The other day I was having a conversation with a friend of mine from church. She asked me how my husband and I had met and I laughed while I told her the usual thing I tell people: "We met in the dormitory and he couldn't stand me."

Everyone gets a real kick out of this story about how a man could detest a woman but eventually wind up married to her.

I've been thinking about this a lot. Does my husband like me now? I can't imagine I'm all that easy to live with. I tried to leave him once and I'm emotional unavailable a good portion of the time because I don't feel connected to him. I don't initiate sex. I work long hours and I'm critical of him when he doesn't push himself like I push myself.

I don't think I would like me either.

He's professed his undying love to me through this entire process of trying to figure out if we'll stay together, but I'm having a hard time figuring out if he really loves me, or if it is instead a case of not wanting to wind up divorced like his parents, or not wanting to break up the family, or — hopefully not — he doesn't want to lose the dame who cooks his meals and makes sure he has clean underwear.

Would I want to stay with someone like me? No, I probably wouldn't. Then again, my husband has pushed me to the sheer brink of madness but I'm still here, aren't I?

What a mess.

If you've never been in a situation where you didn't know if your husband's love for you was genuine or if instead he really liked having a live-in maid, then let me tell you this: It stinks. It's also very confusing. Most of all, though, it's awfully lonely.