Tom and Paul Get Married

Paul (left), Tom, Maleigha, and the Justice of the Peace, 2009

I married my husband, Tom, in 2009.  We had been together for 13 years and had a three-year old daughter.  It was a small ceremony; just the three of us, the Justice of the Peace, and her husband, at their home in Greenwich, Connecticut.  One month earlier, none of us knew it was going to happen.  13 years earlier?  As they say in my former home of Brooklyn, fuhgeddaboutit.

Tom and I got together when I was 28 and up to that point, I had been in maybe two dating relationships.  From nearly the first year we were together, 1996, Tom would bring up the subject of marriage.  I don’t mean he would get down on his knees and propose.  That’s not his style.  Rather, he would just… bring up the subject.  Test the waters.  See where I was.  I normally declined, deflected, or mumbled my disinterest in getting married.  I could never quite go there. 

My reluctance had little to do with the fact that we couldn’t legally get married.  It had a lot more to do with, well, being a child of divorce for one thing, and feeling somewhat skeptical about marriage to begin with.  Among other issues.  Oh, those bothersome other issues.

I came out “late,” in my mid-twenties.  (I put the word “late” in quotes because who exactly developed the timetable for when these sorts of life events are supposed to happen?)  I felt impossibly behind on the relationship curve and anxiously in need of “catching up.”  I certainly didn’t feel like I was ready for anything long-term, much less marriage.

From the start, though, Tom felt so essentially right.  No need to impress or prove myself.  I felt complete acceptance, space to be myself.  We connected easily and immediately.  I liked being with him. 

But was I in love?  Up until that point, the guys I had fallen in love with were either straight or they were gay but not interested or the attraction was not reciprocal, or… fill in the blank.  As far as my experience went, the anxious, heart-palpitating, “oh-my-God-I-want-him-so-bad” feeling of being in love was completely intertwined with desperately wanting someone who was not available to me.  This wasn’t that.  So, what was it?

After a couple of months of dating, Tom suggested that we move in together.  The first conversation went like this:

Tom: I know this may be crazy but what would you think about the idea of…

Paul:  No.

Tom: Ok.

I went running to my therapist.  "Tom feels like the mature relationship. But I've never had any immature relationships and I feel like I should have some of those first.  At the same time, I didn't want to risk losing a good thing, so… I don’t know what to do.”

My therapist nodded maddeningly, providing no advice whatsoever.  She was a good therapist.

After a couple of sessions, I made a deliberate decision to explore this relationship, give myself the opportunity to have a positive, different experience of love.  I felt this was a good, positive thing to do for myself.  Daring, even.  I felt very proud of myself. 

Going to Hawaii didn’t hurt much either.

"Living together test"
Hanalei Valley, Hawaii

Tom and his ex (he had come out of a seven-year relationship the year before) had a timeshare condo and they took turns each year to determine who would use it.  1996 was Tom’s year.  In answer to my reluctance to moving in together, he suggested that since it was his turn to use the condo, and he could reserve one in Hawaii, we should try spending a week together on vacation and see if we can stand spending that much time together.  Oh, and he’d pay for it.  Because, you know, a weeklong vacation in a tropical paradise is such a realistic testing ground for the experience of living together.  What can I say?  I’m a sucker and I took the bait.  Decided, hey, this isn’t so bad, and we moved in together two months later.

And it was good.  It worked.  It felt right.  But STILL, this nagging sense of disconnect between what I knew to be a good thing and what I imagined the way that being in love should feel like was always lurking in the back of my mind, occasionally challenging the legitimacy of the relationship.

I did a lot of stupid things.  Felt awful.  And defensive.  And cried a lot.  Worked my way through three different therapists and eventually stopped.

When we moved to New York, in 2001, one of the things I had in mind was, well, perhaps after we get settled in, we’ll split up and can move on.  That requires doing something decisive.  I’d have conversations with myself.  Are you unhappy?  Well, no.  Do you love him?  Actually, yes, I do.  I love and care about him very deeply.  What’s wrong then?  I don’t know.  I worry that I’ve missed something, like the wild, crazy days you’re supposed to have when you’re young.

And then September 11, 2001 happened.  Tom’s job when we moved to New York landed him working in a cubicle on the 102^nd floor of the World Trade Center, Tower Two - the south tower.  I worked three miles north, on Park Ave. in Midtown.

Tom was in his cubicle that morning when the first plane hit the north tower.  There was an intense wave of heat, the smell of jet fuel, thick, black smoke, and flames licking the side of his building, which shook and wobbled significantly.  He didn’t know what it was but decided immediately to evacuate.  We moved to New York from San Francisco, where evacuation drills are held regularly.  The rule of thumb:  when a building shakes or wobbles, get out of the building.  And he knew to evacuate through the stairwell, not the elevator.  Two things that saved his life. 

He called me from his cell phone when he had exited on a stairwell transfer floor, the 70^th floor.  I had seen the images on CNN of thick, black smoke billowing out of a gapping black hole in Tower One and strongly urged him to ignore the announcement on the intercom advising everyone to stay put. 

“A plane hit the other building.  How is that safe?  Get the hell out of there!” 

He hung up, continued evacuating down the stairwell, and five minutes later, the second plane hit his tower.  Looking back on it later, we estimated that he was about 10 floors below the impact zone.

For the next few hours, I grappled with and ignored and walked around in a daze, frozen at the likelihood that he was dead.  At one point, a coworker put her hand on my shoulder and asked if I was all right.  I had gone so inward that her touch was like a jolt of electricity.  I intended to tell her that no, I was not all right.  I had seen on TV where the plane flew into the building where Tom was and, as far as I could tell, impacted the building at the place where he was.  But all that came out was this incredibly loud squawk.  I covered my mouth, embarrassed at the sound.  You don’t make loud, squawking sounds in a workplace environment.  I tried to talk again but again all that came out were squawks and sobs and, eventually, the words I intended to say.

I was brought face-to-face with the reality that Tom is not just this “mature relationship” that I could eventually come around to fully embrace at some point in the undefined future.  He is deeply, deeply important to me.  He’s too important to endlessly dither around with feelings of uncertainty.  And he was probably dead.

Three or four hours later, Tom walked into the office with not a scratch on him, just some black soot at the corners of his mouth and nostrils.  And a soaking wet back from sweat.  He had managed to descend all 102 floors, exit the building, and stumble his way onto one of the last subway trains heading uptown (which went out of service just two stops later).  He was able to get out of the building about 10 minutes before it collapsed.  He held himself together on the walk uptown to my office.  Once he walked in and saw me, he completely fell apart.

That day, well, it’s a much longer story.  But it was important.

I went back to therapy, determined to stick it out with the same therapist, whom I saw regularly for five years.  But this time, it was with a more focused, more concentrated intent.  Because it was important. 

Becoming a parent was the next, well, process.  Evolutionary battle, sometimes.  We decided to adopt domestically.  We went through an agency that mainly specializes in placing older children out of the foster system, though we decided we wanted to adopt a baby.  Two years after we started the process, which included going through the horrific experience of adoption fraud with one birth mother, our beautiful baby girl came home.

There were a few more brief conversations about marriage during those years but I still could not quite go there.  (“Can you believe they just approved same-sex marriage in Iowa?”  “Yeah, I read about that.  Hm.”)

2009 comes around and Tom, frustrated by yet another delay in getting a vote on same-sex marriage through the New York state legislature says, “I’m tired of waiting for New York to get its act together.  How about we just go up to Connecticut and get married there.”

I said, “Ok, sure.”

Tom nearly fell off the couch.

“Wait.  What?  Are you serious?”

“Yeah.  Why not.”

“Really.”

“Yes, really.”

Finally, after 13 years I thought, what else do you need to prove to yourself?