Getting through a hard day

How do you acknowledge an anniversary for a marriage that is breaking apart? The divorce isn't final yet, but the marriage is definitely over. I've felt a melancholy mood brewing for days as this date has grown nearer.

Today would have been our seventh anniversary since our marriage in 2002. Perhaps adding to the weight of this for me is that this is the longest any of my marriages have lasted. But it didn't.

I could wallow in this. But what good would that do? I've had enough of wallowing this year. I'm ready to put the sadness behind me and focus on what's going right in my life.

My therapist recommended a couple of ways to handle this date. One might be to collect mementos of the marriage, bundle them together and then either bury it or burn it, as a symbol of the end of the relationship.

But I still see the most precious mementos of our relationship almost every day: My two teen-age stepdaughters and the 5-year-old daughter my husband and I had together, whom we share custody of.

So instead of celebrating an anniversary, I'm going out to dinner with my girls tonight -- and the older girls' mom, "Nona," who recently moved in and became the newest member of our family household -- and we are celebrating a family-versary, honoring the date when we made our vows to each other as a family, in front of our extended family and friends.