myself than I was for Reed, but it was for the best. I wouldn’t trade those years that Reed and I had alone for anything. They were some of the best years of my life, and the relationship that we have now is so much stronger because of it. When I told Reed that Rich and I were thinking of getting married, I asked if that was okay with him. “Why are you asking me?” he asked.

“If it’s not,” I said, “I won’t marry him.”

“I think it’s clear that Rich cares about you a lot,” he said. “And it’s clear that he cares about me too.” That was all I needed to hear.

Months later, we had our little living room wedding, and we were surrounded by beloveds. Dawn (who I’d invited at the last minute) later told me that it was the most enjoyable wedding she’d ever been to (and she’d been to a lot). She told me that it might have been the nicest group of people she’d ever met in one place, and I think she understood then why I’d decided to marry again. Together, Rich and I have built something beautiful.

Shortly after we got engaged, I was finishing up the draft of my book, and I ended the collection with an essay where I envisioned what our wedding would look like. The essay ended up being pretty accurate. I still have edits to complete, so this essay might change (might not even be in the final draft), but I wanted to share the beginning of it here because, when I was writing it, I felt so much hope. Months later, after the marriage, the hope is still there.