Three Rings, Two College Students and One Big Risk

That winter, the new couple planned more and more dates that were, for Ms. Singh, thrillingly normal: “driving around suburbia, getting food and talking for hours in his car,” she said. Eventually, the college students had to navigate less typical predicaments, including Mr. Mundy helping Ms. Singh in the bathroom and in and out of bed when they visited each other.

“I felt bad because she had to put so much more trust in me early on than I had to put in her,” Mr. Mundy said. “She was trusting me to make her comfortable in a very uncomfortable situation, and also not to be scared away by that.”

His impression of her sang-froid demeanor led to an awkward joke on their first overnight date at Princeton, when they’d known each other less than a month. “I feel like I don’t know what would rattle you,” Mr. Mundy said at the time. “I guess me proposing.”

When he fell out of bed with embarrassment, Ms. Singh could only laugh. “I chose my words carefully because I simultaneously was shocked he said that so early on but was equally shocked he felt that way,” she said, “because I also already was having thoughts about this being ‘the one.’ I just wouldn’t have said it!”

It was the first of many acknowledgments that they might marry one day. But there was one more source of anxiety weighing on Ms. Singh. “His goal in life is to be a father, and he loves children more than anything,” she said. “I love children and I also want to be a mother, but I know that I cannot have children on my own because of SMA and the medicine I take.”

In May 2021, during a visit to Mr. Mundy’s childhood home, she broke down in tears at what she imagined to be a deal breaker. In that moment, Mr. Mundy searched for a gesture to reassure her that their relationship’s obstacles were not as dire as she had feared. At his desk, he grabbed a paper clip and curved it around a highlighter, forming a ring.