In 1960, she met her soon-to-be husband, Ralph White. Margaret later tells Carrie she had sex with Ralph before marriage. She wanted to kill herself afterwards and fell down the stairs to induce a miscarriage. After they married, Ralph vowed that their indiscretions would never recur, but one night Ralph tried to seduce Margaret before she threw him out of the house. He returned drunk and had sex with her in a bizarre form of marital rape that Margaret both hated and enjoyed. This resulted in the conception of Carrie. In February 1963, seven months before Carrie's birth, Ralph was killed while working on a construction site (though it is mentioned in the novel that Ralph stopped Margaret from killing the infant Carrie when she started exhibiting her powers early in her life, implying that he died later on).