In my dreams, the house I grew up in, in California, and the house I live in now, in Baltimore, are one and the same. They are always my house. I'll be with my children, packing their lunches and talking to them about Justin Bieber, but I'm in the kitchen of my childhood with the same stinky-cheese-laden refrigerator and paper-cluttered counter. When I walk to the front door, it opens up to Baltimore, the brilliant pink magnolia trees and the police helicopters circling overhead.

My two husbands, past and present, also appear united in my dreams. (I should disclose immediately that these are not sex dreams!) It is as if my subconscious has created a category for the word "husband" and slipped both of these men into the one slot.

Dreamtime: I might be eating dinner with one, or shopping for groceries, or painting a wall. The paintbrush rises up and I'm beside David, my husband. The paintbrush comes down and I'm beside Scott, my ex-husband. Like a two-person model of the Holy Trinity, they are an unholy divinity: separate, but one.

When David and I were first married, the unholy divinity would rise up whenever we fought. There was something about being angry, being pushed emotionally, that would make me bubble up and call David "Scott" in the midst of whatever point I was trying to make. (And then David again, and then Scott again, until my mind was calmed.) Clearly, my angry reptile-brain also looked at these two as one and the same.

After 15 years with David, the reverse now happens. Scott and I will be disagreeing about something on the phone, and in my stuttering frustration, I will call him David.

Scott and I have a child together, so from the time of our separation, we have been in fairly constant contact. Although it's been mostly amicable, there has been much negotiating over the years. As anyone who is a parent knows, every day presents another question, problem or issue, even if the issue is, What do we do with someone so pleasant, charming and agreeable as this child?!

And because I also have a child with my husband, David, there have always been negotiations over her needs too. Additionally, since my daughter with Scott has mostly lived with David and me, the discussions about my older daughter's well-being include David as well.

In short, the past few years have been a case of too many parents in the nest. Or, as I often felt, too many husbands. There have been days where I've been frazzled and overwrought by separate issues with the separate husbands and I can't help but wonder how much easier my life would be if I just had fewer husbands.

It makes me wonder, how does someone like Christie Brinkley, who has three or four kids from three different men, manage all those fathers?

I love my husband (David!) and hope we never have reason to separate. But if we do, I can't imagine bringing another human into the mix, another husband into my emotional interior. An ex-husband is no longer in your bed, but he is always in your life. And, as my dreams have proven, he is always a husband to you.

Jessica Anya Blau is the author of newly-released "Drinking Closer to Home," which has been called "a raging success" and "unrelentingly sidesplittingly funny." Her first novel, "The Summer of Naked Swim Parties," was picked as a Best Summer Book by the "Today" show, the New York Post and New York Magazine. Jessica lives in Baltimore and teaches at Goucher College. Read her blog on Red Room.