The New York Times published a story last week about how 51% of American women are now living without a spouse:

William H. Frey, a demographer with the Brookings Institution, a research group in Washington, described the shift as “a clear tipping point, reflecting the culmination of post-1960 trends associated with greater independence and more flexible lifestyles for women.”

“For better or worse, women are less dependent on men or the institution of marriage,” Dr. Frey said. “Younger women understand this better, and are preparing to live longer parts of their lives alone or with nonmarried partners. For many older boomer and senior women, the institution of marriage did not hold the promise they might have hoped for, growing up in an ‘Ozzie and Harriet’ era.”

This apparently did not sit well with conservatives, who immediately accused the New York Times of lying. The National Review called it “cheerleading for divorce.” Rush Limbaugh claims the article is an example of “another far, left-wing, extremist agenda, i.e., the redefinition of a family, the redefinition of traditional family….”

The problem is that for many people the family has been redefined whether they wanted it to be or not. Why are we as a society so threatened by this? So what if the family is redefined?

Instead of attacking the messenger, we should be focused on making sure families- regardless of their structure – work in the best interest of their members.

Funny that the word “affair” sounds so much better than it is. It sounds festive. Happy. Pretty and frivolous. Perhaps it is for the people in it. I remember my mind turning over the scant details I knew about my husband’s “affair” over and over in my mind. What hurt me the most was thinking about how much planning it took. So much planning. The big lie built on a mountain of tiny little lies told over days and days. Where did they meet? When did they meet? What did he tell me about where he had been? I have a hard time lying to a friend to get out of a dinner party. I cannot imagine how you lie at that level. That is the big leagues of deceit.

After the revelation, my husband wanted so badly for me to tell him: “Hey, these things happen. You fucked up. I forgive you because you look like you are really sad about this.” If only it were that easy.

I did not do what in retrospect I should have done the moment he told me about his affair. I should have thrown his ass out of the house. I should have dramatically thrown all of his clothes in the front yard. I should have taken a bat to the windows of his BMW. I should have torched something. But I have never been one to do anything impetuous. I am CAUTIOUS. I don’t make split decisions. By nature I get quiet and go inward when something is more than I can handle. I do not flail. At least not on the outside.

So, after he told me about his affair and after I wretched out most of my insides, I went to bed. Well, technically. I got in bed and laid there totally still. I listened to my dog breathing as he slept on the floor next to my side of the bed. He had run after me into the bathroom and had been right next to me ever since. Like all dogs, he sensed I was in trouble and he was not about to leave my side. Unlike my husband.

At one point my husband – who I had not seen since I retreated to the bathroom – peeked his head in the bedroom and asked me if I wanted him to leave. I told him I didn’t care what he did but that he wasn’t coming in here. I guess he slept on the couch that night. I remember that being a very long night.

My body was completely still but my mind has never been so frantic. Churning so fast I could not fully process any of the thoughts racing through my brain. I was in reverse, living through my entire marriage – trying to find the point of no return. When did we jump off the tracks? When did he meet her? When did this start? Were there clues? But I was also in fast forward – wondering what I would do if I he left. Could I do this all by myself? Could I support myself? Could I be a single mom? When was garbage day? How would we tell the girls.? Oh God, how would we tell the girls?

The next morning I heard my husband and my daughters getting ready for school. I heard him tell them that I wasn’t feeling good. They came in and gave me a kiss before they left for school. I started crying when I heard the front door shut. And I could not stop. I cried that big ugly snotty wailing crying. After awhile I got out of bed to get some kleenex and started roaming the house while I cried. I picked up photos in the living room and cried. I sat on the beds in my daughters’ rooms and cried. I sat in the middle of my closet and cried. At some point I got back in bed. I pulled the covers up to my chin.

My husband came home and made me lunch and brought it to me. He sat on the side of the bed. Who is she, I asked. He told me she was the girl who worked the front desk at the gym where we both worked out. I had a vague recollection of her. Long black hair. That is all I could conjure up. I was getting nauseous again. How old is she? 26. Ten years younger than me, I thought. How so fucking stereotypical, I thought. How Lifetime, made-for-tv movie.

Why, I asked. I don’t know, he said lamely. (To be fair, three years later and thousands of hours pondering this question I still don’t think there is a pat answer to that one.) What do you want to do? I asked. I don’t know. He said. What do you want to do, he asked.

I want to sleep. I want to eat. I want to be able to get out of bed. I want to stop crying. I want you to stop the internal bleeding. I want to erase the last 24 hours from my life and start over. I want you to take it back. I want you to leave. I want you to stay. I want to throw things at you. I want you to hold me and say you love me and will never leave me. I want the Earth to open up and swallow me whole. No, I want it to swallow you whole.

Beautiful piece on divorce on Odeo by Puawai. Lovely, lovey. Made me cry. Also reminded me of how much I love Damien Rice.

You don’t get a sick day for divorce but you should. Nothing socks you in the gut like the realization that ’til death you part doesn’t always really mean it. It breaks any last bit of innocence you had in your adult, cynical soul. It makes you doubt your ability to be loved by someone else or to love someone else.

It is the ultimate heartbreak. It is is a death in the family. It is a death of a family.

It is a long goodbye.

This weekend my daughters, ages 7 and 11, and I planned to put up the Christmas tree. Easy enough. Except that I couldn’t find our tree.

We used to do a real tree ’til my first Christmas as a single mom. That year I almost died trying to get an eight-foot tall Christmas tree off the top of my SUV by myself. Seriously. The sight of me laid out on the ground, pinned to the driveway under a Christmas tree must have been quite the Hallmark-card moment for any of my neighbors who happened to be watching. I, on the other hand, was not feeling the slightest bit merry after that.

The next year I bought my first fake tree. One box. With what seemed like three hundred separate limbs to put in place. I spent about eight hours adjusting each fake branch. That tree was Martha-Stewart perfect. I remembered, though, thinking how fitting it was that I had a fake Christmas tree because I had such ambivalent feelings about the holidays. I used to love Christmas time, but when you have to spend a large chunk of it away from your kids because they are with their Dad…well, let’s just say it sucks some of the magic out of it.

When me and the girls moved in July I had a moment of Christmas inspiration that can only come in July, when the thought of actually putting my holiday-spirited plan into motion was a half a year away. I decided I was going to give away the fake tree and go back to the real kind next year. I was ready to take back the real Christmas. Or so I thought in the heat of that July moment.

Sometime around Thanksgiving, I rummaged around the attic looking for my convenient box-o-Christmas-cheer, forgetting about that inspirational July moment. When I remembered what I had done, I panicked. I don’t want to spend another $200 on a tree. But I also don’t want to end up in my driveway underneath another live one. With such a huge decision in front me, I did the only thing one could do. Avoid the problem entirely. Maybe they won’t notice that we haven’t put up a tree. I decorated the outside with lights the first week in December. I put up all of our other Christmas decorations the second week. Maybe they will be on such a continuous sugar high from all of the Christmas cookies they won’t care.

But it was futile. My girls are no dummies. The white elephant in the room, or lack thereof, could no longer be ignored. When are we going to put up the tree? Huh? Huh? Huh? The question stumped me. Soon, I kept murmuring. It is strange the kind of things that stump you once you have kids. Could I really bring myself to say, geez, guys, do we really need to put a tree this year? Obviously, the answer is no. That would be like saying… Hey, kids, I decided that this year we are going to completely ignore your birthday. What do you think?

So…at some point my resolve to be resolve-less cracked and I weakly proclaimed that we would put up our Christmas tree this weekend.

We ventured out on Saturday to shop for a new fake tree. I had apparently waited 50% longer than most people because the fake trees were now 50% off. I plunked down my $100 for my new Christmas-in-a-box and quietly applauded the fact that my indecisiveness had finally paid off. Saturday night the girls and I put on our favorite ipod mix of Christmas songs and I made hot chocolate for them and poured a big glass of wine for myself and we decorated the Hell out of our brand new fake tree. My littlest said it was the prettiest tree we ever had. (Sounds nice, I know. but she says that every year).

I realized last night after the girls went to bed and I sat in the living room in the glow of the lights that the reason I waited so long to put up a tree was not because I was avoiding the fake/real decision. It was because it still hurts. Post-divorce Christmas is still hard for me. The everyday of divorce-ness I have gotten used to. You can keep yourself distracted by the details of just living. But Christmas is all about the special. All about the family unit. And no matter how much I have gotten used to being a no-daddy family unit, it is the holidays that still make me feel un-whole.

Fake or real. It doesn’t really matter. I dread being in my house alone with that Christmas tree glowing it’s constant reminder that this is Christmas. Be jolly, damnit. That tree mocks me.

No matter what, Christmas is still bittersweet for me.