But it was hard for Anthony to avoid thinking she might leave him.
"Because a lot of people, they don't want to be seen with someone that was ugly. What was it, like 70-plus surgeries, skin grafts? I really didn't want to leave the house," he says. "I just thought to myself, man, people don't know how to ask questions. They just want to stare and point."
He's thankful his wife stuck by him.
"The crazy thing is I'm still more self-conscious about what I look like than you are," Jessica tells him. "But I have grown so much over the past five years. I didn't ever think that I'd be as strong as I am today and most of it is from you. I can't imagine you not being in my life."
Today, the couple is attending college together.
They've been through "so much in so little time," Anthony says. "There shouldn't be anything that could tear us apart besides death itself."
Audio produced for Weekend Edition by Yasmina Guerda.