The other night I lay in bed with Sam at his place. The bed that used to be my bed, my favorite piece of furniture. The nightstand that used to be my night stand. The husband that used to be my husband.

And none of it felt like mine anymore. Laying there, body next to body, I was thinking: This man is my husband. And the words surprised me.

I don't feel married. Haven't worn a ring since before I left.

This man is my husband. I don't know what that means anymore.

There's no judgment, no longing. Just the thought. This man is my husband?

It's close to two years we've been apart together. I haven't dated anyone else. Haven't kissed anyone else. Haven't had sex with anyone else. In 15 years there hasn't been anyone else.

When I write these posts, I always feel like they should to go somewhere deep. Land on some wise thing.

I don't have that. No clarity to offer.

I'm just keeping with these words, meditating on the thought: This man is my husband.

This man is my husband.

If I repeat them enough, they'll lead me to the truth.

Wanda's post last week about living in the real world rocked! Ice cream for dinner? You are my new hero!

So thanks, Wanda. I'm taking it to heart and making peace with my piles.

I'm tired of holding myself up to ridiculously unattainable standards. I read and re-read about the detrimental ways super-mom syndrome is killing women, all the reasons it's okay — healthy, even — to let the house be a mess, but I just can't tell that obnoxious internal judge to sit down and shut the hell up.

Grilled cheese, soup, salad, and fruit for dinner instead of elaborate homemade gourmet makes me feel like someone should call child services and take my kids to a better home.

Why? It's a healthy meal.

I'm so embarrassed about the tiny size of my one-bedroom apartment and the piles of papers and toys and clothes, I haven't invited one of Roxie's friends here to play this year.

I grew up in an impossibly spotless five-bedroom house. I'm talking David Lynch freaky clean. We sat down as a family for a home cooked meal. Every night. Always. Eight of us, when all the kids were home.

My parents, brother, two sisters, me, my uncle and grandma Rose, for whom Roxie is named. (My grandmother and my developmentally delayed uncle lived with us.)

Both my parents, and my Grandma Rose and my uncle worked full or part time. Still the food was homemade and nothing was out of place. Ever.

How'd they do it?

I'll tell you how. Two words. Cleaning lady.

There were four adults pitching in on meals, house work, and yard work. FOUR! When the adults were all working, there was enough income to hire outside help.

Even in my smaller space, with less people, how can I expect to do the work it took four (five, including the cleaning lady) adults handle in my parents' house?

When Sam and I split 18 months ago, agreeing to "leave it open ended," our therapist warned that 80 percent of separations end in divorce

I thought, "Well, that's okay. At least those people who were unsure or unable to move directly to divorce gave themselves some time and space for thinking."

The statistic seems like a big "So what?"

I mean, at that point, the only things on the table were separation or divorce. Staying in it wasn't an option. So my 20 percent chance was better than the other option — a zero percent chance.

Now I wonder, of the 20 percent who reconcile, what happens to them down the line? Are their relationships any more or less susceptible to dissolution because they've already been to the brink without falling over?

A few weeks ago we were at friend's dinner party, the whole family. And we weren't the only couple there who'd come all the way undone without undoing everything.

Another couple had been separated several months and have been back in one home for a couple years now. A friend of mine was separated for two years and got back together for seven or eight.

I wonder: Do "second first marriages" face better odds than other second marriages? Is the seemingly higher rate of reconciliation just proportional to the high rate of divorce?

I also wonder if any of those numbers matter anyway. Just like the statistics our therapist threw out, they all kind of seem like a big "So what."

The straw that broke the camel's back in my marriage was the dog that bit my 4-year-old's face.

Because the dog wasn't just some dog, he was our dog, a wedding present. Ten years old and he'd traveled the continent with us, climbed to the top of the highest Mayan pyramid deep in the Mexican jungle with us.

Maybe Bilbo was sick the morning he bit Roxie. Maybe he was aching and she touched a tender spot. It doesn't matter. What matters is he didn't hurt her badly. The bite drew a little blood but, no stitches needed, no scars left.

I made myself crazy trying to find a rescue shelter where he could live out his life. But, try placing a pit bull that's bitten a kid? Not possible.

Euthanasia was the only option. I investigated all of them, had dog trainers to the house. The unanimous answer: Put him to sleep.

But Sam couldn't. He said "I'll take my dog and go."

He said: "If you murder my dog I'll hate you forever, anyway."

I understood why he fell apart, his dog issues, all the animals he'd lost. Starting with the golden retriever his parents gave away when he was a kid, not one of Sam's pets ever lived out its natural life with him. Somehow, understanding the root of behavior is little solace.

In the end, he came around. We agreed euthanasia was best for Bilbo. I would take him and Sam would never, NOT EVER, say I murdered the dog.

Putting him to sleep is the hardest thing I've ever done. He died in my arms. When I got home, exhausted and sobbing, I asked Sam for a hug.

He just kept walking. I said, "You look like you need a hug."

He said: "I need my dog."

Two years later, I still won't give him the ashes. Is that wrong?

The first time — no, the second time — we went to marriage counseling, our therapist gave us an assignment.

At one of the first sessions she told us to each ask the other for one small thing that would make life easier. Something to show support.

We were working opposite schedules, Sam during business hours and me 4 pm to midnight four nights a week. We rarely saw each other, but it allowed us to keep the girls out of childcare, which we couldn't afford anyway. And I believed my job would lead to something better.

He said he wanted me to get a new job, a day job. The therapist suggested he ask for something more reasonable.

We settled on this: Once a week on a day he worked and I didn't, I would make a really nice dinner. No boxes or cans involved. Once a week on a night I worked, he would pick up the entire house and clean the kitchen. I said I didn't care if it was on a night the house was mostly clean, I just wanted to get up one morning a week with nothing left over from the day before.

Weeks went by and he didn't do it. I kept making my meal every week, sometimes two or three nights instead of one.

Months passed and when I asked him about cleaning up, he said, "If you spent half the energy doing it yourself as you use nagging me, it would be done."

I'm not saying he never lifted a finger. He was fantastic at deep cleaning, when he felt like it.

But this was about honoring something because I wanted him to, because it would make my life easier. And he didn't.

In marriage, one of our struggles — maybe the biggest struggle — was my feeling Sam could not ever follow my lead. Couldn't be vulnerable like that. If we disagreed on something, we did it his way.

Thing is, until the end, we rarely disagreed. Not because I lacked differing opinions, because conflict paralyzes me. So uncomfortable I'd rather just go along.

When I found my voice and used it to disagree, our relationship splintered.

Does he need control, I wonder, or is it an inability to trust others' ideas? Like the way we could afford to do/have things only if they mattered to him. Everything else was frivolous, irresponsible or out of reach.

I said no, I would not move into his place.

He's 10 miles away in an area of town I have never wanted to live. When he moved there I begged him to look closer, more central, so the girls' lives would be less fragmented. So they could live two places within one community. So they could participate in neighborhood activities without debate about which neighborhood, and with neither parent having to schlep across town.

He said no. Said he couldn't afford to live elsewhere.

Maybe I'm not giving this fair consideration. There are a dozen solid arguments for why it would be a sound move, financially the strongest move we could make. But I don't want to live there.

Beginning anew from a place of old concessions would be the surest route to another miserable ending.

We left the office silent. I asked "What are you thinking?"

"That we don't have the same vision," he said.

"Yeah," I said. "Maybe we never did."

Hard week, this week.

I'm feeling trapped here in my life again. In this little apartment thinking, This is not how I want my kids to remember childhood: Their mom sleeping on the couch.

Roxie's starting first grade in the fall and all I want is for her to begin school living in a little house, in a neighborhood full of kids.

I don't know how to get from here to there.

The only way is another giant leap of faith. I'd have to move into a house knowing I can't afford it, and believe I will find a way.

My feet feel grounded in cement.

Let me take another shot at this idea of talking to young kids about impending separation. All week I've been feeling like comparing the move to an adventure came off flip.

So, one more time from the top without the jungle metaphor because once you have decided to leave, telling the kids is inevitable. And it's hard. And it's heartbreaking. And how you do it matters. A lot.

You've probably already stayed longer than you wanted, stayed way past the place it was healthy for anyone. You probably did it for the kids. I don't know a thing about telling older kids.

With little ones, the under-five set, you have a brief window to make major changes without shattering their picture of what should be.

They haven't been around long enough to form expectations of how things should be. There is no "normal" for them, anything that happens is new. My therapist's words, not mine. There ways to minimize the trauma of transition for them.

1. Present it as a matter of fact: This is what's happening and this is how we are doing it. Talk more about how their lives will look and less about why you are separating.

2. Keeping it positive for them doesn't mean trying to sell this as a trip to Disneyland. They need to know they will be loved and safe and taken care of in both homes. That's all they need to know.

3. Your explanation sets the tone. If you present something as frightening and full of scary unknowns, guess what? They'll be more scared.

Presenting it this way doesn't mean they won't wish for Mom and Dad to be together, and it doesn't ease your suffering. But it goes a long way in easing their transition.

When I finally decided to leave and told Sam I was going, the most terrifying unknown left was telling the kids. At the time Roxie was four-and-a-half and Lila was about 22 months.

He said our split would ruin them. I knew the opposite was true but the little voices in my head agreed with Sam. They said our broken marriage would forever undo them.

We took it to our therapist, who gave us the single most helpful piece of advice I've heard on the topic.

With young children, especially kids under-five, it's all in the presentation.

Think of it this way: You're taking a three month trip to The Amazon. Tell your kids about the amazing animals and birds and jungle flora they'll see and you create excitement. It's an adventure full of new possibilities.

Warn them repeatedly about deadly snakes and poisonous spiders, focus of the dangers tucked behind every tree and tangled in dense under story? That's a whole different trip.

You're navigating. You get to decide if the change will be defined by adventure or peril.

We waited until it was time to start packing and presented it very matter of fact: We're trying something new, we'll have two houses and you get to have toys and clothes and books at both. You get to have friends in two neighborhoods. Mommy will be with you in one house and Daddy in the other, and we'll both love you just the same as we do right now in this house.

Roxie asked why, and was surprisingly satisfied with the simple answer, Mommy and Daddy are having a hard time living with each other, and we think a new adventure is best for our family.

They transitioned way easier than I thought possible.

I don't how many of you are fans of The Secret, but I'm a believer. Actually, I've known The Secret for as long as I can remember. Way before there was a book or movie professing its magic. Essentially it says the universe is governed by the law of attraction, or simply put, ask and you shall receive.

It's undiscriminating, too. The universe is a big a ball of energy that doesn't separate positive from negative. It hears our wants and it delivers. When I watched the movie I thought, well, of course it works like this.

Of course, we can manifest into being the lives we want. I always have, the good and the bad, including my current financial struggles and poverty. Somewhere a long the way I got this stupid idea to be a writer I needed to struggle. Every time my life got harder I said, that's all you have? Come on. Bring it!

Last week I hit the wall with my little apartment. All week I posted about needing to get out of here, needing space and my own bedroom. Abracadabra! The universe shows up with a two bedroom house for me. I'm already stretched then, I say, I can't afford increased rent and the cost of moving.

No problem, says the universe, you can have it for $45 bucks more than you're paying, no first, last and deposit. Just pay the rent and it's yours. Three blocks from a park, five blocks from great coffee, corner lot in a fun, funky part of town.

I could move in on my own and if I salvage the marriage, it's big enough for all of us. If not, I have a cute little house, albeit outdated and quirky, where me and my girls can spread out.