In sickness and in health. Yeah, yeah, I know. I said those words. So did DH. Does the "sickness" part also apply to deafness? I mean, a prolonged a case of "selective deafness"?

The selective deafness (literally) came crashing home to me one Sunday night, back when DD (darling daughter) was a baby and we were still living in the City.

DH out in the living room, watching the Yankees crush the Cardinals. No resentment from me there: DH had dutifully become a Yankees fan, forsaking his St. Louis upbringing. I appreciated the assimilation.

And hey, have I mentioned? I'm a low maintenance chick. Don't ask a lot of DH, who knocks down the mortgage payments better than I do (thank you, glass ceiling). DH is also funny as hell, plays guitar better than Clapton, and, like the best Wall Street traders, knows when to hold his positions. Couldn't ask for more, me being low-maintenance and all.

So I was cool when DH stopped buying birthday, Christmas, anniversary gifts for me after DD came along. Now was time for the 529-college saving plan. Baby music-school tuition. Top-of-the-line nanny salary.

No Gucci bag for me? I can deal.

But what I'm finding is that I cannot deal with DH's selective deafness.

I'm not an "euwwwwe" chick. I don't scream out for DH if a cockroach scurries across the kitchen. (I kill it myself quite deftly).

I don't scream for DH, now that we're in the burbs, when I'm lugging cords of firewood in from the car. (I've figured out how to kick open the back door and hold it open with my butt while I haul the wood inside.)

I don't call DH at the office to ask stupid questions ("What do you want me to wear to the client's cocktail party tonight: MILF-style or Soccer Mom-style?")

So when I do call, or scream, it's generally for a very good reason.

OK, so you're asking: Why am I still here?

I think I've got a new answer this week: Monkey Branching. You know, brachiation, swinging from limb to limb. Something gibbons do in the jungle.

It's positively evil, emotionally unhealthy, this notion of keeping one hand on the solid branch of home, family and two cars in the driveway, while reaching the other hand out for some branch that may be out there somewhere.

But that's how I plan to go about searching the suburban jungle — finding something, some new guy, new while clinging to the old.

It's not like no one's ever done this before.

In high school we called it keeping another guy on the "back burner," in case some other relationship turned out not to be on the boil.

Alas, in high school, it was just you and the candidates for prom date. Now anyone on the back burner, or, to mix metaphors, any new branch, is going to have to hold not just my heart but my two children as well.

What sort of man would provide such a strong branch? Who would want to? One thing I do know: I won't be swinging on any new branches without my kids.

I know, I know.

My girlfriends, the talk show psycho-bablers, the self-help books, the marriage counselors, all say, "You have to be on your own before you can find somebody else."

Yeah, but I've been on my own before.

I'm no princess, waiting in her turret for Prince Rescue to come along. I've paid my own rent. Worked in Corporate America (high-profile and six-figures, thank you). Dated bigtime in the Big Bad Apple.

It's just that I've never done it with two beautiful pre-school kids in tow.

Monkey branching? Me? The library-helper-mom? The bake sale mom?

Isn't that sleazy?

If he does that one more time, I am calling a lawyer. That's it. He's been asked politely, with the proper phrasing from the couples counselor: "Don't say ‘You forgot to get the milk.' " Instead say, "I feel bad when you forget things like this, honey."

I remind myself: "The word 'always' rarely applies."

When he leaves the sprinkler on all night, and soaks the yard turning it into a muddy marsh, I don't always say, "We've got a gusher in the back yard ... again."

Usually I notice it when I'm up first in the morning, as I'm pouring the kids' cereal. So I dash out in my bathrobe and turn off the sprinkler.

By the time he's up and rushing to catch the train, I forget to even mention it.

I don't always use the midnight car ride home from a party to tell him that he raised his voice a tad too loud about Obama in a room full of known Republicans.

Usually I just make a joke: "Wow, you sure told them everything they didn't want to hear, sweetie."

Or, "Remember, these are the people who sponsored us for the golf club last year."

Or, "Maybe you could just tone it down a bit."

Usually, I say nothing, and silently vow to buy a pricy hostess gift, and slip it in front of the host's front door the next morning, without ringing the doorbell.

Why am I still here? Why am I still so pissed? Why am I even contemplating leaving one more message on his turned-off cell phone? So that I can record my fury, my angst, onto that little microchip in cell phone cyberspace for posterity? Lord knows he'll never listen to it. He'll hit '7' to erase it the second he hears, “OK, now, where are...”

Twelve years of marriage and it's come to this. He's not home because he'd rather be somewhere else. With someone else. He denies it but my 'wife radar' is in good working order. I'm sick of picturing who she might be. That's not even the point anymore. It's ABW: Anyone But the Wife. If I tell my girlfriends, they'll all just tell me to leave him, to throw him out. My therapist will again urge couples counseling. Tried that at Year Eight. Lasted the requisite six sessions, with promises to “renew," “refresh,” “re-purpose.” You know the drill.

Make more traditions. Make more efforts. Make more love. Thanks, Ladies Home Journal. Thanks Kathie Lee and Dr. Ruth and Shania Twain. I see it's worked out so well for you.

I could just lie here in the dark. I could start trawling the Internet for a lawyer. I could call that guy from the econ summit, that guy from that party three months ago: “If you're ever free on Thursday nights...”

Or I could go downstairs. Get a jump start making the kids' lunches for school in five hours. Or get the hockey gear loaded in the Tahoe now. Save me a few steps in the morning school hustle. Instead, I swallow an Ambien and knock myself out, just as I hear the car in the driveway. Tomorrow with the lunches and hockey skates. Tomorrow with the confrontation, or the ignoring – I’ll figure it out then, when I sit on the train in my suit from Loehman's. Maybe I'll start shopping at Saks again, like I did before the two kids.