My friend was going to help me run away before I got married.
Our friendship has been strong for 36 years despite my marriage failing.
He asked me if I wanted to leave.
I wonder why we don't celebrate friendship anniversaries like we do with romantic relationships. My friends define my life more than I do.
My marriage did not last a decade, but my relationship with my friend Eitan is still going strong. It's Eitan's offer to help me run away from the wedding that sticks out the most to me.
"Well, what's important is that you love him," I said after introducing my family, friends, and graduate-school mentor. It was clear to them that we were completely different people.
While I was a psychologist, he was a financial analyst who lived in the outside world and had little interest in my or my clients' mental state.
When we met, we were both 16 years old. We both went to an Israeli summer camp. We developed an intense friendship that might have ended but for our love of writing. Our letters were used as a diary for each of us.
We lived a few blocks from each other on the Upper West side of New York. The place where I met my husband was there.
I wanted to start my next chapter in my 30's. Tall and dark, he wooed me with grand gestures and the intimacy of speaking Hebrew with me.
I played a game of make-believe in order to get to know him better. We ate at a small cafe in the West Village where the staff knew us so well that we didn't have to order anything. We had a common vision for our future. Couldn't I find real friendship and intimacy somewhere else?
I was consumed with anxiety as our wedding drew closer. I cried almost every night when I went to Eitan's apartment.
He shook his head when he met me with a box of tissues. I've known you for a long time. You know I've seen you cry more in the last month than in any other year. Do you know what you're doing?
The wedding planning grew from an intimate affair to an event that involved hundreds of guests. As I stood in front of the mirror in front of the frosted confection of a dress I had ordered from Vera Wang, I wondered what I was doing.
Eitan leaned into me at our rehearsal dinner. You know, Sarah, you don't have to do this.
I had a good laugh. What should I do?
His face was serious, but his face wasn't serious. He motioned to a group of men who were stumbling about taking selfies. It was all of it. He is not familiar with you. I will be renting a car. It isn't too late. You don't need to do this.
"Come on, let's go," he said as he stood and took my hand.
I knew how brave he was to say out loud what most of my friends had thought, even though I was bleary and exhausted after all the champagne and brittle smiling at dinner. I was strapped into a runaway train and some part of me knew he was correct.
After the rabbi handed him the pen, Eitan paused for a long moment to look at me while he signed the ketubah.
On my honeymoon, my new husband and I had a fight that lasted for days. I said I should have listened. It was a sign of how lonely it would be.
After six years of trying to save my marriage, I decided to leave.
I still rely on Eitan's honesty to guide me.
I barely remember my wedding or the years of fighting with my ex- husband. When Eitan calls me out on something I always listen.
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