They were about to break up before October 7. Then Hamas captivity changed their love story forever

The conversation about the future of their relationship that Sasha Troufanov and Sapir Cohen had planned after a year together never happened. Instead, they found themselves somewhere neither could have imagined, though not particularly far from each other. He was being held in a hideout in the Gaza Strip, while she was underground in a tunnel. "Our relationship wasn't very good in the months before we were kidnapped, and you could even say we were about to break up just before October 7," recalls Sapir, who was released from Hamas captivity after 55 days and is now sitting on a sofa beside Sasha, who was freed after 498 days. "I think that if October 7 hadn't happened, we would have had a conversation after the Jewish holidays along the lines of, 'Listen, I don't think this relationship is going anywhere. We've tried everything, including moving in together and opening up to each other, but it's just not working. We're too different, and for both our sakes, I think it's better if we break up,'" Sasha says. Who would have initiated that conversation? "Probably Sapir. She was almost 29, and I was 27. She wanted a serious relationship and marriage, while I'd just moved to central Israel after finishing my studies in the south. Marriage was the last thing on my mind. That's why, when I was in captivity, I never expected her to wait for me. Logically, she had absolutely no reason to." But she did wait. For more than 400 days after her own release, she joined the campaign to bring him home and became a source of support for his mother, Lena. "I didn't even know where I should wait when they told us he was coming back," Sapir recalls. "I thought it wouldn't be appropriate for me to be at the first reception point in Re'im, which is usually reserved for family members. I didn't want to surprise him, and I knew he wasn't expecting me. I didn't want him to feel obligated. But Lena was absolutely insistent, and I felt I deserved to see Sasha reunited with his mother after such a long struggle, regardless of what happened between us." "From my perspective, she completely invited herself," Sasha jokes. "We practically threw ourselves at him, and after that, I barely remember anything because I was so overwhelmed," Sapir says. "He told me he'd found faith during captivity, and I immediately saw in him qualities I'd always hoped he would have. Still, I tried to give him space and stayed out of his room. But when they asked whether he wanted to sleep alone, with his mother or with me, he called for me." "I'd already spent enough time sleeping alone, and sleeping with Mom would have been strange," Sasha says. "At first, the whole interaction was awkward. You're having these intimate conversations with someone you've already broken up with in your head and never expected to see there. Then you discover she was a major part of what had become your most important goal in captivity: making sure your mother stayed alive. "There was enormous gratitude, but also a need to understand where our relationship stood. And I discovered that we had both changed." Their journey culminated in a wedding in July, attended by 500 guests who could scarcely believe the moment was real. Among them were Israel's president and Nitzan Alon, who headed the military's hostage headquarters. "They were invited by Lena, because they really helped us throughout the way," Sapir recalls. "We felt they deserved to be part of our happiness. I saw this wedding as a moment of national joy, not just a personal celebration." "Sasha greeted the guests, while I stayed out of sight until the ceremony. As I left the bridal suite, I caught a glimpse of everyone through a glass door. I thought about how unimaginable this moment had seemed when we were both being held underground." Sapir walked down the aisle to "MiMa'amakim" ("Out of the Depths") by Israeli musician Idan Raichel, a song Sasha had heard while in captivity. "A terrorist guarding me once left his radio with me," Sasha recalls. "I listened at a very low volume so I wouldn't drain the battery. I remember being desperately hungry and hearing all those radio commercials for supermarket chicken and grilled-meat restaurants. Then this song came on, and I thought about Sapir." "There was also 'Shir LaMa'alot,' the song Sasha walked down the aisle to," Sapir adds. "I used to hear it in my head when I thought about him in captivity." "For me, being able to walk down the aisle at my own wedding after everything my legs had been through in Gaza was extraordinary," Sasha says. "Back on October 7, when they were using broomsticks as makeshift splints for my injured legs, I could never have imagined a moment like that. I was a different person then." "During our final slow dance, I suddenly noticed that everyone around us was crying, just crying tears of joy," Sapir says. "I told Sasha, 'Look what's happening here.' And he said, 'Sapir, I'm crying too.'" ‘I decided I had to break up with him’ Today, after the adrenaline of two separate experiences of captivity, the struggle to bring the hostages home, speaking tours around the world, a marriage proposal in the Caribbean and a wedding, the couple are a little less emotional. They are the first to acknowledge that their relationship is a miracle, much like their survival after countless moments in which they believed they were about to die. But returning to ordinary life is another matter. They are now two people in their 30s who lost a substantial part of their 20s and were left with trauma instead. We meet in an apartment in central Tel Aviv, about a 10-minute walk from the sea, which friends have temporarily lent them. "We're between temporary apartments right now," Sapir explains. "We came back from a speaking tour abroad, and we're living out of one suitcase of clothes I took with me, not realizing those would be all the clothes I'd have. Everything else is in storage until we move permanently to Herzliya soon." Sasha has returned to his engineering job at Amazon on a part-time basis. "We don't really talk about captivity in our day-to-day lives, but we're not at the point where we can joke about it either," Sapir admits. "Sometimes I forget, or find it hard to believe, that I was actually held hostage. There were moments during captivity when I imagined I was being tested for a job with the Shin Bet security agency, and that any minute a recruiter would walk in and say, 'You're hired.' "I can watch an interview with former hostages on television and think, 'Wow, what they went through was terrible,' and Sasha, sitting beside me, can't believe what he's hearing. It still hasn't fully sunk in that we went through it too." "I look around and see that everyone has moved forward while I was gone, and you realize you're a step behind," Sasha says. "It's hard for me to have fallen out of the race. I feel as though I've been held back a grade, and I could have been somewhere else in my career. But then I remind myself of all the ways I grew during that time, and the picture changes. "Before everything happened, all I cared about was making as much money as possible. I wanted to reach 10 million shekels as quickly as I could, have enough financial security to stop worrying about money and then become a teacher. "After captivity, I can't wait that long to find meaning in my life. I need it now. I want to feel that being taken hostage and surviving isn't the greatest thing I'll ever accomplish." "I was a software engineer before I was kidnapped, and even before that I'd been wondering whether it was right for me," Sapir says. "I didn't have the courage to leave, but when I came back, sitting in front of a computer working on some feature felt so far removed from who I was. Now I'm searching for what comes next." They met on a dating app, and the beginning was hardly promising. "We were together for a year before the kidnapping, but it wasn't a year in which the relationship was getting better," Sasha says. "I used to show my brothers pictures of guys from the app," Sapir recalls. "They'd say things like, 'Nah, boring,' or 'Wow, handsome!' With Sasha, everyone agreed he was good-looking. "We talked for about two weeks before meeting, and it was genuinely fun. Then we met, and the first date wasn't great. I took the train all the way from Kiryat Ata to Sarona in Tel Aviv, and of course he didn't make the effort to come to me. "When I saw him, I couldn't believe my eyes. It was like Hercules was walking toward me. But once we started talking, things just didn't click. The conversation felt awkward, and there was no chemistry. "I headed back to the train station feeling disappointed, convinced we'd never speak again. But then he texted to ask if I'd gotten home all right." "Neither of us thought there would be a second date," Sasha says. "On the way home, I thought about how little I'd enjoyed the date itself, but I remembered how much fun it had been talking to her for those two weeks beforehand. So I decided to cast a line." "I replied, 'Good night, sweetie,' the way I'd written to him before our date," Sapir says. "When he asked, 'What, am I still sweet?' I told him yes. And that's how it continued." The following dates were even stranger. "On our second date in Yarkon Park, a jackal picked up my bag in its mouth, and I had to chase it," Sasha says. "It also ate the cheese pastries she'd brought me. On our third date, a thief stole my phone without me noticing." "He used my phone to call a service that helps locate lost phones," Sapir says. "The representative asked him, 'Wait, which phone are you calling from?' And he replied, 'Um, my girlfriend's phone.' I remember thinking, wow, this guy is serious about us." "On another date, we were cuddling on a beach chair when someone came over, stood next to us and simply took my bag with my laptop inside," Sasha recalls. "At that point, with everything happening on our dates, I started wondering whether it was a sign that something wasn't right." "And then, on our last date, they took him from me," Sapir says. "And they took me too." When did things finally start to turn around between you? "They didn't!" they answer in unison. "As the months went by and I felt our relationship wasn't going anywhere, I pushed for us to move in together," Sapir says. "I felt like I still didn't really know him. Eventually, I told him, 'Your lease is ending. Let's move in together, or we break up.' Everything was an ultimatum. "Somehow, he agreed. It was only after six months together that I first went to Nir Oz to meet his family and friends. Even after we moved in together, we struggled to communicate. We argued a lot and just couldn't understand each other." "In a relationship, you have to be willing to give as well as receive," Sasha says. "Back then, I didn't want to give anything. Without realizing it, I kept pushing her to see how much she could take before she'd finally break up with me, because I couldn't bring myself to end things. Meanwhile, she wanted me to be the one to do it. I knew she was a good woman and that I'd be losing something valuable, so I didn't want to be the one who made that decision." "I grew up in a family where achievement was everything. Then