My husband is juggling graduate school and work right now, so he's a pretty busy guy. Luckily he's taking the classes online, so while I write at night he does his school work.

Why is he taking graduate classes? There are two reasons, I think. The first is because I want to start my graduate classes, but I don't want us both in school at the same time because I think the kids would get short-changed if both Mommy and Daddy were scrambling to get their homework done.

I told my husband that he needed to decide what he wanted to do because if he didn't enroll in classes soon then I would start up my graduate degree. After all, I'm really itching to get back to school and I do truly love being a student, so if he wasn't interested than I certainly was.

Lo and behold, he enrolled in classes.

The second reason why he is in graduate school didn't come out until just recently. He was complaining about how busy he is, and how hard he works, and how difficult it is to juggle everything (which I certainly don't dispute...he's working very hard right now).

Then it comes out during a discussion that the only reason he's enrolled in classes is because he thought it was what I wanted. He says he wasn't even sure he wanted a graduate degree, but I pushed him into it.

"Won't a graduate degree help you in your career?" I asked him.

"Yeah, I guess," he responded with a shrug.

I told him that he should make his own decisions, that he shouldn't do something major like enrolling in school if it's not something he wanted to do. He threw his arms up in the air and exclaimed, "I'm just trying to make you happy!"

I live far from my family. My husband's job demands frequent moves, so we go where his business is. I grew up in one part of the country and now I live in another.

Although the area we live in now is decent, I would probably not choose to live here of my own volition. I miss the beauty of my home state, and I miss my family terribly.

If I leave my husband, I'm going to find a little apartment here and stay in this area for as long as my husband does.

Yes, it would be much easier to pack up the kids and head back home, where I could undoubtedly stay with some relatives until I get on my feet. They probably wouldn't charge me rent or make me pitch in for groceries, and I'm pretty sure that they would be more than happy to take the kids occasionally so I could go job hunting or just have a few moments to myself.

So why won't I move back home? The main reason is this: Just because I want to leave my husband doesn't mean my kids want to leave him, too. They adore him. He's a good father, and my daughter favors him quite a bit.

Now don't get me wrong. I don't think that they would fare better with him if I granted him full custody. His patience with them is pretty thin after all-day exposure, but when he's gone at work all day and then comes home he's the coolest person ever, as far as the kids are concerned.

If we split up, it'll be hard enough for my kids, but if they're suddenly moved to an entirely different part of the country and never get to see the father who they adore, well, I'm pretty sure that's a recipe for therapy by the time they hit their 20s.

The plan is to stay right here in a town where I have no family and no reason to stay other than my husband, who — even if he becomes my ex-husband — is still the father to my kids. It will become really messy if he gets transferred to an entirely new location, but for now this is the only solution I can think of.

I write for a variety of Web sites. I'm really blessed to have steady work from a lot of different sources. I also do some editing work for a couple of sites, so all in all, I'm all over the Internet on a regular basis. My husband knows the name of some of the places I write for, and once in a while he'll Google me to show off to his coworkers, but for the most part he doesn't really pay too much attention to where my work goes.

Needless to say, he doesn't know that I write for this Web site. 

The other day I walked into the house and my husband was waiting for me in the entryway. "I read some of the stuff you wrote on your baby blog," he said, and then immediately followed that up with, "I don't like the way you made me sound."

It was one of the first times he had ever sought out some of my writing online and actually read it, and of course the first thing he stumbled upon was the baby blog. The article he found was one where I discussed how many babies we wanted to have, and how I only wanted one or two while he was willing to go for four. The post was designed to be entertaining for people to read, but he saw it as a personal attack.

That night I was working on the computer while he watched some TV. Out of nowhere he said, "Do me a favor and send me a list of all the Web sites you write for, would you?"

I'd like to think that he's decided my writing is worth reading and that he can't wait to dig into my long list of bylines and see what kind of stuff his wife can churn out. I think a more accurate assumption, however, is that he wants to check up on me and see what horrible portrayals of him I'm putting out there. Because, after all, it's all about him, isn't it?

I haven't sent him the list yet. Heck, he can just Google me like everyone else.

I started writing about a year and a half ago. I've always enjoyed writing and during the period of time when my husband was so efficiently and intentionally ignoring me, I decided to go ahead and try to score a paid writing gig, which luckily for me happened pretty quickly.

My writing career grew exponentially after that, much to my husband's dismay. Although he claims to be proud of the writing jobs I get, he has more than once complained about how inconvenient it all is for him.

I still maintain the house and I am still 100 percent responsible for the kids throughout the day, so it isn't as if I ignore my responsibilities in order to get some writing done. I write at night sometimes, but if I try to do that too often my husband gets quite annoyed. Essentially, I try to write when my son naps or sometimes when the kids watch a DVD.

It's as if I'm sneaking in some putrid habit and hiding it from my husband. Ever since I told him I wanted to leave he agreed to give me a couple hours on the weekend to go do something on my own, and more often than not I use that time to write since I don't get much time otherwise.

Recently I received a few copies in the mail of a book I contributed to. This put me into the realm of a published author, and I was thrilled beyond belief. My husband, on the other hand, did not even bother to open one of the books and read my chapter, and I was completely crushed. He did read it eventually (in the bathroom, as a matter of fact), and he told me it was "good." That was the sum of his reaction.

Is it too much to ask to have a husband who is excited about my accomplishments?