Married life is rarely the fairy tale we project onto it in our youth.

Christopher promptly resigned from his stable job to launch a consumer-electronics venture.

When his first prototype failed, I quietly sold my new car to clear his debts.

When the second iteration hemorrhaged capital, I liquidated our joint savings to plug the holes.

And by his third catastrophic failure, I took out a high-yield equity line against my own condo, just to keep his firm out of bankruptcy court.

“I am so sorry, Loretta,” he would murmur after each disaster, burying his face in my neck.