Bruno Mars and Jessica Caban: Why heaven can feel off

Bruno Mars b&w · Brothers Le
CC BY 2.0 · Cropped for display

Before the marriage question, there was the fear of losing Jessica Caban.

A May 2, 2013 post on Bruno Mars's official website, summarising his Rolling Stone interview, connected When I Was Your Man to that fear. Caban was named as the woman behind the song.

If you've ever felt loved and still worried about where the relationship was going, perhaps you recognise why that matters. You're trying to hold the good things carefully while finding words for a question they haven't answered.

Her name in the thank-yous

The following year brought a public acknowledgement. The Recording Academy's written account of Mars's 2014 acceptance speech records him acknowledging Caban when he won Best Pop Vocal Album for Unorthodox Jukebox. His thanks extended to his musical team and family; he dedicated the win to his mother.

Your own version might happen at his friend's wedding. He reaches for you when the photograph is being taken. Someone asks how you two met, and he starts telling the story before you've finished smiling.

Being included can feel lovely. If marriage is still unspoken between you, it can also make the question harder to raise. You don't want asking about tomorrow to sound like you missed what he did today.

What did Bruno Mars say about marrying Jessica Caban?

Josh Eells's Rolling Stone Australia profile, published on December 7, 2016, followed Mars making 24K Magic. It described him returning from the studio around three in the morning, with Caban already asleep at home.

Later in the piece, Eells described them living together, six years into their relationship. He asked Mars about making it official.

“She’s my best friend. My rock. What’s wrong with that? We’re just happy.”

Bruno Mars, Rolling Stone Australia, 2016

After a pause, he added: “Until she reads this.”

There is affection in the reply. There is a joke at the end. There is no marriage date in it. Caban's own wishes and their private conversations aren't supplied by these accounts.

That combination can catch somewhere familiar. You can hear love in an answer and still be unsure whether it reaches the question you asked.

Perhaps you know the evening when you feel yourself taking the question back. Netflix is playing. His foot is against yours. You decide you were making things heavy, then spend the rest of the episode wondering why you still feel unsettled.

A question about your future isn't a defect in you. You can hear the warmth without making yourself pretend it settled everything.

The person who could tell him the music wasn't working

Another interviewer caught a different part of their shared life. In David Smyth's Evening Standard interview on April 21, 2017, Caban appeared in the account of a Hollywood Hills home they shared with their Rottweiler, Geronimo.

Smyth asked how Mars's musical persona fitted with his home life. Mars brought Caban into his answer, describing her response to his music: “She’ll tell me if it’s wack.” Smyth also asked whether she had ever asked him to write her a song. Mars said she hadn't yet, then praised her.

Maybe the familiar part for you is being able to say a film was ridiculous, or that you don't feel like going out, while the question about marriage somehow needs three rehearsals and a better evening.

In Say It Out Loud, Blair Rowe names a pressure a reader may recognise:

The performance of the woman who is easy because she never names where she's going.

Blair Rowe, Say It Out Loud, in Castles Want Queens, Not Princesses

Mars was talking about music in Smyth's interview. For your own relationship, there's a question worth keeping beside that ordinary candour: can the subject that matters to you have a place in the conversation too?

You don't have to make yourself easier to love before you're allowed to ask it.

The affection belongs in the story too

By Smyth's 2017 interview, Caban has appeared in these accounts as a musical inspiration, someone Mars acknowledged publicly, and the person sharing his home and giving him candid feedback. The marriage exchange doesn't erase those parts of their story.

An unmarried relationship can be serious. Two people can choose that life together. If you're reading Mars's answer while carrying a marriage question of your own, you don't have to turn their story into a warning to take your own question seriously.

If you need the words, here's how to talk about marriage with your boyfriend. If you've already spoken and you're trying to understand the weeks afterwards, the different clocks are here.

The fear behind the song, the acknowledgement at the awards, the reply to Eells, the feedback described to Smyth: the good things stay in the telling. In your own life, they can stay too. You can love what you've shared and still ask where you're going. That doesn't make the question your fault.