#76 THAT TIME I GOT SECRETLY MARRIED: OUR COURTHOUSE ELOPEMENT IN GEORGIA

Why we had to keep it a secret I have no idea

Despite texting that one guy I went on a date with once that I was dating someone from my past (AKA a “white lie”), I’m a terrible liar. I’m honest to a fault and that has gotten me in a lot of trouble. My ex (like the Married Professor I slept with those few times) as I’d learn was an old hand at mistruths/dishonesty by omission* or maybe more accurately “manipulation,” having been trained at interrogation and with special forces and whatever else. I didn’t think this was a good quality but I was smitten.

*I no longer have a concrete example, but I’d hear him on the phone to his parents or his siblings and he’d tell white lies. I recall wondering what the point was of lying about that – that being whatever it was – and our differences in what we told people would crop up later in a whole drama I’ll call “the Dublin drama” with some close family friends of his who decided to loathe me because of it (more on that later).

If Benoit hadn’t been moving to Germany in three months, would we have gotten married? Probably not, but despite the fact I was a British citizen and could actually move to Germany (before the whole Brexit thing) without being married, an officer being married comes with multiple benefits, which include better housing, extra allowances, healthcare coverage, and so forth. Plus, you get the free flights and moving expenses, so there was a reason we rushed into it.

If you’re listening to the audio, take a moment to scroll down to see the pictures and the captions. (If you want.)

So, on the summer solstice of Friday, 21st June 2013, we got married. I wanted to choose a cool date (shame I didn’t save it for Michael). Nine-ish months together. All red flags and hiccups aside. We exchanged generic nuptials in a courthouse in Columbus, Georgia where I wore a navy Calvin Klein suit that he’d bought me new and some orange Vince Camuto heels that I’d bought on sale and I’d “borrowed” some chapstick from his dresser for “something borrowed.” We didn’t even have wedding bands. Naturally, he said he’d rather not wear one. He wore his Army uniform (not even the formal one) and we grinned and looked into each other’s eyes, promising forever.

Our only 'wedding day' photos that Hannah took for us. Bless her, she didn't know what was going on. Also, this is the 'formal dining room' that I loved in our new house. We didn't, of course, have any furniture in it because we were moving and I couldn't wait for the chance to decorate my very own house. I'd just turned 26 a week before.

I recall that utter look of happiness and love in both our faces.

I apparently wasn’t allowed to tell my friends and family – not even my baby sister, Hannah, who had been staying at our house that week. We left her (something that I still feel the ick about) whilst we nipped out, got married, and then all went to lunch together at a Greek restaurant. I’m not sure if she enjoyed the lunch because she was still in the whole era of “beige food” and only has a more adventurous palette as an adult.

I did love how he was with Hannah. Here he was taking her on base and showing her the tanks. He was a platoon leader of an armoured tank unit (?) – I never did keep up with the specifics bad Army Wife that I was. We'd also taken her that week to the Atlanta Zoo (with Anna), the Columbus Museum, and when I was teaching my three hour and twenty-minute evening classes that week he took her to a play place where she had a blast.

The reason for the secrecy was never explained to me. Maybe it was because his family wouldn’t approve of not being invited. Maybe it was for other reasons. Like the fact it was too soon after meeting. I didn’t even know. Did I care? A little. I felt weird about it but I didn't keep secrets so I told my Mum and Dad anyway and if they were disappointed in me, they were cool about it. My Mum even sent us a wedding present (fancy pans).

No wedding dress. No fanfare. Not even allowed to speak about it. So romantic! But I’d know I was actually married. And I was giddy about this next chapter in life. 

I’d just turned twenty-six (or twenty-five for the second time and foreseeable a la that one Oscar Wilde quote about women never revealing their true age even though I’m the queen of the overshare).

He bought me a fancy birthday cake (from Publix) and I'd joked I was only going to say I was 25 from now on so he put "2nd 25th birthday" which I thought was so cute. Don't I look happy? I wore my hair in an awful pony tail even though it didn't suit me because remember how he said how that other girl he dated slicked her hair back into a high pony and he liked that? Yeah... My presents consisted of Victoria's Secret lingerie (this was before I fully realised that no they did not cater to my breast size and I was, in fact, squashing my boobs into bras that did not fit) and a book that I did want.

My cousin, Pam, after being with her boyfriend, Dave, for eleven years was finally getting married, too, and when I’d been invited and utterly broke, I wasn’t sure how I’d ever have afforded to go but now we could go. I could come with my new “fiance.” 

We were moving to Germany in three months in late September and her wedding was early October (in Lancashire, England) and we could go! I was ecstatic.

(Side note: Pam and Dave just celebrated their eleventh wedding anniversary this year and have three gorgeous children: Callum, Harry, and Eva).

And just before that, we had another wedding to attend of my friends from graduate school. Two weddings in one year with this handsome, impressive, successful man on my arm.

He bought me this dress and it was over $200, which was the most expensive dress I'd owned. I loved it. Except my arms. I thought they looked fat (ridiculous). It was going to do double duty for my cousin's wedding as well BUT I had time to get a little fatter before October (my ex was not happy about this). I thought he scrubbed up very well. His tie also cost over $200 as it was from Hermes and he always had very expensive taste and owned very expensive everything. We coordinated quite well, which was nice.

I told Noah (Starbucks Guy #2) when he asked all the things I loved about my now-secret-husband (sadly, I made this a bulleted list in the email):

He's tall, and has a winning smile. He's a commanding presence and people really like him. I'm very sociable and can converse with anyone about anything and I value that in my partner. I've dated people who were a bit too arrogant or said really embarrassing/sexist/racist/whatever-other-ist things in public and I can't handle that; I like being rather PC. He has his Master's in Engineering from [university in Pennsylvania].

Tall. Yes, that’s all you need in a partner.

He can fix almost anything (I've never come across anything he couldn't fix including my computer power inlet) and solve any problem. And that's definitely valuable as I am quite clueless in these things. 

I’m not good at adulting and this man is. Win! See also previous post where I said I saw all the ways my life would be much easier (or so I imagined).

Back to conversation, he's a great conversationalist. I love conversing, so we have lovely conversations; he's highly intelligent, but very different from me in perspective, so it makes things interesting. I am used to talking to like-minded humanities majors, and he's not usually on that same page. He makes me smile. 

Drink every time I use a variation on the word “conversation.” Not usually on the same page. Will this be a future problem? Hmm.

When I am with him I feel safe. I'm all over the place – he's from Lebanon, the Catholic side, which doesn't matter to me since I ascribe to no religion. He speaks four different languages.

Which is more accurately nine dialects of Arabic, French, Dari, and English.

He's very caring and affectionate (I love affection; I'm very tactile) and always thinks about my well-being and includes me in his life. For example, he just bought a house and we'd been shopping around for WEEKS (endless weeks), and he called me up when he signed the contract and said, "We just bought a house" and I felt the inclusion of "we" was meaningful. I thought it was sweet. 

That ‘we’ thing would also stop.

You asked what I liked about him more than the way he makes me feel, but I think that that's so important – the feeling thing. I mean he has so many great qualities, but, ultimately, great qualities don't matter at all – an impressive person doesn't matter – if that person can't make you feel cared about, right? He's just a genuinely, good and kind person, someone I can respect. You have to have respect for your partner I think. In Pride and Prejudice, when Lizzie's father asked her why she wanted to marry Darcy, he didn't first ask if she loved him, he asked if she respected him. It's vital to keep that respectful distance that's necessary for success in a relationship, that distance where you would never yell, hurt, injure another person because you care enough to respect them as a person. Often people get so comfortable that they break down that barrier and become almost like angsty teenagers who scream at their parents; most would never shout and call their best friend names and unkind things, but many people will say those same things to a partner and expect that partner to be okay about it. Most best friends would become not-friends at that point. I can't stand contemptuous relationships without respect. I had one early on in my dating history and it was awful. I hate fighting with people and he was an arguer.

Once I’d gotten ‘in line,’ we didn’t argue so that was true and yes, I quoted P&P at Noah. Sigh.

Back to [Benoit], we were out one night and there was this homeless man and in addition to giving the guy money, he went to his car – it was a cold night – and gave him an expensive coat he had; I thought that was really lovely. I like giving money to homeless people or buying them a meal too. It might not make a huge material difference in their lives overall, but it may help a little. I've met a lot of his friends and all agree that he is a "good guy." I guess most guys would wingman for their friend, but he does seem great. Also, I met one of his sisters and her family and all their big friend circle there (at a couple of dinner parties and a NYE party); they were all lovely and welcoming and warm people.

That really left an impression on me as him having a good, kind heart.

He also talks to his mum, dad, and sisters every day. I think it's important to be close to and love your family. I'm close to mine and call my mum every day, and my dad weekly (as he lives in England). And his family adore him. His nephews think he is the coolest. His little nephew, 4, said to me, "I'm really going to miss [Benny]." I think that says a lot too – that his family care so much. Sorry I'm so frazzled as far as my response. I've just taught all night and I'm still in my night class, but my students are working on their essays.

Starting tomorrow, he's taking me for a four day to Disney World. I'm going to meet his eldest sister so then I will have met all siblings except his brother. His sisters both live in the US – Louisville and somewhere in Rhode Island – and are married to doctors. Apparently, I was a big hit with the sister I met. She gave me a 9.5 out of 10. Ha! 

Even being told these details is a little worrying, right? You made the cut! Subtext: You better live up to my sister’s and my expectations.

Apparently most women don't make it past a 5 or something; they have high standards for him. I don't think I did anything special. I was just as friendly and agreeable as possible and offered to help out when needed, and I'm pretty good with children since I have a little sister who is ten years old. I was never one really to want to have children, but I would have children for [Ben] since he really wants them.

At the time, those seemed like great reasons to marry a person and they were in a way, but what I know about waiting five years to marry Michael (or more like Michael making me wait five years) is that there’s a lot to know about people. They are complex and nuanced and we all change with time.

His reasons for marrying me as he wrote in this birthday card didn’t seem all that more nuanced, to be fair. He loves that I do things for him even though I hate them. Hmm. Very solid foundation for marriage (obviously). 

The birthday card he wrote to me. No doubt with soppy outsides and I had this saved in Google Photos. I didn’t dig it out in saved cards from the recess of wherever. The text reads: You always ask me why I love you? I love you because of all the things you go out of your way to do for me no matter how much you hate them. I love you because you always hug me and ask me how my day was. I love you because you are different. You make me think about stuff in a different perspective. I love you because you are always there for me, to ground me and to make me relax and take it easy once in a while. I most especially love you because you are exactly the way you are.

Oh and side note, I had told my ex I didn’t want children. He couldn’t marry me if I didn’t want children. He very much wanted them. Yesterday, if possible. I relented. I’d give up anything for this man. The life I knew, my home, my friends, my family, my dead-end career; I’d fly across the world with him. He was taking my life to exciting new places, after all. What’s a little sacrifice?

I also didn’t want to change my name (how very feminist of me), which, surprisingly, he didn’t mind about because his goddess-like-sisters whose every move we worshipped (for reals, no jokes here – I adored them and was also so impressed by them), didn’t change their names at first either so that was okay. This had the convenient side effect of making divorce easier if only in the ‘no need to change all 50,000 documents bit.’ (Other bits not so much.)

Sometimes when things don’t work out, people berate themselves for being ‘so idiotic’ for not seeing things for what they were, how could they fall for someone, how could they not know, and so forth but besides in horrific cases (physical abuse, etc), I like to see past experience as life lessons with as much neutrality as time and distance can muster. As my therapist says, “you were just doing what you thought was best at the time with the options you had.” And I’m repeating that line as advice for everyone, really. We all have to make choices and sometimes they are ‘gut’ feelings and not calculated and they take us where we wanna go and sometimes not so much.

I knew this very small intentional slide of Benoit, the slice he wanted me to see. The bit that was most impressive, most attractive. Maybe he was that person. Maybe I was that person he fell for too. But maybe we weren’t. Maybe it was all a facade, an unintentionally curated lie because when you combine a feminist Democrat with a traditional Republican, sparks will fly, but not the kind you want.

Coming up next, that time we went to England to attend my cousin’s wedding.

New here or haven’t followed from the beginning, why don’t you catch up on the other seventy-five posts I’ve written, including the one on why I’m writing these chapters in the first place – with the odd “present day snippet” of what is happening in my world lately. (Spoiler: things are much, much better.)

If you’ve been in a long, successful partnership, what was it that let you know that person was the one for you? What advice do you have for young people on the verge of rushing in? (Not that young people ever listen.)