Stories of

marriage...

I am somewhat better with words than my wife is; she is infinitely better with people. In different ways, we translate each other to the rest of the world, and admire each other’s contrasting language skills. Being married to someone you respect for being somehow better than you keeps affection alive. That this impressive person chooses you year after year makes you more pleased with yourself, fueling the kind of mutual self-esteem that can get you through decades.


and divorce...

Afterward, they went downstairs, and Kate finally gave Max her keys to what was now his apartment -- something she had held on to throughout the sessions -- and Max cried. He says he thought Kate teared up, too. But a few weeks later, she needed to pick up something in the apartment, and she told Max she would let herself in while he was gone. He was stung to realize she didn't recall having given him her keys: that relinquishing their life had finally become for her an automatic gesture.