| I am 45 and have been married (once) for 19 years. I had a multitude of relationships before arriving at this one, all failing miserably or not-so-miserably. My husband, who is a bit younger than I am, has joined me in working hard on our relationship while it shuffled through some mighty storms. The success of our effort shows. We are not able to have kids and are therefore resigned to serving out the rest of our sentence—uh—marriage, with a childfree status. This was not a decision we came to lightly. It has added a certain sadness to our "coupleness", but we finally have some real peace about it. We are now content to baby-sit other people's children and gush our unconditional love onto our two felines, Larry and Darryl. I worked as a counselor at a local university for 14 years. Ive always done well in the counseling field and in guiding people so that they can cope with their circumstances and the cards they have been dealt. I also facilitated monthly support groups for nearly ten years in San Diego for those whose lives were challenged with chronic disease. I created two online support groups from 1991-1999 for this same population. I am able to offer a useful and different voice from the current peanut gallery someone who has worked hard on their own relationship through some difficult valleys and helped to make it the success that it is today. | 
