UPDATED: You can now hear this essay read by the actress Minnie Driver in Modern Love: The Podcast. Look for the “play” button below or subscribe on iTunes or Google Play Music.

THE snowy night I met Willem at a synagogue in New York City, I knew we would marry, but I did not know that it would last only 10 years. He was sitting in front of me and I fell in love with the back of his neck. The floor sloped down to the front, so I didn’t realize that he was 6-foot-3, more than a foot taller than I was.

He was from the Netherlands, the son of a Mennonite minister, and was drawn to Judaism. I was the child of suburban assimilated Jews. He was almost 40 and had never wed, and I was 37 and had just about given up on men, Jewish or otherwise.

Soon after, he dragged me to the Lower East Side where we met an old rabbi, who looked at us a bit askance and said wisely, “You will have a sweet and crazy life together,” which we did.