I'm going to return my husband, Edgar, but I wouldn't mind keeping his mom. She's always been good to me, and positive about me. She knows that, while her son has many fine qualities, like all the rest of us he's far from perfect — that is, she understands why I'm divorcing him.

She's a survivor, no-nonsense, and we like the same off-price stores. It was my idea, once, to take her on vacation with Ed and me. I miss driving to visit her in Central Florida, seeing her new plants and the stuff in her yard.

And then there's Ed and my family. Last year, I left Ed with the rest of my family while Mom and I stayed at a hotel for her birthday.

Ed was drinking in those days, but largely refrained that weekend and participated fully in the celebration: taking a leading role in assembling the porch swing we got Mom, driving my father around shopping, running errands, hanging out.

"He was just like a real member of the family," my father said when Ed and I had been married almost seven years.

"I have a piece of paper around somewhere that says he is," I answered.

In a recent email, Ed said something about my parents not being his kin. I had to differ.

Every time I visit my family, I'm struck by the number of Ed's gifts on display as part of their daily lives. When I first realized I'd be divorcing him, I reflected that breaking up a marriage is like saying to somebody "Get out! Get out of the family!"

Well, it's not the family I want to rid of Ed, just me.

I think my father is a little wistful about his only son-in-law. "I imagine one day our paths will cross again," he said. "And I'll shake his hand and be glad to see him."

Around the same time, Pop said it might have been a good thing if we had divorced sooner.

I've said it before: I don't have kids, I have pets. And as I disassemble my marriage and the life I built, I'm holding on tightly to my dogs and cats (having already let go of my birds and fish). This is turning out to be more challenging than I expected.

As you might remember, I've planned to give up my house and move out of South Florida. But I might've known there would be a problem with the wonderfully affordable house in a big fenced yard I arranged to rent in a new part of the country.

The problem is the neighborhood. I joked with my mother that I might have to skip this year's family Thanksgiving at my brother's house to man a machine gun in defense of my rented home, but it may not have been all that much of an exaggeration.

Then there was the old farmhouse on five acres, taken before I even had a chance to respond to the listing. It needed TLC, said the ad, which also included what I'm coming to understand was a great anomaly: the phrase "all pets welcome."

It was my soon-to-be-ex Ed who taught me that there's almost always room, at least temporarily, for one more animal in trouble. That's all well and good when you're in your own home with terrazzo floors. But the landlords of the shiny hardwoods I so admire are somehow not crazy about my having so many critters.

Ed introduced four of my remaining six pets into the household. My mother suggested loading the cats into a carrier and leaving them at his office. (She's obviously not a cat person.)

I reminded her that the animals stayed with me when I put Ed out because Ed is a drunk. I never wanted three cats, but I allowed them to join the pack and now I am responsible for them. I have also, um, grown accustomed to their little kitty faces.

"I should have left years ago."

My 81-year-old mother said that to me for the second time this morning, and it's made me sad. She takes full responsibility for her choice to stay with my father, a difficult man. But one of the reasons she didn't leave him years and years ago is me.

Makes me especially sad to think that her sacrifice on my behalf wasn't a complete success. Witness to her marriage, I was afraid even to admit a desire to have a husband.

And when I finally managed to do that, the man I chose to marry turned out to be very much like my father (imagine that). And now I'm working on getting divorced.

On the other hand, I did grow up with a father who loves me and who was present and responsible, if sometimes unpleasant. And I've had a chance to see what it's like when an unhappy marriage goes on and on and on and on.... It's been educational.

It hurts to see my mother unhappy, especially at this stage of her life. But hers is also quite the cautionary tale.

I don't have a daughter to explain my divorce to, or worry about feeding and buying school uniforms for. At this point in my life that's a blessing.

But I do have myself to keep faith with, and I know I don't want to become an octogenarian regretting a long marriage. As sad as my mother's situation makes me, it also gives me more courage to push ahead through divorce.

Thanks, Mom. For everything.

Somewhere in my house is a book entitled Letting Go of the Person You Used to Be by Lama Surya Das. I bought it three years ago when I lost my job and my last pregnancy within a few weeks of each other.

When the job went, that was kind of okay. I was about to take up a new vocation: motherhood. When the baby went, that was utterly not okay, and I've been trying ever since, in ways healthy and not so, to get over it.

I need to reread that book. Fifty-one weeks ago I was surprised to hear myself telling Edgar yes, I do want a divorce. I still haven't filed the papers.

I can talk about keeping the health insurance and the expense and trouble of divorce, but at least some of my delay is a result of my unwillingness to let go of a bad marriage.

Doggone it, took me 40 years to find a husband. So he wasn't the best husband, but he was — uh, still is — my husband.

It also took me quite a while to find and buy my house, which I don't really seem to be able to afford right now. 

In truth, I haven't been able to afford it for quite a while.

It has been pointed out to me that if I don't figure out how to pay for, or to sell, or to rent out the house, it'll be taken from me. Then I'll have to let go. For the past several months I've been working on letting go of the conviction that I must and can hold on to my home.

I've put less effort into the idea of releasing Ed.

But I feel my tightly clenched hands being pried open, so to speak. I'm beginning to accept the possibility that it's time to let someone else (who can afford it) love this house.

Maybe the practice will help me to let go of my marriage.

I don't have kids, I have pets. And they became another kind of shattered family after my split with Edgar. I thought getting him out of the house was the hard part. But after he was gone, I saw he was right.

I wasn't making enough money to take care of the house and the dogs, cats, birds and fish. I never said anything to him about alimony, but I did ask him for animal support. After all, it was Ed who had brought most of them home.

He said he thought he might be able to kick in something, if he could be sure it would be used for critter care.

I changed the locks the day he was supposed to be out. But he broke in one afternoon and left $30 on the table.

That's been the extent of it, unless you count his telling me to try not to let any of the animals die.

What a sweetheart.

Halfheartedly, I asked around to see if anybody wanted any of my critters. I had hoped to keep them all, but when the filter broke on the fish tank, I got desperate.

The note I left on the pet store bulletin board, "Divorce Forces Adoption," led to my goldfish moving into a beautiful outdoor pond. The same family took in my cockatiels. My finches have become a source of joy at an old folks' home, and another childless woman dotes on my ex-parrots.

Ed's three cats remain, but my roommate is a cat person and has taken them over. I did find a place for one dog, who went to live with my brother in another state. The deal was that she'd be with him temporarily — but indefinitely. They are so happy, I'm concentrating on the indefinite part.

Hard as it was for me to part with my critters, as much as I miss the chirping and squawking, and the bubbles and graceful swimming, I think those who moved out are better off than they were here with me.

So maybe it’s selfish to hold on to my remaining dogs, and I have to admit there are four of them. But enough sacrifice here. 

I just spent a week with the longest-married couple I know, my parents. The last morning I was there, my eyes fell on a pair of photos I've seen a million times, black-and-white shots of each of them when they were in their 20s. Aside from the fact that they were both drop-dead gorgeous, I was struck by their confident smiles.

Clearly there was nothing those two couldn't handle, including 59 years of marriage — and counting.

"I should have left him years ago," my mother said once. "But I didn't think y'all should be without your father."

Now she fears she set a bad example for me. I married a man much like my father, though my dad never drank to excess. And I remember being shocked when I noticed my easygoing brother behaving, with the woman he married (and divorced), much like our father, who never got over being an Army sergeant.

On the other hand, who knows? If they had divorced, maybe I would have been something like one of those confused teen mothers who had a baby in the belief that there would always be someone to love her.

As much as I once looked forward to having kids with Ed, I'm equally grateful now that our family consisted solely of animals. Anyone divorcing with children gets my special prayers.

If the Sondra I am now could advise my mother of 35 years ago, I think I'd tell her that the most important model she could have set for me was to be a happy person.

I married quite late.

I used to say that my mother was married and it didn't look like she was having much fun.

But marry I did, just like Mom, sort of. I realized early on in my separation that I needed to be careful not to divorce my husband just because my mother never divorced hers.

My visit back home reminds me that I should be equally careful not to stay married just because she did.

Let me tell you about how we got our cat. She's a really pretty long haired cat that we obtained from the local animal shelter a few months ago after relentless requests from our older daughter for a family pet.

With everything so up in the air lately with regards to our family situation I was really apprehensive about getting a family pet, but as I said, my daughter was relentless.

It turns out that I'm allergic to cats. I had cats growing up and at some points in my adult years, but something about this cat makes me sneeze and cough as though I was rolling around in oleander bushes (something I really am allergic to).

When it became apparent that I can only spend limited time with this cat before my eyes start watering and my throat starts itching, the chore of brushing the cat's long fur falls on my husband. The kids aren't quite gentle enough yet for this delicate task, and when I do it I feel simply miserable afterwards even when I pop an allergy pill beforehand.

So now let me tell you about how our cat looks nowadays: She walks around with knots all over her fur, occasionally stopping to meow and pick at the lumps of matted fur that have developed on various spots of her body.

"Have you been brushing the cat's fur?" I'll ask my husband.

"I've been too busy," is his reply as he flips through the television channels.

"Will you please brush her out tonight?" I ask.

"Sure," he says, and then goes back to watching TV.

Sometimes he'll brush her, and sometimes he won't. I usually winds up taking the scissors to the tangles in her fur and cutting them out because she's obviously uncomfortable.

That poor cat didn't know what she was getting herself into when she came home with us.

Just how central a role do in-laws play in some women’s decisions to stay or go? For 27-year-old Nancy from Ontario, Canada, it couldn’t be simpler. “I considered leaving both of my husbands because of their mothers, quite frankly,” she said.

Indeed, a nasty in-law can be a catalyst for departure. “My current husband is a dream, but if his mother opens her mouth one more time I swear I will walk out until she is dead, and then return after the funeral like it was all an unpleasant dream,” she says.

“I wish I was joking.”

To give up on Mr. Right because of his mother would be a tragedy. On the other hand, three husbands whose mothers drive her crazy? That’s at least bad luck.

Tracy, a 34-year-old Midwesterner, suspects that a man who can’t keep his mother at bay — and out of the most important moments in their lives — might not be worth the trouble.

Her doubts about her husband started just before the birth of their first child.

“There was no way in God’s green Earth that I was going to allow his mom into the delivery room. He assured me he would tell her.”

But he didn’t, and his mother, who had made the long-distance trip just for the occasion, had other ideas.

“You’re going to have to let go of that modesty,” her mother-in-law harped early in Tracy’s labor.

In the end, Tracy had a nurse announce that all guests must leave the room.

Situation resolved.

“But now his mother reminds me of the abrupt realization I had that my husband wasn’t going to stand up for me,” she says, “even when it was incredibly important.”

The feelings about her mother-in-law persisted, and Tracy and her husband are pursuing marriage counseling to help them work through everything.

Last, Part III – Inlaws and Keeping a Marriage Together