Your gut instinct is there for a reason. It's a hardwired sixth sense in your brain that tells you exactly when something isn't right. It's survival in its most primitive form.

And boy, have we ever evolved. We've learned to ignore that gut instinct, going against everything it whispers to us (and sometimes even what it screams at us), and we've even managed to talk it down, telling ourselves we're being silly.

Or stupid. Or nonsensical. Or whiny. Or melodramatic ... yeah, we're pretty good at tripping our own brains up.

I've read a few posts where the women here have said they can pinpoint that exact moment when they knew something was wrong or when they knew it wasn't going to work out.

And yet, from the stories they've shared, it took everyone a very long time to really realize what our gut instinct already knew. I've had those moments, too.

I knew three months into my first relationship that it wasn't going to be a winner. I stayed for 10 years before calling it what it was: over.

My second relationship was the same — three weeks to fall in love, three months to know it wouldn't last, 10 years to walk out the door.

I think three and 10 might be important numbers for me to keep in mind.

So why is it that we don't pay attention to that automatic gut instinct that is desperately trying to save us from ourselves? Why don't we listen more? Why don't we take a deep breath, look inwards and say, "Alright, buddy, shoot. What have you got to tell me?"

No, we distract ourselves from the reality. We shake it off, think of something else, tell ourselves we're just being silly.

Worse, we let our sixth sense whisper at us, wearing us down mentally while we smile and pretend on the outside. We do bugger-all to change anything about our situation.

My ex and I spend a lot of time talking about other people's relationships and relationships in general. I've noticed that we tend to skim over issues on our own relationship.

He was mentioning that a couple we know tries to create a good impression. In public, they fawn over each other, make eyes, and touch often. In private, there's nothing happening there. It's a sham.

"I'm glad that we're working on us," I smiled into the phone receiver. Lately, things have been quite nice between us.

He gave a manly grunted. "Mmph."

"What? Don't you think so?" I explained how we'd been happy, that we were getting along well and we seemed to be a stronger couple (if we can be a couple without living together).

"Ach, let things be." I could almost feel the brush off through the phone lines.

I know why he's upset. We both want the same thing: we want to be closer. He's said as much and so have I. We want to touch more; we want to be affectionate with each other. We want a deeper relationship.

And yet, we're so damned scared of each other, so damned worried that we'll get hurt that we tend to be overly cautious. I'm scared of giving too much and getting hurt when he goes cold. He's scared of letting himself feel emotion.

I have a feeling that we'll end up dancing around the root of the matter for years to come. Living together for so long, having a child and then separating permanently shook us both up badly. Creating the relationship we have now took some savvy navigation, too.

Throw it all to the wind and fall in love again? We'd probably both like to do that. But we're too scared because we've been there, done that and gotten badly hurt.

Find someone new and start over? Neither of us have interest in that. Sure, we want to know that at middle-age, we're desirable, but we don't want a new person in the mix.

My ex and I went to see a show together recently. We do that. We date, we see each other, and then we each go to our respective homes. We had a great time, too.

While we were at the show, we met a friend of ours — and he had a new girlfriend with him. She couldn't have been more than 20, and he was in his late 30s. More power to him, I say.

The next day, though, my ex and I were discussing how young the girl was and how we felt about people who date younger people. I expressed a little bit of surprise at the difference in ages between our friend and his girlfriend. My ex pointed out there was 10 years' difference between us. Nothing wrong with that.

Then he said, "The problem isn't that people date younger people. The problem is that no one seems to be able to keep a girlfriend. Why is that?"

He was right. Men in our area who divorce do try to find new relationships. None of them stick. They find a woman and a few months later, they're with someone new. They can't seem to find a stable relationship that lasts.

"I admire us, you know," he went on thoughtfully. He said that despite our history, our breakup, and the fact that we don't live together any more, we're mature enough to work at keeping our relationship alive because we love each other.

We talk. We find ways around our differences. We're learning what works and what doesn't. We're each trying to find a way to be a couple, no matter how hard it is sometimes.

Being a couple is work. A relationship isn't a discardable commodity when people have differences. They find solutions if they want to be together. They work out their issues. They talk. They resolve the problems.

There's nothing wrong with playing the field, either. But to me, that just shows someone isn't serious about commitment or hasn't figured out what's important to them.

I wrote about a couple facing a breakup because of an affair, and it seems that affairs are hot topics on divorce sites — um, as they should be.

I don't think having an affair is a "right" thing to do. I think it is a surmountable obstacle and one that couples can overcome. I don't believe that an affair is a henchman's axe dropping down to sever relationships completely. An affair doesn't always mean that someone doesn't love you and wanted to hurt you.

I thought over how I felt about sex and love. I think the two are related, yes. When I love someone, I tend to have sex with that person. The act is enhanced by the feelings I have.

But I can have sex with someone I don't love. There is no hard and fast rule that says you must have sex with people you love or that sex is symbolic of the love you feel. I think that twining the emotion of love into the act of sex is the problem involved in how we feel about affairs.

I think that an affair is surmountable if you treat it for what it is: a physical act that truly doesn't mean anything unless you make it mean something.

People have sex all the time. People have sex with people they don't love (and sometimes even don't know) every day around the world. Having sex is just an action. It doesn't mean that you feel something for the person you're engaging with. You're just...having sex.

I agree that an affair breaches trust and damages confident that you feel toward the other person. I do think that a couple dealing with the issues of an affair have some serious questions to ask themselves about their relationship.

But I don't think that an affair is a deal-breaker. If you're facing the question of divorce because of an affair, I think that you should treat the affair as a symptom of a problem, not a problem in itself.

I found out recently that some friends of mine are breaking up. The woman had an affair — twice.

The first time she cheated on her husband, he accepted her apologies and forgave the breach of promise. The second time was the deal-breaker, and they're in the midst of dividing their belongings and making custody arrangements for their child.

I read once that women are forgiving of an affair. They don't like that it happened, but it seems that women tend to understand the reasons and prefer to hang on to their partner. Men, I read, found an affair a virtual insult and they cast off their spouse more easily.

I could forgive an affair. I'd be hurt and most likely be untrusting for a long, long time. But I could also move past it — I think. I haven't lived that situation and it's hard to say what my reaction might be.

Twice, though? No. If I had a husband and he cheated, I would need to know that the mistake wouldn't happen twice.

I think affairs are simply symptoms that something in the relationship is very wrong. I think an affair means someone just needs someone to provide comfort or affection or...something. A couple facing the issue of an affair needs to treat the illness and mend the wound.

But if that's impossible, then it's time to split up.

I also think there's a level of respect involved in a relationship, even a broken one, that demands people be mature. I know that the attraction to someone else when the fights are raging is pretty easy to slip into, but there's something to be said for being honest.

My ex used to say, "I could understand if you find yourself wanting to be with someone else." After all, he knew there wasn't much love lost between us during the years we spent fighting. "But if you're going to have an affair," he went on, "At least have the respect to let me know before it happens and I'll step out of the way."

A friend and I once discussed how many women seem to slide on over to same-sex relationships after a divorce. I think it's true; a divorce can make you question a lot of things about yourself — why not your sexuality?

I also know that women in same-sex relationships tend to struggle more with "bed death," a lack of intimacy between the sheets. That begs the question, were these women really attracted to the opposite sex to begin with?

Possibly. Attraction isn't black and white. Feelings are feelings, and while we may be hard-wired to prefer one gender over the other, women seem to be more open to same-sex relationships than men. Maybe I'm talking out my hat, but bear with me.

Before I go on, though, I want to add my disclaimer. I'm not physically attracted to women — or at least, I prefer men over women. I also have nothing against same-sex relationships; they're legal and widely accepted in Canada, my country.

But I am curious about the women that get divorced and then suddenly go gay. "I'm done with men," some say. Is it really about men? Or is it just about need?

Women seek nurturing. They seek affection. They want tenderness and caring moments in relationship. They also have an easier time providing those same things — how many of you women reading this yearn for closeness? How many of you achieve high levels of closeness with men?

It's not about sex. It's not about who you sleep with. The point is that women need to feel cared for, and sometimes, when their world is rocked, they'll look for that anywhere they can get it.

And if it's from another woman? That may just be the answer. Who better to provide the nurturing love and caring tenderness when we're hurting than another woman?

Is a same-sex relationship after divorce the right answer? I'm not so sure about that. Remember, there's a big difference between sexual attraction and the need for affection.

My ex and I shared a bittersweet moment recently. He's coming around off his mini mid-life crisis, and we've talked about what our relationship is. A committed couple, yes, but with a strange sense of detachment just underneath the surface.

He's scared of his emotions, so he keeps them distant. Maybe that's why he can be so cruel and so cold at times. It's easier to push what frightens us away than to embrace the potential pain of feeling too much.

I'm at the opposite extreme. Love fully, love hard, and love for the moment. Who knows what might happen tomorrow? Why waste time waiting for things to resolve into something comfortable? Make that comfort happen with a leap of faith.

So when the sunshine lit up his green eyes the other day, I couldn't help the smile that crossed my face, and I opened up to the wash of affection I felt. I put my arms around him and kissed his mouth.

The response lacked... something. What else had I expected?

"Just give me time," he gave an apologetic smile. "I care about you. I have feelings for you. I just need... time."

Time for what? If there are feelings and caring, why can't he acknowledge them? Why can't he sit down and talk about them, and why can't he just accept them?

I know why. He's not a bad man, just a very screwed up one. He has issues with abandonment, issues with expressing emotion, issues with trust, and issues with defining our relationship.

"It's not you," he moved away carefully. "It's me."

Oh, such famous words. "I know," I replied, and drew on my mask of you-didn't-hurt-me that lies and shows the world everything is fine.

"Why do you stay with him?"

My teenaged daughter asked the question after a recent falling out with Ex Number Two. What hurt was that she didn't ask her question in the past tense — we both knew that I'd give in and make up.

"Because I'm lonely." It was the most honest answer I could think of. Why lie? "Because I'm afraid there's no one else."

And that, I know, is why we all stay in bad relationships. All women want is love and affection, support and nurturing from a person that becomes their light of life. We seek out this dream continually, whether we realize it or not.

I'm happy being alone — I really am. I don't mind my independence and I wouldn't want a man to move in with me. Ever.

But I really would love a man to somehow drop into my life and treat me well. I want someone to make me smile and love me. I want to fall in love again with someone who won't hurt me or drive me crazy.

The reality is that I have two children, I'm middle-aged, and I live in a small town with a poor economy. The ratio of women to men is skewed, and not in my favor. Those good-looking potential mates in steady jobs that are upstanding people are snapped up instantly.

Hey, I'd snap a guy up like that myself, if I could find one.

But actively seeking someone isn't in my cards. I have two kids, which limits my free time severely. Most men my age are in relationships with kids of their own. Most men older than me don't interest me much and the younger ones that do wouldn't look twice at the mom in the grocery store.

So I settle. I take the good when I can, and I try to avoid the abuse of a drunken, insulting, self-absorbed and selfish sot who has all the compassion and empathy of a discarded railroad tie. I'm a full believer in "better than nothing."

I've got my eyes open, though.

Blogging about my past loves, my relationships, my "divorces," and my life isn't easy. Most people might jump at the chance to have some fame as a writer — I don't recommend it with a topic like this.

More than once, I've written a post and then sat back to think. "My god... I sound crazy." I really do. I've had two failed "marriages," I have two kids from separate fathers, I've slept with a woman, I'm currently testing a living-apart together relationship with one of my exes, and my other ex wants to have an affair.

I sound like white trash.

I'm not. Please understand that. I may have made some crazy choices in my life but I don't regret any of them, and I don't want to be judged because of them. I've learned more about me from my experiences in relationships than most people learn about themselves in a lifetime.

And yet I sit here feeling I have to defend my life. I own two businesses. I earn a good salary. My children have everything they need and we live quite well. They're very well adjusted with no need to seek psychotherapy. They're happy. I'm happy. I look normal, act normal, and believe I'm perfectly normal.

I sure have one hell of a track record for people to make assumptions about my character, though.

But the good part about all this? Well, I'm not stuck in a marriage I can't stand. I'm not abused or yelled at any more. My sexuality is pretty clear in my head and I don't have any "what if" questions. My children don't have to live in a dysfunctional family, and they're being raised with good values and open perceptions.

I may have a white-trash track record, but I can look around at a lot of unhappy people and say to myself, "Thank god that's not me."

I haven't had an argument with my first ex in years. Thank god, because I certainly had enough arguments with him to last me a lifetime.

But apparently, we were due to have one more.

He's been hanging around a lot, lately — and not to see his daughter either. He comes when she's at school, drops hints about sex, and hangs around for a while before going home to his new girlfriend and kids.

Not this week.

No, this week, he waltzed in the door and jokingly demanded I drop my work at the computer to come visit with him. I made a face and told him flat out that I was behind in my work, racing to meet a deadline and that visits were out of the question.

Well, he made himself at home anyways, taking throne in my kitchen so he could tease me every minute about how I neglect him.

And then the phone rings. It was Ex Number 2, asking if I was busy and whether he could stop by to visit the baby. At least he'd had the good manners to call first. I told him we'd be home.

Ex Number One took on the look of an offended rooster and proclaimed he had to go home. Good. He marched to the door, put on his coat and demanded a hug.

I didn't have time for that shit and told him as much. I didn't appreciate his reply.

"Oh, so you have time to be nice to that f**ckin' Frenchman, but you don't have time to be nice to me?"

I blew. I didn't even think twice, and my voice rose quickly. I could talk to whom I wanted to, when I wanted to and how I wanted to. No one could barge into my home, demand my time and expect me to fall to my knees.

This was my life now, and no one would tell me what to do anymore.

"Listen, missy," my ex's face was red and his finger stabbed at me. "You'd better remember we're not married anymore and you can't talk to me like this."

"That's right," I stood firm. "And neither can you. Get out."