I may have doubts about my marriage, or the relevance of the institution for me, but I do not doubt its importance to countless millions. I've not yet discussed here that I'm an active supporter of same-sex marriage rights.

My community of friends considers it one of the major civil rights issues of our times. My sister is devoting her career to the protection of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts, and in Rob's and my circle of close friends we have two sets of married women, one of which is raising an adopted daughter.

Sickeningly, thirty-seven states define marriage in such a way to prohibit the marriage of same-sex couples. Vermont reversed this trend when in 2000 it enacted civil union legislation for gay and lesbian couples and rejected constitutional amendments limiting marriage.

California followed through on comprehensive domestic partner legislation in 2003, the same year in which Massachusetts legalized gay marriage when its courts ruled it would be discriminatory to not allow same-sex couples to marry. California has now joined Massachusetts in allowing full marriage rights, and Connecticut's Supreme Court ruled in favor of same-sex marriage just last week.

But as with the hetero population, some marriages will end in divorce (same-sex marriage has been legal for such a short time, divorce rates have not yet been established). In Massachusetts, Gay and Lesbian Advocates and Defenders (GLAD), the same organization that fought to gain marriage for all, must now help couples divorce.

Rob and I have been cutting back on driving lately, so until we were barreling north toward New Hampshire this weekend, I had forgotten the pact I'd made with myself to always be the driver when the two of us are in the car.

Rob doesn't get road rage, but he drives as if other drivers were the punks who bullied him in grade school, and this is his chance to show them who's boss. He is unforgiving, and never allows other drivers or even pedestrians the go-ahead.

He vies for the better position in a merge though it puts the passenger side in danger of being hit. He tailgates, a dangerous move made more so because his reflexes are molasses slow. For my own safety, I watch for brake lights on the highways so I can tell him to STOP! It takes him forever to notice and react on his own.

When I was learning to drive, someone told me to look farther ahead. It changed everything. Take your gaze another 200 feet forward, and you get to see what's coming much earlier, giving you more time to react if needed. Your peripheral vision will pick up what's immediately surrounding you anyway. When I gave Rob this tip, he thought I was nagging. When I try to talk to him about changing some of his driving habits, he never does.

So this weekend on the road, as Rob made one dangerous move after another, familiar thoughts returned. Does he respect me so little that he thinks nothing of putting me in danger? What if we had a child? I couldn't possibly allow him to drive anywhere with the baby in the car. Or, if he suddenly became a safe driver for the baby, could I forgive him for not treating me as carefully? 

And that's when it hit me. That's exactly what I already can't forgive him for — all the small moments in which he has betrayed my safety and trust. With us, it's not one big thing, but an accumulation of disregard. Our healing journey is a rough and pitted road — we get by one hazard to find many more ahead. 

I forgot to add this wrinkle to my post about my non-anniversary. A few weeks out, I told Rob I had a business trip to Chicago just after our big day, and suggested that since neither of us had ever spent time in the Windy City, maybe he should come along and we could tack on an extra night in the hotel.

We have no love life at home, so you know, I figured it wouldn't hurt to see what playing around in a new city and retiring to a lovely hotel room could do for us.

He said he'd check about getting a day or two off from work to make it happen, and then promptly forgot, day after day, to do so. Sounds like a guy who is not up for a romantic whirlwind trip away to a new city with his much-adored wife, right?

The truth is we both find excuses to avoid romantic situations. And week after week we work with a therapist on improving our communication and figuring out our shared goals, and never speak of the fact that there's nothing intimate about our relationship. We're all about denial.

A friend recently admitted he has to make a conscious effort to have relatively frequent sex with his girlfriend. He says it's too easy to forgo it in the name of exhaustion or lack of amorous mood, and that he find he has to work at it, as you would in creating a new, good habit. He's never disappointed once things get going, and always happy he made the effort.

But it has been so long for me a Rob — a year and a half — that I can't imagine getting over that initial hurtle...or enjoying the experience, much less make a habit of it.

Okay, I'm making a pledge now to bring up sex at couple's therapy soon. If you think you're getting tired of me posting about my lack of a sex life, imagine being in my shoes (or bed). 

Congrats to Alice on her recent anniversary! I just celebrated one as well: my fifth wedding anniversary. But since my friendly and comfortable relationship with Rob sorely lacks romance, the idea of making big deal about our fifth was a bit embarrassing.

Add to that how I gave Rob an honest yet hopeful note card last Valentine's Day and he gave me nothing (I know, it's a ridiculous holiday, but nothing whatsoever?), and you get full-blown AWKWARD!

A few days out, Rob actually checked in to see how we should handle it. Well, we had already justified our recent vacation by calling it an anniversary gift to ourselves. So maybe we were all set. Plus, we had a block party and another friend's house party to attend on the anniversary date. So we'd spend the day being neighborly.

When our actual anniversary arrived, this time I had nothing for Rob and he had a note card for me. It read in part: "I'm glad to be where we are today.... I'm glad we're on this path together and I love the family and home we've made together."

Oof! I felt guilty. I don't disagree with what he wrote, but even in the face of his transformation from drinker and gamer to more thoughtful partner and fellow meditation practitioner, my doubt about us surviving long-term remains strong. Congeniality and shared interests are important, but when there's no sex, it's nearly impossible to pretend everything is good, much less something to be celebrated. 

I noticed Sarah McLachlan's song about divorce made the First Wives World news blog, so I thought I'd give a shout out to pop singer Pink. Not that she needs it. Her single "So What," in which she sings about her divorce from her husband, motocross racer Cary Hart, has reached No. 1.

I don't know much about Pink, but clearly she has, um, balls. I'm not referring to her bad-ass styling and punky sound. I'm talking about how she not only exposed her raw and unsettled feelings about her ex-husband to the world through song, but she put her ex in the video!

But while the lyrics belie her need for a bit more closure ("So what...I don't need you...And now that we're done, I'm gonna show you tonight") in the video it's clear, these ex-spouses have moved beyond anger to place where they can deal with each other, as friends.

In fact, it's rather sweet. Even as she sings: "You weren't there, You never were, You want it all, But that's not fair, I gave you life, I gave my all, You weren't there, You let me fall," Pink and Hart go from play-acting, to playful, to a bittersweet caress. Check it out here.

Aww.

According to People.com, Pink wrote on her website that her divorce was "‘not about cheating, anger, or fighting" and that she still considers her ex a ‘good man.'"

I reserve Sunday mornings for the Globe, freshly ground coffee, and Rob. We typically banter about the news. But this week I kept mum while reading a Parade Poll Special Report "The Truth about American Marriage," wherein Leslie Bennetts admits that divorce in the news makes the state of marriage in the U.S. seem like a toxic mess.

Take for example the stories about John Edwards, Paul McCartney, and Alex Rodriguez. But if divorce has made the news more spectacularly more often in 2008, this is not necessarily indicative of the true state of affairs. In this national poll, 88% of respondents reported being happy or content in marriage.

With a divorce rate over 50%, that seems incredibly high! And something I can't relate to.

On the other hand, close to 30% of respondents described their marriages as "peaceful coexistence." Now that sounds familiar. And pitiful, no? It's a bit...lacking.

This I found somewhat shocking: Men are happier than women in their marriages. Nearly 70% of men said they "never" think of leaving, whereas nearly 50% of women say they do — sometimes daily.

Sex? 60% of men and 51% of women aren't having as much as they want. Frequency? According to Bennetts, 31% have sex less than once a month. But 27% have it a few times a week. Nice. But that leaves us wondering about the remaining 42%. Daily? Never?

Breaking up is hard to do. I've just been through a big one...with my therapist.

I've had plenty of therapists through the years, but we always parted ways for reasons beyond our control. Either I moved out of town (twice), or my therapist did (once).

I broke up with one therapist because I could no longer afford him. He didn't take insurance and the weekly $75 sliding scale fee was too much on my non-profit salary. I told him goodbye, he told me what a shame because I clearly had much work to do around my relationship to money. I didn't really buy it.

This time was different. I worked with Alice for two years. She celebrated my triumphs and honored my heartache like no one ever had, and I learned to embrace my feelings rather than bury them deep. She practices the same meditation as I do, vipassana and metta, so these became tools in my toolbox that we could talk about and play with.

When she stopped leasing space in a Boston office once a week and started seeing clients only at her home office in the suburbs, I adjusted schedule to make the hour-long trip to keep seeing her.

We finally parted ways because it felt like our work was done. When I first went to her I was discontent and anxious, but I didn't know why. Soon I came out of my isolation and re-established ties with good girlfriends, buoyed by the practice socializing in her office.

I discovered I had been denying the dissatisfaction in my marriage to Rob. I stopped feeling like a hurt and needy child when my mother neglected me, and I learned to feel compassion for my ill father, who never treated me well but who now needs my help.

I remember long ago my mother telling me and a good friend — as tears of teenage anguish flowed down our horrified faces after breaking up with our first boyfriends — that boys will come and go, but we girls will be friends forever.

Twenty years later, I'm still close to Hillary. She's fantastic — smart, generous, fun-loving. But she has a pig-headed husband. Her four lovely children are more anxious by the minute for being in a household with their angry father. I wonder why she's never said word one about leaving him.

It might be their house big enough for six, insurance and benefits, and the double income that can comfortably feed their clan. Security is not to be scoffed at.

Take my friend Angela. She's cool — artistic, determined, down-to-earth. But she knows she's not in love with her live-in boyfriend. In fact, he has proposed and she has declined. She stays. Why? They share a mortgage on a great loft. The down payment came from his father, and she worries if they separate she'll lose out and be back to student-like living - sharing an apartment with strangers. Ick.

Rob was away last weekend, and I spent a good part of it plodding around my apartment, relishing in its comforts, perfecting homebody-ness. "Mine, mine, mine," I thought, smiling, wrapped in my favorite blanket in my favorite chair. Actually, if Rob and I split, I could never afford the apartment myself.

Like Hillary and Angela, I stay because the unknown - single parenting, messy roommates, fewer comforts - seems worse than a bad relationship. 

If that scale tips, though, and I choose freedom over comfort, I know I'll still have my girls. And if Hillary or Angela ever make the hard decision to leave, they'll have me. My mom said so. 

Kate Hudson and Heather Mills. Britney, JLo, and Jen. They got divorced in the glare of the paparazzi cameras and scrutiny of the public eye. That's unfair and painful, to be sure.

But the lives of wealthy celebrities are so unimaginable to me, I can't get interested much less relate to their journeys through marital strife. And the stories of them triumphantly coming out the other side? Complete turn-offs.

Am I alone in this? Because, I mean, of course they came out okay. They have gobs of money.

I don't mean to belittle their heartaches; they are people who hurt like the rest of us. And no, money certainly can't buy happiness.

But it can buy a lot. It can buy a new lifestyle, completely assembled. It can buy new mansions, personal chefs and trainers, cars and nannies, and vacations away from it all, to say nothing of top-notch lawyers and mediators, spiritual guides, and unlimited therapy sessions.

What about the rest of us? For a typical woman to separate from her spouse, it might require saving for an apartment security deposit, suffering higher grocery bills, and finding new solutions for transportation between home, daycare, and work. Newly separated women often struggle to make ends meet. And having the number of visits to a therapist determined by an insurance company isn't very helpful either.

I haven't left Rob, but I'd be lying if I didn't say I would be living elsewhere now if last spring at the height of my marital struggles I had enough money to strike out on my own. Luckily, we're relatively content at the moment, visiting a therapist weekly and trying to make our way back to a healthier marriage.

Labor Day Weekend is over. Fall begins. The answer to my last post "Is Vacationing with my Husband Asking for Trouble?" is no...and yes.

Our trip to California was not plagued with fights or, as I pointed out would be worse, boredom. So we passed that test. No need to board the one-way train to Splittsville just yet.

In fact, Rob and I never fought. I can't remember him driving me up the wall even for a moment! Instead, we giggled on the plane, chatted endlessly with our Californian friends who met us when we landed, snorkeled, rode horseback, dined al fresco, and hiked.

But for all that doing, we didn't do IT. Seems not even time alone in a lovely hotel room overlooking the ocean can make us horny. Instead, we read quietly. Yawn.

While we were away, a young couple moved into the apartment above ours. We haven't met them yet, but we already know a bit too much. At 1 a.m., they get randy. And at a pretty good clip and decibel level. The more they moan, the more frustrated I get.

I want to scream but instead I get as quiet as possible — I think we both pretend we're asleep so we don't have to acknowledge to each other that yes, we hear them, and no, we don't do that anymore. And isn't it a shame.

I know I should get over it, but I can't bring myself to talk about this problem at depth in couples therapy yet. I think it would be easier to test those waters on my own: to find out if there's something wrong with me, and to get comfortable talking about it before opening the Pandora's Box of couplehood.

Anyone know a good sex therapist? A self-help book for sexless couples? I'm making it a goal: By the end of 2008 I'll have had sex with my husband. At least once.