"I'm Keeping My Name."

It's been years since I moved in here, and things between my husband and me haven't gotten very much better. I've caught him peeking at me through the slats, and he's seen me peering at him through the mailslot. Still, no "I love you, honey" or flowers or anything. So people are wondering why we haven't gotten divorced and why I still refer to myself as Mrs. Harley.

Well, at first, there was the old money issue, the reason I'm in here in the first place. I can't afford to move out, and I can't afford a divorce. Not even a budget divorce like the one they advertise on TV where they tell you that a divorce is like burning up money. If I had money to burn, I'd go to Vegas. So at first I didn't do any of that stuff because of money, but then I began to think that maybe it was too soon to think about divorce.

I have a radio in this pantry, and I listen to the radio a lot. I don't understand the hip hop that they're always playing on the radio, so I listen to talk radio a lot. Well, over the past couple years, I've learned something. The gays are trying to undermine marriage. It's something that the people on the radio say has been going on for a long time, and it's led me to wonder if they somehow got to my husband. Not that I think they turned him gay...maybe they just turned him insensitive.

So if you can be turned insensitive, maybe you can be turned back sensitive. I haven't heard anyone on the radio talking about groups of people who are trying to strengthen marriage, but you never know. Maybe the Jaycees or the chamber of commerce are planning to start strengthening marriage. I would like that.

Divorce or no divorce, I'm not going back unless he changes. I want him to show me the love and the respect he showed me when we were young. You'll never believe this, but he once wrote a song for me. It went "Cherish is the word I use to describe all the feelings that I have for you inside..." I got so mad when I found out that David Cassidy stole the song and my husband never got a dime. That's the kind of man I used to have for a husband, and I still hope that that man exists.