Today's Wedding News

The "weddings & celebrations" page of the New York Times can be a surprisingly provocative read, and today is no exception.  Consider the story of Sharon Drager and Wyit Wright (HT: Volokh):

By 1996 [Dr. Drager] was divorced again. She was also lonely and began looking online for old friends. She found Mr. Wright’s e-mail address. She remembered being both “apprehensive and excited” when she began typing, “I don’t know if you remember me.”

His response came 15 minutes later. By then, he said, his home life was troubled. He was heartened “to hear from someone who you never thought you would hear from again.”

They corresponded by e-mail off and on for five years. “Every time his name popped up,” Dr. Drager felt a bolt of excitement.

After 9/11, their conversation changed. Mr. Wright, who had always thought he could fix anything, had by then concluded that his family life was irrevocably broken.

He suggested to Dr. Drager that they meet in Las Vegas the next year and go on a group river-rafting trip through the Grand Canyon. He told his wife about the trip but not about his companion.   

I realize that there is often an overlap between a previous marriage and the relationship giving rise to the new marriage, but I did not realize that the overlap is now to be publicly noted (even chuckled over?) as simply another anecdotal indication of the myriad ways in which our lifelong commitments end and begin again with someone invariably more delightful than our previous partner.