How I (Re)Fell In Love With My Husband

by Judith Newman

Distressing as the situation was, I was already beginning to see the humor: dropout at four! John, however, did not. After a half hour of recriminations, we both descended into silence. A great way to begin the new year, I thought bitterly. And, as always happened after these marital tsunamis, I began thinking: what would my life be like if I’d married the other one?

Benjamin was the Orthodox Jew I was scheduled to wed before I knew John. Slim and neat, with perfect olive skin, beautiful seal eyes, and a nose so large one half-expected him to remove it—Haha! Joke nose!—he was as charming and smooth as John was blunt and blustering.

When we met, Benjamin had been engaged to—as he put it—his “dream shiksa.” “She was a showpiece, but you’re the real deal,” he told me. (Um, thanks!) I convinced myself that his constant comparisons of Ashley to a Porsche that was always in the shop—as opposed to me, the minivan that never broke down but was far more comfortable to drive—was, in fact, a compliment.

Still, I would have happily married him, if we had not had a certain conversation two months before our wedding. Benjamin had announced to me we would have as many children as we could afford because it was our duty as Jews to repopulate the world with people of our intelligence and breeding.

“What if one of our children married someone who wasn’t Jewish?” I asked, expecting a lecture about how horrible that would be, but obviously, one accepts one’s children for who they are.