What can I say at this moment? I love you? Thank you?
―those are but pauper words forming an impoverished language,
making it impossible to tell you what is in my heart.

Because of you, I am better than I was, more than I am.
Because of you, who I am now, is who I wanted to be.
Because of you, I am stronger than I used to be.

If I could, I would pull the moon from the sky and lay it at your feet.
If I could, I would give you a lifetime of sunny days and dreams that come true.
None of these are mine to give.

Instead I ask you to accept this ring―this endless circle of gold―which, like my love for you, knows neither beginning nor end.

With this ring, I promise to be your lover, your best friend, your life’s companion.

With this ring, I promise to walk by your side all the days of my life, bound and freed by our love.

Accept this ring, then kiss me and free me.

Last week the Mister and I celebrated our 15th anniversary. For fifteen years without fail, the Mister’s mother has sent us an anniversary card; she is only person who does so. As I read her card, I thought about how much this simple gesture of support means to us. That got me thinking about marriage.

We’ve been together fifteen years. Already we have outlasted 50% of all first heterosexual marriages and 25% of all second marriages. Yet our marriage isn’t recognized, is in Pennsylvania, where we live, and most states, not legal, is perceived by some as a threat to the sacred union between one woman and one man. I don’t intend to argue that point here but instead want to focus on what marriage—any marriage—is.

Mrs. Moon, Daphne’s mother on Frasier, once said famously, “You young modern people think marriage is some sort of promenade through paradise, when it's more like a march through Hell with a man strapped to your back and a litter of nasty babies swinging from your teats!” I love that particular rant of hers, though I think marriage is neither. So what is it? It’s his cold feet pressed against your warm ones on a winter’s night and you not pulling away even though you want to. It’s gently telling him, “No honey, you’re not dying; you’re hung over. Remember last night?” It’s having sex in the morning when you’d rather do it at night so you can fall asleep afterwards. In short, it’s gentleness, it’s compromise. It’s a willingness to commit to each other even though no societal pressure comes to bare. It’s a willingness to commit even though no law in the land supports or recognizes that commitment. It’s a promise between two people and only those two people.

As with Matthew and Thomas, the main characters in my novel, What Binds Us, the idea to get married sprang up organically. Though I’d written What Binds Us before the Mister and I started dating, it hadn’t occurred to me that we would get married. One night over dinner, he mentioned he thought we should get rings. I asked how he imagined us exchanging rings as I didn’t see us simply handing them to each other across the counter of Tiffany. He raised an eyebrow at the mention of “Tiffany.” “Okay so I only intend to do this once; I want a ‘good’ ring,” I told him. As a result I would only consider purchasing a ring from Caldwell’s, Bailey Banks & Biddle or Tiffany.

Ours was a simple ceremony—at home before less than two dozen friends and family—a far cry from the fairy tale wedding of Thomas and Matthew:
“Dondi had had the interior of the ruined church whitewashed and as the building filled with dusk, two hundred beeswax candles were lit, giving off a delicate peach glow. Two dozen delicate gilt chairs with red velvet cushions were lined up in neat rows. A neat, highly polished parquet floor had been laid over the dirt. A woman in frothy lace sat holding an oboe. Behind her were four tuxedoed men with violins. Ten thousand pale pink roses—an entire crop from Holland flown in that morning—gave the stark whitewashed space an air of magnificent opulence.”

In an example of art imitating life, the vows they exchange are the vows I wrote for my own commitment. One real couple, one fictional couple, one couple with great wealth, one couple saving to buy a house. Life and fiction were vastly different save for one detail common to both: “He slipped the narrow gold band on my finger as I looked at his beloved face, the contours and textures of which I knew as well as those of my own. I looked into his shining silver eyes and knew absolutely that I was loved.”

Yet to say that marriage is about commitment tells only half the story. Traditional marriage also carries with it certain rights and protections, which as gay men, we do not have access to no matter how committed we are, no matter how long we’ve been together. My mother does not speak to my brother’s wife. Yet my brother’s wife does not have to worry that if something happens to Michael, she will be denied her place at his bedside; she will not have to battle our parents for his remains, for the house they own together. My mother does not speak to the Mister. Why does he not deserve the same peace of mind my sister-in-law does?