I cohabited for 20 years with my longtime husband and father of my two now-teen daughters in a stable family household.

I am shamed to realize that in my marriage, my daughters never heard their father and me fight, which also meant, perhaps, that we didn't truly communicate.

I am stricken with the peculiar curse of being a 21st-century woman who makes more than the man she's living with - first with a husband for 13 years and now with a new partner.

In the end, we all want a wife. But the home has become increasingly invaded by the ethos of work, work, work, with twin sets of external clocks imposed on a household's natural rhythms.

Just because marriage didn't work for us doesn't mean we don't believe in the institution. Just because our own marital track records are mixed doesn't mean our hearts don't lift at the sight of our daughters' Tiffany-blue wedding invitations.

The very success of the modern American family - where kids get punctually to SAT-tutoring classes, the mortgage gets paid, the second-story remodel stays on budget - surely depends on spouses' not being in love.