A funny thing happened on this journey from dutiful wife and devoted mom back to myself. Of course, I'll always be a devoted mom — but what surprised me, is what a dutiful ex-wife I've become.

The feelings of anger (on his part) and abandonment (on mine) have finally receded into a distant memory. The sense of competition between households (he with the most toys wins vs Ms Rules and Routines) have dissipated as the girls are now old enough to navigate back and forth: my house during the school week for regular balanced meals and so as not to be tempted by aforementioned toys; his place more on weekends and school breaks. 

We seem to have reached a comfortable détente. I took the girls to visit their older sister at college; he took care of our pets, sitting at my kitchen table, drinking a beer, picking ticks off the dog. Internet access in the house was achingly slow on the girls' wireless computers (nonexistent on my dinosaur Mac); so Ex the techno wizard came over, diagnosed the situation, and fixed it (no charge!). 

Conversely, when Ex explained some of his business woes, in this time of ever growing anxiety, I heard myself saying that I would cover more of the costs-that we could settle up accounts after the economy stabilized. That conversation wouldn't have been possible a year ago. 

Moving beyond simmering resentments is hard (breathe in, breathe out, let go for heaven's sakes), but makes life a whole lot nicer for everyone involved. Even Ex's Next, who had not spoken to me since that little unpleasantness regarding their nuptials, made an unprecedented move. A few weeks ago, she was coming down the driveway while I was picking my daughter up from her dad's house. Usually, she would just slink inside, averting her eyes. But this time, she walked over to say hello, as if nothing had happened.

The family joke is that if I had stopped at two children, I'd be the most insufferable mother who ever lived. My two oldest daughters have never given me moment's pause — well maybe a few moments — but I saw none of the screaming, slammed doors, sullen withdrawals or general obnoxious teenaged behavior I've heard about (or exhibited myself as a self-absorbed young lass). Never had to set curfews, never had to mete out punishments for missing said curfews. How clueless I was.

But daughter number three — bless her little heart — has given me a run for the money from the very start. Didn't want to be born; we had to induce. Once born, she didn't want to leave my arms — or the house. Where most babies are lulled to sleep in their car seats, K would scream bloody murder the entire time. I remember one wretched ride where I compulsively kept reaching for the radio knob, as if that could turn her volume down.

Now it's just the opposite. At 15 with her first beau, it's all about The Boy, and she can't wait to get into his car. She doesn't want to spend any time with me — and certainly not with my beau and His Boy, four years younger. And I understand her need to be with her guy, her first love, so it's a delicate dance between her legitimate needs and ours.

So I thought she was being particularly magnanimous, when S and his son came over one Saturday afternoon and she agreed to go iceskating with us at a nearby rink. Afterwards, we came home, baked cookies together. When she said she'd like to skip going out to dinner with all of us to meet her guy, I thought it was a reasonable request. But S got a little pissy, which annoyed me, so I sweet talked her into it. We had a lovely dinner, then she went off with The Boy, S and I retreated up to my room for a movie, his son settled with video games downstairs.

I awoke at 3 am with a start. I was sure K was home by now, but something made me check.

Not in her room.

I love all the get-togethers with S's families — for birthdays, holidays, no reason at all. True, it's a little weird that they plan events where their mom has to make nice with their dad and his new wife, who, truth be told, wrecked the 30-year marriage a couple of decades ago. But I guess the plan is to invite everyone and hope they all act like grownups. Which they usually do.

And my best friend L, who got this whole ball rolling with S and me, is the glue that holds this family together. The dutiful daughter-in-law who can make these gatherings work. Indeed, she was the only one who could pull off maintaining friendships with both Ex and me.

Years ago, when she was diagnosed with a particularly nasty form of breast cancer, she took it like a champ through surgery, through chemo, through relapse. She never complained about losing her hair: "These wigs are nicer than my hair ever was, and easier to care for," she said. When it moved into her liver, she was similarly undeterred. "This is like any other chronic disease, like diabetes," she would say. "I've got it under control."

Which is what she maintained whenever we had one of our girlie lunches that we would grab whenever we could. And she looked great at that last lunch. It had been a busy summer: I was headed to a family reunion in South Carolina; she was off for a similar visit in California. We had had our kids at the same time, so we gossiped about our high-school seniors and their hopes for college, how the older ones were planning careers. How those child-rearing years just flew by.

By the time we returned from our respective trips, the cancer had moved into her brain. Impossibly, she was still upbeat. She planned yet another family gathering, and with her face swollen from her treatments, her body inconceivably thinner, she chatted animatedly about her new doctors, the prognosis, her future.

There are a gazillion stories in New York, but for some reason mine have a tendency to intersect and overlap. Shortly before I married Ex, the man I had originally moved across country to marry (which is another story in itself) called to congratulate me. And to share some good news. "I'm not sure how you'll take it," he warned.

"If it's good news, I'll take it just fine," I replied.

"Well, I just got a great new job — everything I wanted, more money, good accounts."

And the down side would be...?

"My office is next to Ex's. We'll be working together."

Great. Welcome to The Story of My Life.

Which brings me to my current conundrum. While I didn't need to vet my dates with Ex, he and S had known each other most of their lives, even played in a band together for heaven's sakes. How exactly to broach the subject that we were now dating?

The little devil perched on one shoulder couldn't wait to spread the news. Just weeks before S and I became an official item, I received a disturbing phone call from my church.

Seems Ex and his Next wanted my pastor to officiate their upcoming nuptials...even though neither of them were members of my — or any — church. What's more, they decided the best place to hold the ceremony would be the lovely little chapel down the street from my house, where my daughters annually sang Christmas carols, a place that had meaning for me, my daughters, the family we once were.

"Rise above," my friends told me. "You don't want to spoil his wedding; wait until after to drop the bomb." Okay, okay. I conceded to the little angel on my other shoulder.

Well, at least my intentions were good.

The night of the wedding rehearsal, S and I went out to dinner to avoid any awkward confrontation with Ex picking up and dropping off the girls at my house. I told them to give me a heads up when they were leaving.

"Try Match.com," my divorced friends suggested. I was skeptical. I had tried the original computer dating back in college — only for the story, mind you, not to find dates — and hadn't been much impressed — with the story I ultimately wrote or the dates. The ensuing decades had done nothing to change my mind.

Call me picky, but I just couldn't quiet my inner writer when reading the profiles. Is there anyone who doesn't like romantic dinners and walks on the beach at sunset? Besides, my computer was too slow. By the time I downloaded the pictures, the profiles had totally turned me off.

But nothing ventured, nothing gained, so I tiptoed into Internet dating and created a semi-profile on Match.com (Nerve.com creeped me out too much — their sexual position of the day feature gave me the sense that this wasn't the place to find my true soul mate). Besides, I wasn't really looking for a date...but I wouldn't complain if I happened to find one.

And I did get some hits almost immediately, which progressed in short order to phone calls. And what I heard wasn't good.

One man told me he agreed to meet a girl without seeing her picture first and it turned out she was more like size 14 (not four as she claimed to be) and after five minutes of conversation told him she felt comfortable enough to tell him her secrets such as"...tried to kill myself at college...twice." Next!

Another man shared that he had been intrigued with a woman's picture and email exchanges enough to want to meet her in person. But instead of the recent law graduate he was expecting, waiting for him at their designated meeting place, was her mother, hobbling in on a cane. "But I looked just like my daughter when I was her age," was her reasoning behind posting her daughter's picture rather than her own.

Really — people lie about their weight and age?