I stole my wife fair and square − 1 September, 1990

We met about three months before her wedding to the other guy. Whirlwind attraction and all that stuff. The other man was a doctor too and they'd been dating for seven years. The momentum of time was driving them to finish the act, even to the point where he'd given her a fat diamond from a trip to Guam and she'd already bought the dress.

Like all things, the magic of the first meetings eventually gave way to reality and one night when I was on top of the world, she told me the truth and figured it was time to call things off.

Up to that point, I was pretty easy with women, in both the good and bad senses of the word. I didn't lie (well too much) and didn't expect much in return. when the inevitable partings came, it was almost a relief to relinquish the magic before the basic business of living together kicked in.

At the time, I was a bit dumbstruck and could tell that this wasn't a garden variety parting but one that would hurt deep, both her and I. We left and on the way back on the Osaka loop line, I grabbed the hanging straps above the seats and leaned into them, swaying my weight forward toward the window, watching the lights stream past as the conductor droned out the monotonous sequence of stations until I got to yet another train station for the final ride home.

Somewhere along that trip, can't really figure which point, I realized that I'd not be able to live with myself if I just walked away like so many times before. The parade of train stations, destitute and dog tired that late at night must've triggered things inside.

I got home and called her. Probably invoking every cliche in the book in a second language (I didn't speak Japanese that well), I basically told her that I was poor, foreign, and completely clueless but I didn't want her to marry that guy and was going to do what I could to fight for her, even to the point of actually confronting the other guy I knew she didn't love.

Things progressed slowly and in the end, he was almost grateful to end it, not really knowing how to handle a bright star such as her.

Eighteen months later, we stood in front of an altar, with her wearing the same dress she'd bought nearly two years before --- but with a different man.

...been sixteen years now...