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"We can do this," I said, determined. "You just have to push me around more."

"I am," he said.

"I can't tell."

"I'm doing it. But you have to follow."

"I am."

"You're not. You're pulling me the other way."

"Okay. Let's try again."

The music ended. The instructor clapped her hands. Blessedly, the class was over. If it had gone on any longer, it would have become the dance version of couple's therapy. My husband and I looked at each other, accepting the fact that we had failed to achieve any tango mojo whatsoever. We stumbled outside into the vibrant Buenos Aires night. We laughed, we berated ourselves, we took care of each other's bruised egos. We even casually toyed with the idea of taking more classes when we were back home. But we both knew that somehow, in the hurly-burly of kids and work and the stuff of our lives, this wouldn't happen. And there was something else we both knew, something that, for better or worse, our brush with tango confirmed:

As a couple, we don't lead and follow. We stumble forward together. It is not always clear, and only very rarely elegant. After many years of marriage, our journey does not often resemble a well-oiled dance but more the path made by a Seussian machine that rattles side to side and somehow inches forward. It's our particular dance. We're pretty good at it. We do it in sneakers.

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