The arch of a marriage

What makes us survive?

Ben and me at Gabriel’s, a restaurant near Santa Fe, New Mexico. This was taken shortly after our engagement in January 2007.

For the audio version of this essay, please click on the voice clip below:

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I smooth my white peasant skirt in anticipation of Ben’s arrival. I’ve anxiously waited behind the designated security line at the airport. My eyes are fixed on the escalator. I know the group of people descending it came from his flight, based on the updating ticker on the computer above my head.

We’ve never met in person before now, but Ben is someone I know. We’ve spent countless hours on late-night phone marathons and exchanged lengthy emails that could count as essays. Who knew in the nascent world of online dating that our connection would culminate in this pivotal moment?

There he is. I spot him as he stands patiently behind a crowd with carry-on luggage in front of him. He’s wearing a ball cap, a green Carhart t-shirt, khaki shorts, and sneakers. He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose before approaching me with an eager wave.

I feel my face warming. Could I be blushing? I suddenly feel shy but manage a smile. This emotion I’ve never felt swells inside my heart, burning with an ache and desire as Ben and I embrace for the first time. My head nestles perfectly under his chin, and I lean into his chest, inhaling his cologne.

I’m startled to acknowledge that hugging Ben feels familiar, like I’ve known him my entire life. I am relaxed, at ease in his arms. I have come home, I think, but the idea terrifies me. After all, we just met. How can I feel so certain so fast?

After we gradually pull away from each other, Ben—grinning like a Cheshire cat—asks if we can grab something to eat. “I’m starving after that long flight,” he says, and gestures for me to follow him to baggage claim.

I still haven’t spoken much more than a simple hello, though I agree to lunch and suggest a local brewery called Mad Anthony’s, formerly Munchie Emporium. It’s got a crunchy vibe with artful decor and craft beer made in house. “Sounds great!” Ben says, and we grab his bag and exit the airport.

My memory fades with what we discussed, though I recall I retreated inward, baffled by this newfangled feeling surging in my heart. I knew I loved Ben, knew instantly I was going to marry him, but it all happened so suddenly. Tongue-tied, I let Ben lead the conversation, but the specifics are vague to me now.

Now is seventeen years and five kids later. Now is located in Indiana, rather than the southwest region of the country where Ben grew up and lived when we met. Now is during midlife, when we both note how our bodies stiffen when we awake each morning and energy wanes by day’s end.

Sometimes I feel embarrassed at the romantic ideals of my girlhood that drove me to the decisions I made. The visions of marriage and family and adult life proved to be delusional, mirages of reality. The disenchantment of these lofty, romantic longings frustrates me. I wanted an idyllic life. And for some reason, I didn’t picture long stretches of struggle and pain.

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Ben and me by the Maumee River in Toledo, Ohio in late November, 2023.

Ben and I are loyal people. We believe in fidelity—not only in marriage, but in the sense that holding steadfast when things get tough is an admirable quality that eventually gets us to a better place. It’s about persevering, pressing on. That’s what drives us to stay when our outlook is bleak or we’ve endured years of drought in our relationship.

Before Ben, I’d only dated men who remained in the relationship when all was well. And at the first sign of trouble, they vanished. It’s hard to fathom why Ben has stayed with me, if not out of obligation, then out of love. A hard-won love. A love refined and shaped by challenge and change.

I write this, not because I doubt the permanence of love, but because I doubt myself. I always have. And in full transparency, I told Ben when we met that I was an emotionally complicated person. He chose me, anyway. The complexities of my needs and desires and emotions have often led me to dark thoughts and dark moods. Those are the times I wonder why he stays—when I am brooding and sullen, when I refrain from engaging in the world and struggle to be buoyant or kind.

This reminds me of an excerpt of a poem by John Ciardi, entitled Most Like an Arch This Marriage:

Most like an arch—two weaknesses that lean
into a strength. Two fallings become firm.

And this line, too:

Not quite that? Not much less. World as it is,
what’s strong and separate falters.¹

Marriage is an arc, in which Ben leans into me, and I into him. We are separate but one, conjoined where the roof that shelters our family becomes a threshold under which others may cross from one side to the other.

We form this arc out of a recognition that vulnerability is not weakness, but strength.

Our shared humanity is an arbor, and the vine that is our life sometimes blooms, sometimes cycles through dormancy. It needs regular pruning and plucking. It also requires intentional curation of what nourishes and supplies the relationship with life.

At times, Ben and I have withered. We have neglected the aspects of our shared life that produce abundant mirth and delight. At first signs of dehydration, one of us usually picks up the watering can and showers the other with sufficient grace, be that rest or time for recreation.

I think what revitalizes our drooping spirits is connection with other humans. A chance to laugh, cry, or sit in silence with another are powerful and healing moments. We all need them. Without them, we perish. At least, our hearts do.

What I’ve learned these last seventeen years is that my limitations are real, and when I end up hurting Ben or my kids, instead of berating myself, I take a beat and regroup. Then, I attempt to repair the damage from my storm and reconnect in a way that makes that arch of our family sturdy and solid.

No one manages to live decades of life without bending or breaking. But I do believe we can reconstruct meaningful pathways of love when we admit our wrongdoings and try again. Love cannot be real if it is never tried, and it cannot prevail if it has never withstood the grimmest of trials.

1. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47013/most-like-an-arch-this-marriage