I find myself wondering what sort of a husband Rochester would make. Would he leave his friends and drive across town to let me in when I forget my keys? Would he randomly send me a link to over 200 quotations about dogs? Would he remember to put the bins out?

When I first met my husband, he had, or so I thought, a touch of the Byronic hero about him. He didn't go to classes, which of course meant he must be a sexy, rebellious outlaw. He wasn't overtly flirtatious with me, which of course meant he must be a brooding, enigmatic brute who was secretly in love with me. He even had some pretty serious sideburns, which meant he was, well, stuck in the 90s, but you can't have everything.

I now know that he was, in fact, just a little lost when it came to his degree, and to crazy girls who followed him around like a sad puppy, and to facial grooming. Fin has never told me he wants me for my soul - I'm pretty sure he wants me for my macaroni cheese. When he proposed, it wasn't like this. It was like this.

Because married life is not a romantic novel, much as I might occasionally dream it to be so. It is a nothing more than a series of days, strung together like a row of pearls. Each one is subtly different - some glow a little brighter, some are dulled by the patina of time - but, from a distance, they all look much the same. It is in the uniformity and in the whole, not in any one component, that the real beauty lies.


Marie recently quoted Jeffrey Eugenides on marriage. He wrote, "to be happy you have to find variety in repetition", and it's lingered with me since. I think there is certainly some truth in it; swooning won't last forever. Frankly it would just get exhausting. And from what I've experienced so far of marriage, the small daily acts of love are worth a thousand grand gestures or passionate speeches.

But even a married lady is allowed to spend an occasional rainy afternoon swooning over a hot man in a pair of breeches, no?