How Did We Get From Saying "I Love You"

"I married a Canadian - whom I love very much - and she introduced me to a great band called Great Big Sea. And this song is in NO WAY dedicated to her. At all."

We needed this cruise. More than I realized; more than I can really explain.

Different couples deal with stress in different ways. Some argue, slam doors, and seek out space away from one another. Some look so far outside the relationship for comfort or for escape that nothing can be salvaged.

I have always been afraid that stress would pull my relationships apart. My family doesn't have a good record in that area. Almost every one of my aunts and uncles who married found themselves in a hurtful and bitter divorce. My parents' relationship was strained and uncomfortable for years, and ended the same way.

My first boyfriend abandoned me when my parents' divorce made me "too goddamn sad all the time" and "annoying to be around." I see now that it was an unstable and unhealthy young-adult relationship that was a bad idea from the start, but it crushed my 18-year-old self. I dropped out of college and floated through several months in a blur before finding the light again and crawling my way towards it. I went back to school. I tried to be sociable. But things were different. I had witnessed a relationship I thought was the most solid and reliable one in the whole world - my parents' marriage - falling angrily apart in front of me. I had no good role models, nobody to look to for thoughts on a healthy relationship except the columnists at Cosmo and the couples on Friends.

When my husband and I were moving towards our wedding day, I was flooded with conflicting thoughts. Of course we'd last forever - we loved each other so much, understood each other so well, laughed so often together. But everyone must think that at one time, or nobody would ever risk the commitment of marriage. Who could say, then, whether our relationship could withstand all the years ahead, all the problems that would come our way?

It's been a hard year for us. Members of my family, far away in Canada, have been sick and needing surgery. I lost one grandmother, and the other is 98 and fading. I'm far away and can't be there for the ones I love, and the guilt eats away at me. I left my old job, which meant leaving some of my support group behind. Other friends moved away. I'm still striving to find my role in my career and in this world. Arguing with immigration agents. Arguing with health insurance companies. Struggles and loss. I got scared. Scared for us.

I tell my husband, often, how much I love him. I cling to him sometimes when we're in our office together. I drape my arms over his shoulders, my cheek pressed into his beard, as he reads message boards and checks his email. I doubt. I worry, analyzing everything. I ask him again and again whether we'll be okay, whether we'll stick together, all the while hating myself for asking but not always able to stop. His answers are always the same, always reassuring, always patient, always yes, yes, of course, I love you and we're in this for the long haul no matter what.

"How Did We Get From Saying 'I Love You'", by Great Big Sea, is a breakup song. It's about running into your ex after the breakup and realizing you can't find anything in common anymore, anything to talk about except the smalltalk of strangers. It's heartbreakingly sad. My feelings of inadequacy and fear of divorce and loneliness make a song like this really resonate with me.

And my husband played this song for me, at an open mic night on our cruise. Knowing how much I love hearing him play music, my husband found a way to dedicate his performance to me without dedicating the song itself. A little gesture, spontaneous, touching. It meant so much. Maybe we've come from saying "I Love You" to the place where the words don't matter as much as the sentiment, and maybe I can be okay with that. I am loved.

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