It all started when I decided to leave my marriage of eleven years and was astonished to come across the statistic that two thirds of divorces were initiated by women. Since a good deal of my terror at the prospect was fueled by the cliché of the weepy divorcée on her solitary barstool, I set out to investigate the discrepancy between our notion of women's lives after divorce and the reality. Was marriage really so oppressive, or was post-marital life really not so bad? The result, five years later, was a book called Cutting Loose: Why Women Who End Their Marriages Do So Well. Its publication led to an invitation to join the Council on Contemporary Families (CCF), a nonprofit organization that seeks to balance the flood of "family values" propaganda from conservative think tanks with responsible social science about what America's diverse families actually need.

It was at CCF's annual conference that a pamphlet from an organization called the Alternatives to Marriage Project caught my eye. Founders Dorian Solot and Marshall Miller were in attendance, and, not surprisingly, we took a liking to one another. A year or so later they invited me to join the AtMP board of directors, and I have now served in that capacity for four years. One of my favorite aspects of the job is hosting fundraisers, which turn into great parties at which some enduring friendships have been born. I work for AtMP in the narrow sense to combat the Bush administration's wrong-headed marriage promotion agenda, and in the broader sense to work towards social policy that treats American families and relationships fairly regardless of the form they take. This is an incredibly interesting transitional period in terms of the role of marriage in American society, and we need to give the virtuecrats a run for their money.

On the personal front, I live in New York and have a wonderful partner of eleven years; we have lived together for four of those years. We each had two children when married, only one of whom is still in the nest. We have every intention of staying together forever, and none of tying the knot.