Chapter 21: Getting Married and Losing a friend

Marriage came at a time when I was still drowning in the wreckage of my past.

I wasn’t looking for it.

I wasn’t ready for it.

But when the opportunity presented itself, I didn’t question it.

I was still in shock from everything I had endured—the false accusation, the years of shame, the isolation, the deep void where my sense of self had once been.

I had almost no hope left. No sense of worth. No self-love.

So, when Elnaz—Elee—appeared in my life, I let myself believe in something again.

A Marriage Born from Distance

There is a part of me that wants to say I was getting married for the second time.

But Lynn and I had never had a wedding.

We had lived as husband and wife, built a life together, shared a love that was deeper than words. But the state did not recognize us.

Marriage would have meant losing access to the medical care she needed to survive.

Insurance companies had refused to cover her condition—because she had been born with it.

So, despite everything, in the eyes of the law, we had never been husband and wife.

And now, years later, I was standing on the precipice of something entirely different.

A Hypothetical Question That Became Reality

It started with a question that wasn’t meant to be real.

Elee had been submitting poetry to Word Salad Poetry Magazine, the online publication I had created with Lynn.

We connected over words, over ideas, over the intangible bonds formed across screens and time zones.

And then, in one of our conversations, I asked her:

"Would you ever marry someone like me?"

It wasn’t a proposal.

It wasn’t even serious.

Elee was living in Iran, and I was in the U.S.—separated by 8 time zones, cultural differences, and the impossible logistics of real-world relationships.

But she took it as a literal question.

In her culture, dating wasn’t an option. If a woman left Iran to be with a man, it was for marriage.

So, she took the question seriously.

And I went along with it.

I let myself believe I was in love, that this could work, that the emptiness I carried might finally be filled by someone who wanted me.

Love in the Absence of Proximity

We built something through video calls, through distance, through hopeful illusions.

We spoke for hours.

We convinced ourselves that we had "match points"—that intangible connection that would make a marriage work.

I tried to make it feel normal, though I knew that most couples spend time in each other’s presence before committing to a lifetime together.

Finally, we decided to meet in person.

The only place that made sense was Ankara, Turkey—a country where both an Iranian and an American could travel freely.

I didn’t think about the absurd lengths I was going to find love.

I just did it.

Because what was the alternative? To stay alone forever?

We married in Ankara.

A Tragic and Painful Loss

Just as I returned from Ankara, I turned to Facebook and saw a message about my best friend Thomas. It said he had died. This couldn’t be real.

This was November of 2010. I had known Thomas since 1992. When I was with Lynn, he was our mutual friend.

I had just seen him in Wilmington before my trip to Turkey. I remembered him telling me, “You’re a lucky man.”

He had said “hello,” to Elee and I expected to introduce them when Elee got to America.

While things had been difficult and strained between Jeff and I after I left the area and the life with Lynn back in 2001 (Jeff was also a mutual friend), Thomas had been able to navigate a connection with Lynn and reconnect with me.

My friend Jean Jones was married and a bit distant now. He was living a different life or normality with a wife and kids.

When I visited Thomas, he had more free time. Unlike Jean, his life hadn't unfolded perfectly, and he had faced many challenges. However, once we reconnected, it felt like no time had passed, and we quickly became as close as best friends again, as if we hadn't lost touch for years.

We met and spoke on the phone without any uncomfortable pauses.

This was exactly what I craved in life - a relationship that lasts. Now, this news about him being dead… it couldn’t be true.

I spoke to his sister on the phone. It was true. He had died of a sudden heart attack. I couldn’t believe it. He was just forty-six, two years older than I.

I had just returned from my wedding with Elee, only to be met with this devastating news. Tears streamed down my face as Elee tried to comfort me with her kind words. I turned to drinking, desperate to escape the harsh reality of it all, knowing deep down it was a terrible decision. I needed to be on that bus for the funeral of my dear friend, yet my attempts to numb the pain left me feeling even worse. My body betrayed me, shaking and nauseous, torn between grief and the consequences of my own choices.

I never got on a bus. I never showed up for the funeral. I was too sick.

The drinking was the reason I missed the funeral, and it left me feeling ashamed. It was as if he hadn't been enough of a friend for me to honor him properly. I should have been there to speak.

Yet, the shame I felt was connected to my own choices, my own mistake. It was my decision to drink that led to this.

In a way, it was a relief that this shame was self-inflicted rather than the corrosive kind, but it didn't make it any easier to bear.

I did convey that shame to his sister and left comments on Facebook that honored the memory of Thomas and showed my deep affection and friendship for Thomas.

I shared the writing I had done to honor my friend and our friendship.

The Reality of Marriage

She eventually got a visa to come to the U.S., but nothing was as easy as I had convinced myself it would be.

I had warned her:

"I’m on Social Security Disability. I don’t have much income. I am not a wealthy person."

And yet, reality still clashed with expectations.

Elee had just graduated from medical school in Iran. She had ambitions, dreams, a professional future ahead of her.

But when she arrived in the U.S., it became clear that the transition was not going to be seamless.

Unmet Expectations and Growing Distance

She needed to pass the USMLE exams to practice medicine in the U.S.

At first, I assumed she was working toward that goal.

But time passed. Years.

And she kept putting it off.

I encouraged her.

I supported her.

But she saw my encouragement as pressure, as criticism, as an expectation she wasn’t ready to meet.

Her struggle with the exams became a silent wedge between us.

She felt like she would fail if she took the USMLE exams.

I felt powerless.

And in the background, the weight of my past never left me.

She knew about my history, about the false accusation, about the trial, about the shame I carried.

But she did not understand it.

How could she?

She came from a culture with clear gender roles—a culture where the man provided, no matter what.

And despite knowing my financial reality, she struggled to reconcile it with what she had been taught.

She had expected me to be the provider.

Instead, she found a man still trying to rebuild his own life.

And I had expected love and understanding but instead found unspoken resentment and silence.

The Slow Collapse

We never truly fought well.

We never truly talked.

We existed together, but not in a way that felt real.

She withdrew.

I felt invisible. I also felt undesirable and unattractive.

I had spent so much of my life longing for connection, and now, even in my own home, I was alone again.

The marriage unraveled slowly, piece by piece, until there was nothing left to hold onto.

In 2018, she packed her things and left.

And I let her go.

Because what was there left to fight for?

The Gaslighting of Family and the Weight of Shame

In the aftermath, I turned to my family—the people I had spent my entire life trying to please.

I had never asked them for financial help as an adult.

But desperation changes things.

Beginning in 2001, 9 years before I even met Elee, I had been dealing with things that changed everything and overwhelmed my ability to manage the challenges on my own.

I was drowning, and I needed support.

And in return, I got contradictions.

They would offer just enough help to keep me tethered, but never enough to lift me up.

I received two messages:

• "You need us. You can’t handle life on your own."
• "You should be ashamed for needing us."

It was gaslighting at its finest.

I had internalized a belief that I was a failure, that I wasn’t good enough, that I was fundamentally broken.

And I didn’t realize that this wasn’t just shame.

This was toxic shame.

The kind that doesn’t go away.

The kind that becomes part of you.

The kind that makes you believe you will never be worthy of love, success, or even basic happiness.

And as my marriage ended, that shame wrapped around me tighter than ever before.