For some reason, Rob is less needy lately. When he isn't in constant monologue trying to describe every experience he had while we were apart during the day, I'm more curious about how he spends his time. I have questions for him and we can dialog. This works for me. I guess without Rob breathing down my neck, the time we do spend together seems more...pleasant!

Our trip to the meditation center was helpful — our program allowed us time together apart from the group, plus time apart from each other. We struck a nice balance.

Due to the quiet-hours rule and no television, we went to bed together at the same time — a big change in routine. At home Rob retires after 11 and I fall asleep on the couch. I usually wake around 1 or 2 and go to bed. That leaves no awake time in bed together. At Kripalu we stayed up comparing notes on the workshop and laughing about quirks of the other participants. I felt downright close to him! (I even let him spoon me as we fell asleep.) 

This closeness has come just in time for the stressful holidays. We're about to embark on a four-day family extravaganza covering 1200 miles, three families, and two turkey dinners. Into that mix throw a new step-father; a father with Alzhiemer's and a needy girlfriend; and a brother who says he's not going to show up, but just might, probably drunk, flask in hand. If there's a time I ever needed a partner, it's now. 

My husband wishes I were more sexual. Truth be told, his sexual appetite has always outpaced mine. He would have sex three times a day if he could, but I'm completely happy with a couple of times a week. Even before our marital issues starting affecting my performance in bed, I still didn't want to get intimate as often as he did.

Nowadays it takes quite a bit to get me in the mood. Strike one: I have back problems, and as my chiropractor so delicately put it I shouldn't do anything that involves "jerking up-and-down motions." Strike two: I'm usually pretty exhausted from the rigors of motherhood, working, and all the other fun stuff that comes with my role in life. Strike three: Yeah, this is gross, but my two pregnancies not only blessed me with two beautiful children, but also bestowed upon me some pretty serious hemorrhoids. When those bad boys flare up, getting me in the mood for sex is downright impossible. 

Okay, so now you probably know more about me than you care to. Sorry about that.

When my husband hasn't had sex in a couple of days he starts dropping hints and making sexual innuendoes in conversation. The other day I was heading out to the gym and I made the comment that I was in need of a good workout. He arches his eyebrow and says, "I can give you a good workout." I really don't like when he makes these types of comments in front of the kids, so I say, "What Daddy doesn't seem to realize is that sometimes Mommy can't hang from the chandelier and whoop it up." To this he sighs and responds, "Don't worry...I expect very little from you."

Ouch.

I already feel like a failure as a wife because I can't just find a way to be happy in this relationship. I thought I was at least being a good wife by hooking him up with some sex on a regular basis, but apparently I can't even get that right. 

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?

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. 

Do you want to know which nights I get the best sleep? I get the best sleep on the night after I have sex with my husband. Not the night of the sex, but the night after. He initiates every few nights, but the night following an evening of sex, he doesn't expect anything from me — so he just drifts off. It's great.

Here's what it's like to go to bed when my husband wants sex:

1. I lay down and he rolls over, puts his arm around me, asks me how I'm feeling.

2. If I don't respond physically he starts running his hand up and down my arm or trying to rub my shoulders. He might ask me if I want a massage or if there is something I want to talk about.

3. If I still don't respond physically he'll start making suggestions about the things he wants to do. Unless I want to stay up for a few hours arguing with him, I have sex with him.

4. If we don't have sex, he intermittedly grabs and paws at me throughout the night.

Here's what it's like to go to bed the night following sex:

I lay down and my husband rolls over, putting his back to me. He doesn't say a word.

It's a pattern I'm used to. If he's physically satisfied then he doesn't stir when I come to bed. If he wants sex, he's suddenly awake when I come to bed no matter what time it is. Apparently I'm really interesting and intriguing when he wants to get some, but when he's satisfied I become a stealth ninja when I come to bed. Funny how that works.

On the nights that I'm really tired and just want to go to sleep — but don't want to get intimate — I've fantasized about sleeping on the couch just to avoid the whole song and dance with my husband, but I know he'll come looking for me and it will turn into a lengthy discussion that will evolve into sex if I want to get any sleep.

It really shouldn't be this complicated. 

I got to talk with Harville Hendrix, the author of Getting the Love You Want, last week. He's in Portland for a conference of Imago Relationship Therapists, the school of therapy he and his wife pioneered.

In the hour we talked, Hendrix answered my questions with great depth and careful consideration. Typed-out, his replies to each of my four queries were several pages.

Boiled down, edited and over-simplified, here's the heart of it:

"It really is very simple, how to be in a great relationship," Hendrix says. "It can be stated in a few sentences."

1. Your relationship will become more satisfying to the extent that you get it that you live with another person. This person is not you. They are an other. If you get it that you are living with difference and you give up trying to make them be like you, then the conflict starts to go away.

2. You have to drop negativity. Negativity is all an attempt to change the other person. Replace it with affirmation and finding all the things about your partner that are beautiful and wonderful. If I'm getting curious about my wife when she's doing something that makes me uncomfortable, 99 percent of the time, my discomfort has nothing to do with what's she's doing. It has to do with her not matching an inner image I had of her. She moved out of my picture frame, and I want her back in the frame.

3. Affirm and advocate their otherness. Become curious about it. And the way I can make all this happen is to engage in dialogue. So I can hear her disclose who she is and get at who this person is I'm living with. 

A comment on one of my recent blogs said this about the things I write about my husband: "I don't recall one post that mentions loving, appreciating or cherishing him."

Maybe I'm not making myself clear, and that doesn't surprise me. I spend so much of my time lately in a confused state that sometimes I really don't know how I feel about my husband. I'm not surprised that someone who takes the time to read through my posts would start to wonder whether I actually love my husband anymore or if I don't. You can't possibly assume that this isn't something that I haven't labored over in my mind over and over again.

Do I appreciate my husband? Yes, I do. I've written about how he's a professional man who supports his family well. I've written about how he's making his way through graduate school. I realize that a lot of different aspects of my life would be much more difficult if he wasn't around.

Do I cherish my husband? I've written about how I cherish watching his interactions with our children. He can make them burst into giggles quicker than anyone else.

Do I love my husband? Holy cow, that's going into a really gray area. I once loved my husband very much. He has since changed into a different man, and I have changed into a different woman. Does the New Me love the New Him? Yes, there is some love there. Is there as much love now as there once was? No, not even close.

My husband spent a great deal of time not appreciating me and not cherishing me, and although he said he loved me there was really no proof there.  That's devastating, and it's still very painful to revisit. That's probably why you don't read many blogs from me singing my husband's praises. 

In an ideal world I'll someday get to the point to where I'll have no problem blatantly loving, appreciating, and cherishing my husband. I just don't know if that will ever happen.