A Happy Marriage

by A.R. Torre

I’m not sure I could find even a handful of people I liked enough to take a photo with, and she has her arms wrapped around a few dozen.

A man could never understand all the dynamics that go into trying to survive as a young woman.

On our first date, I asked our waitress for no avocados or carrots on my Cobb salad, and just last week, he got me a to-go order from Elmo’s Garden and ordered one just like that, even though we’ve been married for eight years and I haven’t eaten a Cobb salad since our first date.

My wife thinks she’s so smart with her little red wagon full of secrets.

We are in love with being in love, and we have been this way going on a decade.

Adults who are still dependent on and connected to their parents experience problems in their own marriages, poor connections with their own children, and a reduced ability to think and problem-solve for themselves.

It wasn’t possible for me to fall further in love with him, but what did happen in that moment was that I fell a little bit in love with myself. And for a woman who had hated herself for over a decade, that meant everything.

Our relationship is a two-person union. Any addition to that will only detract from our life.

Compartmentalization is the key to mental survival—but

Four hundred missing women in this city, yet she couldn’t be one of them.

“Okay, fine,” I interrupt. Jesus, someone needs to slice this girl’s lips off. What kind of ice-cream scooper has a photographic memory? “I’ll take cookies and cream. Sounds good.”

Oh, to be this young and dumb.

Fifty thousand dollars. For Joe and me, it’d be nothing. A drop in the bucket.

A marriage may be able to handle one major deception—but not two.

I painted that mailbox. I sat at the dining table while Joe lay on the couch and watched football, and a chicken casserole was in the oven and the smell of it was heavy in the room.

I play the game because I love him. It’s the same reason I work at the clinic and helped him build it from the ground up. There are certain things that rev my husband

up. The cheers of the crowd at Bottle Cap. The respect of the patients at the clinic. The rapt faces of his students at the university. The unwavering support of his wife.

If he were a piano, I’d have him tuned to perfection.

someone. “Marino, what is it? I’ve 130got a dead hooker in Santa Monica whose coochie I’m staring at right now, and Belkis doesn’t know his ass from his armpit.”

We always vowed, from the beginning, to prioritize each other over everything. If I am watching or listening to something, I pause it when she comes in. If I’m on a phone call, I end it to accept her call. If I’m with a patient, I step out if she needs me. There is nothing in the 134world more important than the other person. Everything else can wait. Anything or anyone else can be inconvenienced for our relationship. Priorities are the difference between failure and success.

I’m not sure how many people can say that, that

their mom was their best friend.

We have an easy relationship, Mom and me. She is just the right amount of discipline and soft. I’ve never done anything bad because I respect her too much.

I think I’m hungry, but maybe I just want the activity of food.

I wet my lips and realize they are salty. I touch my cheek and realize it is wet. I am crying, and maybe I have been for a while. Emotion. It ticks past me and is already out of reach.

Right now, it’s a vise, and maybe that’s what five hours a day of scooping ice cream gets you. Cavewoman hands.

This must be what drowning feels like. Flailing in place and not finding the surface. Choking despite every effort to open your mouth.

I spend a lot of time and money in an effort to dress and look well. I do it because it is my commitment to Dinah and because of her commitment to me. We both understand that our spouse is an extension and reflection of ourselves.

Emotion, in any situation, is unproductive. Often, it can be destructive, and that is what I am trying to avoid.

superior, despite the fact that we went through the training academy together and that bitch scored lower than I did in every single aptitude test except for kissing ass.

I didn’t even have time to go through his, to do my bimonthly sweep to see what my husband has been up

My husband loves a puzzle, not a path.