At first our parents and friends seemed to think it was cute, and we agreed. When my husband went to university, his parents—gently at first—tried to suggest he “test the waters,” and when he resisted, they got a little more forceful in their recommendations. Once I overheard my mother on the phone with her sister, saying that sure, our relationship was odd in terms of length and our age, but if we were happy who cared? Our friends offered similar levels of perplexed, begrudging support. Don’t you want to fuck other people? the more direct among them would ask. Well, I don’t know. Sure. Does anyone ever get what they want when they want it? We did break up a few times—all those people, we thought, must’ve known something we didn’t—but we always returned to each other. We knew something they didn’t.