After having three kids and a sporadic (but mostly quiet) freelance existence at home for fifteen years, I went back to work last fall. Back to the grind. Up and at it. Forty hours a week.

This wasn’t the first time my 14-year-old daughter Jordan and I fought about closed doors and, similarly disrespect. In fact, we’d done it so much that my “the door is coming down” speech had grown stale and expected—practically inaudible to astute teen ears.

I love New York City—always have, always will. As a child in my grandparent’s Brooklyn brownstone, I used to stare at the streetlights as they gleamed into my window at night, conjuring images of all the things the city had waiting for me. Back then, all I wanted was to be a singer, and the city seemed ripe with adventure and possibility.

Inspired By This Month Of Romance, We Asked Four Local Writers To Reflect On Marriage, Parenting And What’s Love Got To Do With It

Last month, my wife ran the ING New York City Marathon. I’m incredibly proud of her. She did it all by her lonesome. She put in the months of training; no running group, no private guru, just her and the road. And that takes something. Especially when you’ve got a kid.

On the morning of July 24, 2011, Michael Elsasser, my lifetime partner for over 25 years, and I were married at the New York City Clerk’s Office by the very Honorable Judge Doris Ling-Cohen. Finally, we were able to realize one of our lifelong goals; the official state recognition of our years of committed love and devotion to one another.

The word is getting out about the “new” father. He’s more involved, sharing the workload equally and even taking on a larger role than the mother in the raising of kids. The NYC Dads Group, an organization I’m a part of, is filled with men like this; they’re competent with their kids, competent at their jobs, and competent with running the house. Dads across the country, employed or not, are making parenting a more important part of their life.

“It doesn’t matter that it’s small,” my husband Neil said of the altered third bedroom of our then-new apartment. At the time he was right. Our daughter, Meg, who would be sleeping in it was only two-years-old, didn’t need much furniture, and had yet to accumulate many worldly possessions.

In every relationship there comes a moment when you first betray the other person. If you’re lucky, this is also the last time you betray the other person—afterward you sit around the house with your face in your hands, penitent and utterly alone, promising yourself you’ll never do such an awful thing again.