Why did I marry Wife?

I've been reading Ella Price's Journal (OK, yes, I'm kind of bingeing on Dorothy Bryant) and just finished it last night.  If you know the book you may remember that at the end what finally drives Ella over the edge is that she realizes that Joe (her husband) needs her to be weak and sick so that he can fill the role of caretaker for her.  She comes to understand that this is the nature of the (implicit) bargain they struck when they married: she would feel emotions for him (so he didn't have to) and he would take care of her (because she was a neurotic mess).

I got to that part and I had a hard time going forward to finish the last couple of pages.

Because of course that's Wife and me: not 100% exactly, but in large part.  Why would I ever have married someone that I already knew was a neurotic mess?  What did I get out of it?  Well, looking at us as we were back then through the lenses of Ella Price, I can see I got several things:

• From very young, I had always felt weak and shy.  I was terrified to assert myself.  But Wife's illnesses -- physical and mental -- allowed me to be strong. 
  
  I found I could be as strong as I had to be ... really, no matter how much that was ... if I was supporting Wife because she had collapsed. 
  
  I had no time for shyness when I was calling doctor's offices to insist that she had to be seen, or when I was calling insurance companies to demand that they honor the terms of our policy. 
  
  I had no trouble asserting myself when I was telling pharmacies that I didn't care if they were about to close and there were six people ahead of me in line, but by God they were going to fill this scrip for morphine (even though it's a controlled substance that generates a lot of paperwork) because my wife was back home in agonizing pain; or when I was calling hospitals to tell them that yes, I was aware we owed them a gazillion dollars, and yes, I was aware they could take us to court over it, but they were going to have to settle for a payment plan and going to court wouldn't get them their money any faster because you can't squeeze blood from a stone. 
    
• There is also something in that other point too, but it's more subtle -- I mean, the point that Joe married Ella so she could feel for him and he wouldn't have to.  It wasn't exactly like that: I had plenty of deep feelings, and they ranged from exuberant highs to pitch-dark lows.  What I had trouble with was allowing myself to express those feelings.  I think that's why I was attracted to dramatic, flamboyant, "high-maintenance" women ... even in college, to say nothing of Wife and D.  Being with them allowed me to express my feelings, to admit to them.  Maybe, finally, it might even have taught me how to talk about them, though I won't place a lot of money on that last.  (It's possible that I learned whatever I know about it by writing for you.)

I know there were other reasons too.  At one point I made a list of about eight of them.  I don't have it with me now, but I'll find it one day and I can use it to flesh out this post with a Part Two.  And like with any big decision, the reasons span the whole range from subconscious psychological motivations to grand romantic ones.  There was romance there, too.  Once upon a time.  So this post is to be continued.  Still, I was struck hard by those last few pages, and wanted to record them before I forgot.