My uncle and his girlfriend were married yesterday. They've been together for 16 plus years. I've already taken to calling his girlfriend my aunt. It's just easier that way.

I used to ask them years and years ago when they were going to get married. My uncle would always say something like, "Who needs to get married?" When the Levi disaster happened, I must admit that I started to feel the same way.

So you can only imagine my surprise when I opened up my e-mail yesterday, yes, my e-mail, to find a message from my uncle that said the following:

Faith,

Janice and I are getting married at 5 today at the house. We need you to come over and be a witness.

I thought that he was kidding so I called him. Nope, he was serious.

They were married at 5:00 p.m., in front of their house, underneath their cheery tree. It was only the two of them, the Justice of The Peace, Adrian, and me. Still, it was beautiful. It was perfect.

I realized yesterday how absolutely jaded I am now. How whenever someone tells me that they're getting married or I hear of someone getting married, my instant reaction is "Why!?" I think to myself, Why would you want to screw up a perfectly good relationship by going and getting married?

I also realize how silly that sounds.

Marriage is not the enemy, nor is it something to fear. Marriage is hard work, but can also be filled with happiness, love, and security.

These two are perfect for one another. The amount of time they've spent together thus far proves that. I don't know if it's possible but I hope that somehow in marriage, there bond can grow even stronger.

Congratulations, guys!

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.

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've been thinking about Rob's and my past a lot lately. Dating him was fun.

He was a great comfort, maybe because he presented solutions to my biggest problems. I felt isolated and a bit depressed; he helped strengthen my connection to mutual friends. I was living paycheck to paycheck; he fronted me cash when things got tight. I craved a love connection; he was available, and horny as hell.

Indeed, before dating, in the very beginning, what is now a quagmire was just pure and simple lust.

Rob was in the midst of a rash of one-night stands when we hooked up. I didn't know this, and expected a repeat performance. He complied, but it didn't evolve quickly enough for me.

Rather than building a connection, we just sort of repeated the one-night stand. I tired of meeting for what was only pre-sex drinks. "Whoa," I said, and announced I was done unless we added dinner or a movie to the agenda. He balked, and I figured that was the end of it.

Instead, Rob called a few days later to ask me out to a movie. He was probably just giving me what I wanted so he could get an easy fix. (He says he doesn't remember.)

In any case, I so desperately sought validation then that I took his invitation as a declaration of intention. He heard me, I thought. I had been deemed worthy of attention beyond the bedroom. We started dating.

Of course, dating gave way to marriage, and along the way the sex waned and now we have none at all. What is a confused marriage could have been a cherished memory of a fun fling, no strings attached.

I wonder if my self-love were enough back then, would I not have caved to his too-little, too-late attention, and would I have left it at that?

A comment from previous post got me thinking about something that I need to clarify: If I ever gave the impression that I am without blame in the problems within my marriage, it was not intentional. If anything, I carry a huge burden on my shoulders and in my heart because of the things I did (or didn't do, but should have) that may have contributed to our problems.

I can be critical of my husband. Oftentimes I bring my experiences with my father into what I expect from my husband. My dad was often unemployed and relatively lazy, and sometimes I expect my husband to fall into similar patterns if he doesn't stay exactly on track.

I do not do well taking a backseat to things. I want to be involved in every major decision, and I think that sometimes this may make my husband feel as though I don't allow him to wear the metaphorical pants in the family.

When things started getting rough between my husband and me, I turned toward my work instead of forcing the issue. Maybe if I had persisted in aggressively fixing things, we wouldn't be in the spot we're in now.

I have a hard time forgiving him for the stuff he has put me through. If I could just get over it, I think we could just be a happy little family.

I readily admit all these things. There has never been a time when I considered myself blameless in this whole mess. I refuse to accept that it's all my fault, though. I think we're both to blame in one way or another, and that's why I was so adamant that we needed to be in therapy together.

In other words, we made this mess together, so we might as well try to solve it together.

If I ever made anyone think that every single bit of marital problems we have are all because of my husband, then I wasn't getting my point across very well.

Sometimes I wonder if I still have feelings for Levi. There, I said it. I suppose this makes me even more human.

Intellectually, I'm sure that I don't. I know that I literally despise what he's done to my son, and I know that I do not have any respect for him, whatsoever, anymore.

But there are moments that I'll reminisce about things he and I did together, and I'll smile. But there are moments where I still miss him. But there are moments when we are SCREAMING at each other, where I'm like, wow. You can't scream at an ex you don't care about, right? You can't scream because you're indifferent, right?

I've had breakups in the past — one big one — and I recall going through these same motions; the pain and devastation, the crying, the name calling and yelling, and then the indifference, which carries you to where you can see each other on the street and stop to say hello.

I recall going through those motions, and I extract comfort from that from time to time in a this-to-shall-pass kind of way. Problem is, these motions went much faster the first time around.

And truthfully, it's really not even me. I mean, I get it that it takes two to tango, but I don't scream at Levi. I try not to engage in arguments with him. I try not to stoop to childish name calling. He, on the other hand, can not control himself. He is incapable of a civil conversation. I cannot understand it.

I have done nothing to warrant this behavior. I have done nothing to deserve his constant verbal abuse. Yet, it happens. Yet, he acts like he hates me.

I am reminded of the boy in grade school that used to pull my hair and make me cry. Later, he told me that he had a crush on me.

No, I don't have feelings for Levi. But maybe he still has them for me?

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.

Rob has a boyish charm. Soon after we met, I came to adore him. But his childlike approach to the world later became a turn-off.

Imagine a guy who excitedly coos at cats and dogs, exclaiming "hello!" in a loud and squeaky baby voice to all that pass by. Sweet. But he also has a cache of "punny" one-liners that by now I've heard two million times each.

And there are the dances — his repertoire includes the "I got a raise" dance, "It's the weekend" dance, and "We're going on vacation" dance. You get the idea. It's as if he were a 10-year-old performing for his aunts and uncles after a holiday meal. Constantly.

While this was fine when I was younger and — let's face it — a bit messed up and needing attention myself, now it's terribly annoying. Of course, the behavior belies a lack of confidence. The boyish charm disarms and deflects attention from his true feelings and anxiety. I see that, and I have great compassion for his discomfort. But at our age?

I want a partner who can stand next to me to meet life head on. I'm all for celebrating with childlike excitement, but I also want to be able to enjoy dinner parties next to a confident and calm man capable of sophisticated conversation.

I don't want to journey through life like a mother trailing a child entertainer by the hand. I want a man I don't have to raise myself. Cute boy or confident man? I have a strong attraction to the latter. Can you blame me?

Let me tell you what it's like to lay down for bed every night next to a man who you aren't sure you're supposed to still be with, although I'm sure there are plenty of you who already know what this experience is like.

I usually go to bed an hour or so after my husband because I work from home at night after the kids have gone to sleep. When I walk into the bedroom I walk quietly because I don't want to wake him. I slink into the bed as quietly as possible and don't move unless I have to. I try to settle into one position and I don't cough or fidget or roll over.

It's not that I'm such a nice wife that I don't want to wake him, although there's some of that there. The main reason I go through this ritual every night is because I don't want him waking up and thinking that we're going to indulge in some lovemaking. I don't want him rolling over and putting his arm around me. Some nights, his arm around me feels like I'm being smothered. I don't want him waking up and wanting to have some sort of deep conversation.

I'm exhausted, and I want to sleep.

It's impossible to not think about relationship issues when I'm lying in bed in silence, next to the man who has caused me so much grief. When he stirs and starts making the moves on me, I feel trapped. I want to cry. I want to push him away, pack my bags, and never come back.

As I experience these emotions I wonder if it's even possible for a relationship to bounce back when it has reached such a low point. How do you go from lying in bed, praying that your husband doesn't touch you, to one day looking forward to ending your evening with a nice snuggle?

Long story short: I don't know how to change how I feel.