Sometimes I want so badly to have a happy, intimate marriage that my heart feels like it actually hurts. The cynic in me says that no marriage is actually happy, and anyone who claims to be happy in a marriage is either lying or living in denial. The realist in me, however, knows that there must be something to this whole marriage thing because otherwise we wouldn't all be doing it, right?

Sometimes I just want to scream, "HOW DO I GET HAPPY IN THIS RELATIONSHIP?!" I want someone to tell me what to do to fix things so that I can stop living this life of emotional Atari. I want someone to take my hand and tell me that eventually, everything is going to be okay.

A big part of why I haven't ended things is because I want to believe that there is hope that this can work. What a fantastic thing it would be to someday look back on how we almost split up but then were able to repair the relationship and stay together. I think about how much stronger we can potentially be as a couple after going through all this and then coming out of it all okay.

Then I look at how lukewarm we are toward each other and I wonder if couples ever really recover from something like that.

When does a person decide to actually give up hope and file for divorce? Does it feel like a loss of hope, or does it feel more like a triumph of having made a decision finally? Is it terrifying, empowering, or both?

There's a new billboard on the highway that I drive to work every day. It pictures two pairs of feet: one small pair standing on top of a big pair. The caption reads, "Have you been a dad today?"

This one, simple thing provokes an enormous amount of thoughts and emotions out of me.

I suppose the most obvious situation I think of is my situation, Adrian's situation.

Levi has not been a father today, he wasn't a father yesterday, and I've got a feeling he won't be being a father tomorrow.

This kind of thing, this totally 100% single parenting thing has felt at times, really lonely and incredibly isolating. I've cringed when people have asked about Adrian's father. I've spent countless hours trying to think of the perfect response to that question, yet, there really isn't one.

But today I'm sitting here thinking to myself that if they've got a billboard on the highway asking men if they've been a father today, well then, I must not be as alone as I feel.

I wonder if it's done any good.

I wonder if a man has driven by that and thought to himself, I should be more of a father.

I wonder how Levi would feel if he drove past it.

My guess is that he would be underwhelmed.

We haven't spoken in a while, Levi and I. It's been peaceful that way but also really sad. It's as if I've finally accepted that he won't be Adrian's father, no matter how hard I try.

I guess I'm glad I've accepted it, but there is something about that acceptance that feels really shitty. Really final.

I wonder if they have billboards like these in Los Angeles.

I feel like putting on my feetie pajamas at 5 o'clock. I know this happens every year when it begins getting dark early, but this year I can't take it any more. I am fighting back! Anything not to be on the couch for hours in between hustling back and forth to the refrigerator.

I need to suck up the daylight whenever I can so I have been forcing myself to get out. Mostly I try and make it to the gym because someone shrunk all the clothes in my closet.

To amuse myself I have been taking all the different kinds of classes they offer. Spin, pilates, kickboxing, body conditioning, etc. Monday night was boxing. I didn't notice I was the oldest person there until about half-way through. My chest was heaving and I was wondering if anyone in the gym had medical knowledge. What the heck was I thinking? After jumping rope, doing pushups on a hard wood floor, and completely flattening my manicure inside my boxing gloves on a punching bag, I had no idea if I would ever see darkness again...I was praying I could get back outside to the dark parking lot.

Too proud to flee, and with raccoon mascara eyes, I really hoped I wouldn't become a casualty. What's too much for a woman my age? Is there an age limit on boxing? Anyway, I made it through, high fived the 20 year olds on the way out and will continue to fight (box) getting SAD this year. SAD being Seasonal Affective Disorder. Lack of sunlight causes serious depression in many people. Figure out how to fight back at it if you are one of them. Maybe you should be the gloved one next?

My dad and stepmom met Mike last spring, and they said they liked him, but, really, what else would they say? Since they visited my sister last week, I figured I could check in with her and make sure.

So I checked. And, yes, they do. But...

"They think you're getting married," my sister said.

"What?" I squawked.

This is me we're talking about. Put aside that whole not wanting to get married again — this relationship's barely a year old! We haven't even lived in the same city yet! We're not even ready to live together! Plus that whole my-divorce-isn't-even-freaking-final-yet thing.

I casually mentioned this.

"I know, I know," she said. "But Dad thinks so, because you're coming to visit me."

Since Mike and I will be spending Christmas on the East Coast, part of our travel plan involves stopping in Boston to see my sister.

"SO?" I asked.

"Well, when I said you were both coming, he got all thoughtful. You're at his place, then Mike's parents', then here. He said maybe you were making ‘the family rounds.' ‘She must have something to announce!' he said."

"Don't worry," she said hastily, as I started sputtering. "I set him straight."

"But, but...how could he possibly think that?  Doesn't he know me at all?"

"Please," my sister said, "this is our dad. He asked me my senior year of college if my boyfriend and I were pinned. His world is a different place than ours."

Thank God their conversation happened. Otherwise, Thanksgiving might have been awkward, without me even realizing. 

If my editor at First Wives World one day decides to decrease my word limit all the way down to one, no problem. I could still convey my feelings about my marriage. In a word: meh. Rob drinks too much — meh. We don't have sex — meh. Now Rob is turning things around — meh. Life ekes on, and it's hard for me to muster anything other than indifference over my lackluster marriage.

Indeed, sometimes I wonder if the only reaction my posts about my endless indecision elicit is a big "meh" from readers.

There was never a wife so wishy-washy. It's not without justification entirely — my husband was indifferent to my needs and feelings for the first few years of marriage — but it's embarrassing nonetheless. Some days I wonder what's wrong with me.

So I had to laugh today when I read that the powers that be (in this case, HarperCollins, publisher of the Collins English Dictionary) legitimized the expression. Yep, "meh" is in the dictionary. (So is "yep," by the way.)

When I read it I thought of our honeymoon. (I believe we had sex once the entire week — and that includes our wedding night. I should have known then to expect trouble ahead.)

Our lakeside cabin came replete with a fireplace, canoe...and one fluffy orange cat as neighbor. We laughed whenever Buttercup came around. "Meh...meh...meh," she cried at the porch door.

We thought it was adorable that she couldn't muster a complete "meow." But now I have to wonder, were our little friend's pleas a warning? Maybe she knew something we would remain in denial about for years. Smart cat. 

I have to fess up. My secret is not much of a surprise, I'm sure, which hardly makes it a secret, but still I'll feel better straight out saying it. I want my apartment back.

Hold on, now. I'm not saying I want to leave Sam again. That's not it. And I'm not saying I don't want to live with Sam anymore. That's not it either.

I do want to live with him, just not all the time. I do not want to live with anyone all the time.

Maybe this makes me a loser, but it's the truth, so I'm saying it.

I spent all morning re-arranging my office and you know what? In the end I realized creating what I want there is impossible. No matter how many ways I move the furniture, it's all still in that one room, in that one house where we all live. All of us. Together. All the time.

Here's my fantasy: Sam and I get an apartment a few blocks from our house, and we furnish it with the leftover stuff we didn't sell in the garage sale we never had after we moved back in together.

I stay at the apartment a couple nights a week, he stays at the apartment a couple nights a week (if he wants) and three or four nights a week we all stay together, one big happy, nuclear family, at the house.

The girls have each parent five nights a week and two parents about half the time.

Before we separated I'd never lived alone, had no clue how amazing, how liberating, solitude can be.

We have all these ideas about how marriages and families should look, but the reality is parenting small children is brutal. Many of our families are fragmented, parceled out across the country. Thousands of miles apart.

There's no reprieve coming from grandparents, aunts and uncles, or older cousins. No one to take the kids for a couple nights or a couple hours. No villages to raise our children. Our therapist is always asking what we can do to create more space for ourselves.

Okay. I haven't written about the boyfriend in a while. Truth be told, I haven't wanted to jinx it. Things have been going so smoothly I sometimes wonder if there's something wrong?

In the past, I've kept my finger on the pulse of my relationships. If the heart wasn't racing so hard one of us was in danger of a heart attack, then the relationship didn't seem real. It was all emergency-room experiences.

Reality was at such a high pitch, such a fevered pace, there wasn't any down time or room for ambiguity.

Maybe it's maturity. Maybe I'm just exhausted post-divorce, but my new boyfriend and I have a rhythm that's positively lethargic. I'm loving it.

Here's the 411: I'm so busy rushing around with kids, job, music and meetings, that when I make a date with Mr. Right these days, I'm finding peaceful relaxation, safety, security, and the warm-fuzzies are what I'm looking for. Not a racing pulse.

First, I never worry where I stand. He thinks I'm wonderful all the time. Second, whenever I ask, "Would you like to go to such and such?" his response is always, "Are you going to be there?"

He continually assures me that the largest measure of his happiness has to do with being near me.

I remember when I was in my 20s, writing about how I needed a wife. That just goes to show how lowly the position was back then, because I was writing about needing someone to do my laundry, scrub my floors, and cook my dinners.

While Mr. Right isn't angling for the wifey position, he isn't above helping me with household chores. And, he does yard work.

Now you're saying that this sounds too good to be true.

Although divorce has damaged me to the extent that I find it hard to think of a romantic future of more than a single day, I can honestly say that, from a new-age perspective, you really can dream your way to reality.

Minutes after we'd been declared husband and ex-wife, Edgar was vigorously berating me, calling me a dumb, stupid woman. I looked up at him and wept.

"I'm giving you what you wanted," he said. "I kept my mouth shut."

I kept crying and trying not to think about the other people in the waiting area. They probably appreciated the entertainment.

It was my turn to keep quiet. I recognized Ed's fury as the typical reaction of alcoholics and addicts when something doesn't go their way: It has to be somebody else's fault. Ed was right, I'd gotten what I wanted. There was no need to remind him of how and why, with the destructive assistance of alcohol, we'd ended up in divorce court.

My ex actually, accidentally, did me some favors as our marriage came to an end. Over a year ago, he was the one who angrily asked if I wanted a divorce, never expecting me to say yes. Had he not asked, I'd probably still be working up the courage to say so.

On the day of the final hearing, he reminded me that he is prone to untruthfulness and to blaming others for his problems.

I felt really bad when I told the judge our marriage was irretrievably broken. Though I'd been over that question and over it and over it countless times, always finding the answer was yes, still I had a small doubt at the moment of truth.

It wasn't big enough to stop me, though.

I never thought I'd get divorced. I meant that business about taking Ed for the rest of my days. When I realized, though, that my days would be fewer if I stayed married to a man who couldn't quit drinking, I was able to break my promise.

I'm sad about it, but I'm not sorry about it.