The other day was a doozy. The kids were both stir-crazy because of the rain, and when they get stir-crazy they get awfully clingy and needy. I had three deadlines looming and I had to go to a meeting. The house was a mess and I couldn't figure out a time to go grocery shopping even though the pantry was pretty much bare.

All in all, it was the kind of day where I felt stretched to the limit and although I wanted nothing more than to curl into bed and hide from the world it just wasn't an option.

Too many obligations, and not enough of me to go around.

After the kids were in bed I sat down to punch out the work that I had to do. I figured if I worked for two hours straight I could get to bed before midnight, then the next day I could try to tackle the housework and maybe get to the grocery store if everything worked out.

I had been working for a few minutes when my husband stopped flipping through the television channels and looked over at me. "I need to talk to you about something," he said, and then proceeded to tell me that I wasn't paying enough attention to him.

Now that's bad timing.

I was already on edge because I was trying to deal with so much at once. Sometimes it gets overwhelming: kids, work, keeping up the house...I understand that when I have so much to deal with my husband's need for attention might take a back seat. There are just some times when I have to get stuff done and I don't have the time to fawn over him.

That either makes me a realist, or it makes me incredibly insensitive to my husband's needs. Or maybe I'm an insensitive realist.

I work hard. It would be great to end an evening with my husband saying something along the lines of, "I know you've been stretched thin lately. What can I do to help?" instead of, "Pay more attention to me."

My girlfriend just emailed me and asked if I had "blog block." Yup guess that's it. A name for my condition. I didn't realize it was an official condition till just now.

You may have noticed the date of my last post. So what — you ask — have I been doing?

Well...everything you could possibly imagine and some stuff you wouldn't even believe.

Lately I have only two speeds — GO and PASS OUT — and I maximize every hour of the day I am blessed with.

Funny, I write all day long in my head but apparently my head and my hands have not been communicating. I assume that would translate into Blocked- Head as opposed to Blockhead which is so unfeminine....

So I am in search of the antidote to Blog Block and I aspire to my next post — shortly.

Debbie

Rob's and my couple's therapist suggested the choice I face isn't between our current relationships on the one hand, and separate futures on the other, but between a new relationship together on the one hand, and separate futures on the other.

Oh, right. I don't have to settle for our relationship status quo; if I choose to stay, it should be for a better, healthier relationship. While this is not earth shattering, it felt new, and gave me pause. I guess I had been in a rut thinking the relationship was unchangeable and therefore doomed. Not so?

After this suggestion, I spent a good day thinking, nah — there's no way Rob can change. And the trauma between us is irrevocable and can't be healed.

But then I thought of all the good changes Rob has already made and decided he would be capable of it. That lasted through a second day. But something still irked me. Even if change for the better were possible between us, I still had misgivings. What were they?

They were my dreams. My dreams of independence, the freedom of living on my own terms — without the guilt and the fighting and the worry — and the pride that would come of humble self-sufficiency.

These dreams of mine are set in the near future; I imagine enjoying this independence while I can still pass for the kind of young that gets away with putting up visitors on a futon rather than in a well-appointed guest room, that travels from hostel to hostel and is not decades older than the other guests.

This is it — I feel I'm in a race against time. Sure, independence at any age will be wonderful, but my particular dreams I want to live out, well, now.

This reminds me of Harry Burns's loving tirade at the end of When Harry Met Sally: "When you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible."

On Thursday afternoons I go to a writing workshop in the basement of a local novelist's home. You've maybe read some books workshopped and developed in that basement, or seen the movies.

"Dangerous Writing," it's called. Dangerous because it's about going deep into places that scare you, the vulnerable places, and writing from them.

The sore spots, my teacher calls them. It's fiction writing, mostly. Characters created to explore places too hard to go alone.

He's the real deal. Along with a Pulitzer-nomination and his seemingly bottomless stores of compassion, he has a gift for intuitively guiding writers into the heart of their own hauntings.

We are all of us haunted, he says.

And he lives it. His books are brilliant and beautiful, but they aren't easy.

A couple weeks ago he was talking about how, for a long time, his boyfriends were just anyone who loved him.

I wonder how many of us do this. First fall in love with the love itself, regardless of who is loving us. Then stick around long after we should just in case there's no one else. Trade fear for love.

Because what if this is as good as it gets.

Or what if, in leaving, we are forced to see ourselves. The good, the bad, the hauntings, all of it. See who is living in our skin.

There's no hiding from yourself on the page and there's no hiding from yourself in divorce. It strips you down, exposes every place you never wanted to see.

It's dangerous business, being human.

The reward for seeing, for living circumstances that weren't supposed to be, is, hopefully, we put ourselves back together stronger and healthier.

More human and more loving.

I'm beginning to realize that this state of limbo just isn't going to work.

A while back I decided to just disregard the feelings I had about leaving, and to push it all aside and just go on like everything is fine. You know what? Everything isn't fine. It hasn't been fine for a long time, and it's not something that I can just decide to switch on and off.

The fact remains that something has to be done. A decision has to be made soon.

How did I figure this out? I was sitting on the couch, working on my laptop while my husband was watching TV. There was one of the Lord of the Rings movies on — I'm sure don't know which one it was because that's not really my cup of tea — and I glanced up just in time to see a scene where one of the guys returns home to his kids who leap into his arms and his wife who smiles, embraces him, and gives him a loving kiss.

It hit me like a ton of bricks: Married couples should be happy. I should want to kiss my husband when he comes home. I should smile when I see him walking toward me. I'm not saying that everything should be sunshine and roses 100% of the time, but how much longer can I wander around in the fog of "marital issues?"

When I saw that scene on the TV and had that reaction, I almost stood up and announced that I was packing my bags.

I'm trying to be practical about all this. I'm trying to give this situation as much effort as I can. I'm going to therapy. I'm trying to be a good wife. For goodness sake, we just booked a vacation for this summer!

I'm doing everything I can think of, and I have been doing it for months. I'm exhausted, and I'm starting to freak out a little.

Back in December, when I started sharing thoughts here at FWW, my half-way back-on-again fling with Sam was new. We'd been apart for more than a year, sleeping together again for about a month.

I left in October 2006, but I guess in some ways I never totally left. Not for long anyway.

A week after I moved, we went out to dinner and a concert for my birthday. November was Lila's birthday and Thanksgiving. December, Hanukkah and Christmas, then New Year's.

I couldn't handle it. One holiday after another we just kept celebrating together. Apart. I couldn't say no.

I said it was for my kids, but maybe it was more selfish. Maybe it was not wanting them to be angry or upset with ME, or not wanting to miss out on something I gave away in the move.

There were a few months that winter, 2007, I went cold turkey. Saw him only when we transitioned the kids, and worked it so there wasn't time for dinner or small talk. We usually met on the fly and I was all business.

For two months, maybe three, our longest conversation was under three minutes. That was it. I was done. I was ready to file.

Then spring brought more birthdays, and slowly, slowly I went drifting right back in.

By the time my birthday rolled around again, October, we were having sex.

When this blog started, I had no idea so many other women were just as half-in, half-out as me. And I thought Sam and I would be back together by spring.

Now spring is closing in on summer, and one year is closing in on two.

I'm not sure what I'm doing.

But I'm doing the best I can.

Soul searching and self-knowledge are good things, right? But if you can't get too much of a good thing, why am I tired of the pursuit of my true feelings, ready to give up on couple's therapy?

I'm going crazy from broken-record thinking, and pretty sure my best confidants are ready to flee at my next mention of these problems. I need answers. A divorce article I recently read pointed out that while contemplating separation over an extended period of time, you put yourself in a state of prolonged heightened awareness.

Heightened awareness. Helpful, right? It went further: indecision is an opportunity to contemplate every side of the issue. Great! But then it switched gears: at this time one does not think clearly or logically, and might not employ sound judgment. Beware of your thoughts. So which is it?

Well, of course it's both. I'm aware. And this awareness feels heightened — if, by "heightened" one means ever-present, obsessive, and anxiety-provoking. What am I aware about? That I'm not able to make a clear judgment about my situation. Circles again. All in all, I'd kind of like a break from thinking at all.

I'm scaling way back on my obligations right now.

I think I loaded up my schedule with so many different things in an attempt to avoid facing the problems in my marriage head-on.

I'm not only working a lot, but I'm volunteering a bunch even beyond what I already do at my church. This is in addition to taking care of the kids and the house. In other words, I'm running around like a chicken with my head cut off.

The other day I was rushing from one event to another, hoping nobody at the next meeting would notice that I didn't even get to take a shower that day because my schedule had been so hectic. I made it just in time to the meeting and while I was listening to the presenter I thought to myself, "Okay, enough is enough."

I've always liked to stay busy, but this has gotten way out of hand. There are too many people expecting too many things from me, and I'm feeling stretched way too thin.

This weekend I started telling a few people that although I had thought I would be able to help them with their projects, I just can't. I turned down a couple of writing jobs. I removed myself from some volunteering schedules.

I'm trying not to feel guilty about letting people down, but I think I'm quickly reaching a breaking point if I keep going at this pace, and that breaking point won't be pretty.

I don't know if this is going to help my relationship with my husband, but I can't see where it would hurt. If I'm a little less stressed — and not avoiding spending time with him — then maybe it will help us to face everything and figure out just what the heck we're doing.

The other night I lay in bed with Sam at his place. The bed that used to be my bed, my favorite piece of furniture. The nightstand that used to be my night stand. The husband that used to be my husband.

And none of it felt like mine anymore. Laying there, body next to body, I was thinking: This man is my husband. And the words surprised me.

I don't feel married. Haven't worn a ring since before I left.

This man is my husband. I don't know what that means anymore.

There's no judgment, no longing. Just the thought. This man is my husband?

It's close to two years we've been apart together. I haven't dated anyone else. Haven't kissed anyone else. Haven't had sex with anyone else. In 15 years there hasn't been anyone else.

When I write these posts, I always feel like they should to go somewhere deep. Land on some wise thing.

I don't have that. No clarity to offer.

I'm just keeping with these words, meditating on the thought: This man is my husband.

This man is my husband.

If I repeat them enough, they'll lead me to the truth.

As any sometime-reader here knows, I feel guilty and ungrateful for wanting to leave Rob after he has been such a great comfort and support when I've needed it.

Recently a reader asked when Maya was going to start loving Maya. Indeed! As I pine over the hurt I might cause this nice man, and reconsider leaving him, I'm in danger of sacrificing my worth, potential, and dreams to protect his feelings. Not much self-love in evidence here.

And the fact is, I have done just as much for Rob as he has for me. Why don't I give myself that credit? While he helped me through depression, showed me how to get on track with money, and supported me through my parents' divorce and father's illness, I helped him leave an anxiety-provoking job and make a very successful career change. I refused to allow him to continue neglecting his health and made him start visiting a doctor and dentist regularly. I strongly encouraged him to find hobbies (he is now well into Tai Chi) after many of his friends relocated out-of-state and he was drinking alone and heavily. Most importantly, I started him on his pursuit of therapy, from which he is reaping benefits. That's not nothing!

But rather than growing together through our mutual support during life trials, we seem to have become two new people who don't need the other the way we did when we first married. It's a terrible irony that we helped each other grow and change, and now our new personalities don't seem to need what the other can offer.

Is it time to accept we've changed, say thank you, and move on? One thing is clear, I will continue this investigation with a healthy dose of self love. Maya comes first.