by Chris Torgersen

Created on: June 11, 2009

My wife and I began dating in summer of 2001. It was a whirlwind romance, and within two months we were living together in New York. That September, the unthinkable happen when the World Trade Center was hit by terrorists, costing us both our jobs (and thankfully not much more). We were quite shaken, but the event prodded us into action, and we decided to seize the day. We moved to Rhode Island, married, and in January of 2003, we had our first son.

The wheels came off so slowly, we didn't even notice it at first. There were small arguments. She was religious; I wasn't. She wanted to live for today; I wanted to save for tomorrow. Our differences began to come out and rub against one another. Two years later, in spring of 2005, she told me she wanted to leave. I was devastated. As I recall, my immediate reaction was literally to fall to the floor and plead with her to stay. Our poor two-year-old, looking on, had no idea of what to make of it.

We didn't have much money, and she had nowhere to go, so she moved into the living room and I stayed in the bedroom. Several nights later, she came in while I was asleep and began stroking my hair. She missed me, she said. Within two months, she moved back into the bedroom and we began the healing process, which managed to produce a second child.

In retrospect, it was not the best time to get pregnant again. We didn't plan it, but we did nothing to stop it. When we found out, though, we were quite happy; we had been through a miscarriage earlier in the year, which had likely contributed to her negative feelings toward me, and this was another chance for us in more ways than one.

Our second son came in March of 2006, and a few months later we moved back to New York, where I had a new job lined up. We had been planning the move for some time, and it went off without any major problems. However, the rigors of living in New York with children proved very stressful, particularly for my wife, who wasn't a native like I was. Within half a year we moved again, to a more suitable neighborhood for us, but that wasn't quite enough.

By summer of 2007, she had once again had enough of me, and she announced her intent to leave. Again, I was completely broken up. This time it was my turn to take the couch. Just as last time, she gradually began to come back to me, and a few months later we were a couple again, sharing a bed. We went to a marriage counselor this time, which worked a lot better for me than it did for her, but it

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