By Anna Sullivan

When I was young, I liked to stand on the landing of the stairs in my childhood home and look out the window. I’d place the long lace curtains—handmade by my mother— on top of my head and over my face, pretending to be a bride wearing a veil. Something about the fabric always reminded me of a funeral. It was heavy and suffocating and it draped over me like a mortcloth.

My parents argued about almost everything: managing their finances, parenting, what kind of salad dressing to buy. They met a few months after my mother left the Convent of the Sacred Heart, where she’d spent most of her twenties living and working as a nun. Before my father, the only other long-term relationship Mom had ever been in was with God, which explains a lot. My mother had been taught if you love someone you stay—no matter what. Over the years, I watched her cling to her marriage and lose sight of herself. I vowed to never let that happen to me.

But in college, there was David, the moody filmmaker who gave me the confidence to take a creative writing class. And Pete, the frat guy. And Nick, who was smart and funny, and I tried hard to win his approval. Nick thought I was witty. David thought I was deep. But I was a shallow, anxious mess.

After college I moved to Manhattan and met Jonah at an infamous Upper East Side bar. “You have old eyes,” I told him. At the time, I was working at a venture capital firm. Not long after we started dating, I decided I wanted to switch careers, but doing that while living in Manhattan felt like jumping off a moving speedboat. Eventually, I moved home to Boston, and Jonah and I broke up. I was heartbroken. It was the first time I’d imagined marrying anyone.

I met my husband, Alex, when I was in graduate school in New Mexico. I wasn’t immediately attracted to him but he felt familiar in an unfamiliar place. Aside from sharing a similar upbringing—we both grew up in the Boston area—we had next to nothing in common. He is a musical prodigy who can play almost any song by ear; I can’t play chopsticks. He moves slowly through the world weighing decisions with calculated precision, while I move quickly and intuitively. 

When I told my mother we were dating, she laughed and told me that he wasn’t marriage material.

After I realized she was serious, I asked, “What is marriage material?”

“Someone you can build a life with,” she responded. “But also someone who lets you stay independent.”

Independence to my mother meant doing what she wanted apart from my father, like spending every summer in Vermont living away from him. While I also valued independence, I knew my mother was lonely. Their marriage was not of two self-reliant people choosing to be together. Rather, they seemed to be leading two sad and separate lives.

It reminded me of an article I read about couples who build houses together often end up divorced. It struck a chord, as my parents' trouble began—or intensified—when they built our home in Vermont. They disagreed on everything from the architectural design to the paint colors. While couples often have differing opinions, my parents weren’t willing to compromise at all. In the end, they each did what they each wanted. My father added a gauche contemporary design to my mother’s traditional farmhouse, and our home ended up lacking any sense of cohesiveness.

It took Alex twelve months to pick out an engagement ring, but I waited patiently, in no rush to walk down the aisle. Then, my mom was diagnosed with stage four cancer and I knew I wanted her to be at my wedding. I suddenly felt a sense of urgency to be married and start a family. Alex and I started planning our wedding (without the engagement ring) but before I walked down the aisle, I learned I was pregnant with our first baby. In the end, we subverted the traditional order and that felt right to me.

During our first few years of marriage, we survived my mother’s death and my own breast cancer. Alex worked long hours, and I was doing the lion’s share of the housework and caring for our two children. Stranded in the monotony of parenting, I missed the constant state of crisis of my childhood. I was ready to jump ship, but we didn’t bail. We stayed in it.

Alex forgets to do the dishes, but he gets up with the baby in the night and never complains. He doesn’t hold a grudge. When we fight, he lets me go on and on and then he apologizes. He makes me laugh. It’s like my mom said, “Marriage material is someone you can build a life with.” It’s made from the things you find right in front of you.

Now, Alex and I are renovating our house in Santa Fe. He sends me links to toilets and vanities, offering to pick out the former if I pick out the latter. He even asked to create a Pinterest board so we could share our ideas more easily. I never followed up on his offer to compromise, but I’m a work in progress.

Someone recently asked me if we wrote our own wedding vows. We didn’t. I imagine writing them now and what I’d say. I think I’d want our vows to be a simple question written on a piece of paper. Will you promise to join me in our home? I’d add a sketch of an A-frame because Alex learns better with visual aids. After we’d both agree, I’d have us sign the paper like a contract before setting it free on the wind.

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Anna Sullivan is a therapist and writer. She is a member of the Brooklyn Writers Collective. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with her husband and two children.