I cut my hair this week. Well, I didn't cut it — I had a hairdresser do the job.

I don't have very long hair. I used to, though. It hung to the middle of my back in all its curly glory. But the long shape of my face combined with the long, curly hair gave the impression of a cocker spaniel, floppy ears and all.

So I cut my hair short — very short. The two-inch brown stuff that was left looked funky and fun. Well, it would have, had I had the small, heart-shaped face required to pull off a pixie cut like that.

I ended up with a hairstyle somewhere in the middle, a length above my shoulders but below my jaw line.

"Short," I said firmly to the hairdresser this week. "Fun. Funky. Flou," I waved my hands about, trying to convey a messy yet charming hairstyle that would make me look young and wild.

And there's the catch: I want to look young and wild. I want to look like a free spirit full of confidence and sassy attitude. I want to have it goin' on, girlfriend.

I don't want to look middle-aged and run down. I don't want to look tired anymore. I want to find some way to attract attention and make myself look appealing.

I want men to look at me.

I don't even necessarily want a man. I have one. He's a little screwed up and we fight sometimes, but hey. I still have feelings for the guy and we have a history. We're working on it.

But I want to know that I'm still attractive, used goods and all. I want to know that my life isn't over, that I could still turn heads and get a man if I wanted one. I want to be desirable — not just to one man, but to many.

I think I want to know that I'm still worth a second glance and that if my ex and I do decide that we just can't make it work, that I won't be alone.

"You cut your hair." My ex examined the shorter, sassier mess of curls. "I liked it better longer."

I always wanted a ring. It didn't have to be fancy. It didn't have to have diamonds or cost a fortune. I just wanted the symbolic gift of something I could hold in my hand.

I did get a ring, once. My first ex proposed with a ring he'd bought on my credit card. Since I paid for the thing, I kept it, even after we split up. It'll make a nice memento for my daughter one day.

But I never got a ring from my second ex. I'd asked, too. Nothing. I wonder why that is. Did he fear the commitment a ring symbolized? Did a ring carry less meaning and thus was often forgotten?

I gave my ex a ring for his birthday last year. I'm not sure why I did; it clearly meant more to me than to him, but they say that the best gifts are those that come from the heart. It was a silver worry ring with an endless braid running around it.

He seemed to enjoy it. He wore it that weekend at a fishing trip, making sure to place his hand in the light to attempt drawing attention. When people didn't really notice, he made sure they did and proudly (and charmingly shyly) mentioned I'd given it to him.

But he didn't wear the ring all the time. His job involves a lot of dirt, and he'd take the ring off to keep it both clean and safe so that he didn't accidentally lose it.

Murphy's law. Sure enough...

"I can't find the ring you gave me," he mentioned this weekend. He'd looked everywhere. He didn't look frantic as he shared the news, though, just a little puzzled.

I have to admit that I was hurt. I guess that ring meant more to me than I realized. I did want to be married one day. I did want someone to commit to me forever. I did want someone to care about me that much that the person would take the steps to be a solid couple.

I wanted the Cinderella story. What I got was everyday real life. Oh well.

"It'll turn up somewhere," I said.

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.

"Rake over there!" My ex pointed to a patch about 100 feet from where I'd decided to amuse myself with old leaves. I bristled almost immediately.

"I'll rake where I please," I answered, lifting my chin a little.

It's a backlash effect, a reaction to the way things used to be. There was no reason for me to be upset. My daughter and I had come to the country to have a nice day in the sun with Dad, and we were all in a good mood. My ex hadn't meant for it to sound like an order; he was just telling me which area needed raking the most.

But I can't stand being told what to do. The last eight years of our relationship were full of control and possession, and I'm afraid I wasn't the one running the show.

My ex was extremely controlling. He told me who I could see and when. He would time my outings down to the last minute and explode if I was home late — even when it was just a grocery run or I'd been held up by a slow tractor on the road.

I don't blame him. He operated out of fear of losing control. He knew things were rocky. He loved me, I loved him, but we were so mentally separated from each other that he felt he had no other way to hang onto me.

So he'd rule with an iron fist (thank god not literally) and I would comply to his every wish in the hopes of accomplishing peace and affection. I dropped all my friends. I did what he wanted. I went where he told me. After a while, it became too much trouble to even go out.

For a long time, I lived in fear. He scared me. I felt worn down and beaten. I was tired. I was afraid to leave and needed to leave like the desert needs rain. I thought if I told him I wanted out that he would hurt me.

But I did it and he didn't do it.

Now, we live apart and love together. We're a couple under two roofs. We have our bad times still, but we have good times more often — enough to make it worth it.

I have trouble understanding how the law and relationships mix. In Quebec (my home province), couples form and dissolve, most often without a marriage to seal the deal. Common-law relationships are the way to go in La Belle Province.

I asked a friend of mine from Nevada about her divorce. "You have to go to court and the judge tells you whether you can divorce or not."

Wait a second. A judge, someone who has no idea who you are, what your troubles are or who your partner is, decides whether you have to continue a marriage you don't want to? This makes no sense to me.

Dividing assets, I understand. Someone has to decide who gets the car or the kitchen table, and it's tough to make decisions like that when you're angry.

Child custody, I get. It's important that children stay where they want to and where they need to be with a person that can take care of them properly. And in separations, kids are often jammed in the middle between two parents who fight over custody like vicious dogs.

But some person who doesn't know you should have no right to decide who you have to live with and be joined to. The law and relationships don't mix.

A judge isn't going to be able to make your partner be nicer to you. A court of law can't make you feel whole or repair hurt feelings. It makes no sense to force a person who doesn't want to be with someone else to continue a farce.

I have no idea if the law in Quebec says the same — that a judge must approve the breakup. Perhaps that's the rule, and if so, it's no wonder why people simply don't get married. You can't force love. Paper doesn't make it happen.

If you want out, you should have the right to get out. Period. And if you want someone to stay, and they don't want to, then you have no right to force them to remain in a place they don't want to be.

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."

They say the mirror has two faces, and I think that's true. I don't think that one is simply a reflection of the other, though.

My second ex always had two faces: one that he'd present to everyone else in the world and one that he'd show to me.

People would always smile when they saw my ex. They liked him. He was friendly and personable. He would joke and laugh. He could be very helpful and forthcoming when he saw others were in a bind.

It didn't surprise me that people were shocked when we announced our separation. "But he's such a great guy," they'd say, aghast I'd consider leaving my partner.

Yes. He is a great guy. Just not with me.

I often asked my ex, "Why can't you be like that all the time? Why can't you be like that with me?" He couldn't see the difference. To him, he was being the very same with me, only more open and honest. I found him blunt and disrespectful.

My mother used to call me when the 6 o'clock news reported a man killing his girlfriend or a spouse beating up his partner. I can still hear the contempt in her voice. "Did you hear what they said about the guy? He was such a great guy."

I think that people who live together learn very quickly to take each other for granted. They relax their guard and assume that because they're a couple, they can be themselves. They don't have to maintain appearances in the comfort of their own home.

Now, when my ex and I talk about other couples, we're a little smarter and a whole lot wiser. When we hear of someone who sounds dissatisfied, we give each other a knowing glance. Appearances must be upheld in public; behind closed doors, it's a different story.

I've also learned how to answer people who mention how my ex is such a great guy. "Yes, he is," I smile. "Just not with me."

Finally. After years of prevention and being careful, after all this time managing to squeak through unscathed, it's happened: lice.

My toddler's daycare reported an outbreak and sure enough, the little buggers were taking up residence in my little girl's beautiful halo of curly hair. They also chose to camp out in my teen's crowning glory as well — the whole two-foot length of reddish curls.

I spent that first day giving chemical treatments that choked my lungs while consoling my shame-ridden teen and rolling my eyes at my toddler. She bounced around the house announcing, "I have BUGS in my HAIR. Do YOU?"

No, thank god.

The beds have been stripped and sheets were washed in near-boiling water. The house is vacuumed daily. All plushy toys were either disinfected or sent into quarantine. Heads were picked through multiple times. We've done all we can. The electricity bill will be sky high this month and I'm exhausted, but that's alright. Bugs, be gone.

But forgive me. I couldn't suppress the dirty look I gave my teen's father when he sauntered in for a visit the other day and chuckled when he heard the news. I couldn't help the smart remark that escaped me when my toddler's father said, "The house looks like a wreck."

Yes. Yes it does. Singlehandedly and with no prize from anyone, I've managed to pull myself together to play Supermom for a week. I've put aside all my other obligations and responsibilities, I've forgotten my worries and concerns, and I've focused 100% on my kids.

Alone. With no help. One would think that being a father meant that you pitched in to help your kids when they needed it, but it seems not. Whoever holds the custody is the one to drop it all and come to the rescue, come hell or high water.

"I never wanted you to leave," one of my exes said thoughtfully. "You wanted this. Now deal."

This is the question I face. My second ex, the one I'm trying to continue to have a relationship with despite not living in the same household, announced bad news recently. His doctor told him that he's teetering on the brink of cirrhosis of the liver. It's almost shot, just hanging on by a thread.

It wasn't really surprising news for either of us. My ex has struggled with alcohol for many years. His whole family has. Out of 13 children, only two aren't heavy drinkers.

He's one of those functional alcoholics. Admittedly caught in the cycle of needing drink and hating it, he manages to hold down a good job, bring in a steady income, and be relatively normal most of the time.

Sometimes he binges. Mostly he just tries to keep his drinking to something passably acceptable — and doesn't seem to quite make it.

If he keeps it up, he'll die.

I couldn't help but think to myself how stupid we all can be, fighting over petty things that don't matter and battering each other emotionally because of unfulfilled needs and misunderstandings. Personalities clash, arguments happen, and they're punctuated with the poignant irony of two people who still love each other.

We just can't get along. How silly is that?

I want to say that some big miracle happened, that my ex foreswore all alcohol and turned a new leaf so we could focus on what truly matters, but things like that only happen in the movies. There was no huge revelation or monumental change.

So I find myself wondering, what now? I guess everything stays the same and we all try to continue living with the monkeys on our back, each in our own way.