One day before the wedding, my fiancé laid a neat stack of documents on my kitchen table and said, ‘Add my name to your apartment, or there won’t be a wedding.’ For a second, I thought it had to be some awful, badly timed joke. Then I looked at his face and understood he had not spent the past few months preparing to become my husband. He had been preparing a move. So I let him believe I was willing to listen, smiled just enough to keep him comfortable, and waited for the moment when every plan he had hidden would finally come into the light.

It was a monument to my independence. Every inch of it had a story. The couch I found after stalking resale sites for weeks.

The dining table I bought secondhand and refinished myself in my parents’ driveway in New Jersey one humid August weekend. The pale green paint in the bedroom that took four samples before I found the one that felt calm instead of sad. The line of tiny succulents on the windowsill.

The good knives I bought one at a time because I couldn’t afford the set. The framed art prints. The lamp beside the couch with the dimmer switch I loved because it made the whole room feel forgiving at night.

It was the first place in my life that was completely mine. When Mark and I got serious, he moved in after about a year. His rental in Murray Hill was tiny and overpriced and had a radiator that sounded like a dying engine.

My place was bigger, calmer, closer to the N train, and closer to both our jobs. It made practical sense. At first, living together felt wonderful.