Confused? Of course you are.

Journalist Dan Slater wrote a piece for the Atlantic print edition about a man named Jacob who, through the magic of online dating, has been able to meet and sleep with many women and he is no longer interested in getting married.  In response, Atlantic editor Alexis Madrigal took to the Atlantic's website to refute Slater and his "spineless" argument with a lot of data and somewhere around 1,800 words.

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The actor's divorce petition cites irreconcilable differences and does not list a date that the couple separated. Moore announced last year that she was ending her marriage to the actor 15 years her junior, but she never filed a petition.

Kutcher's filing does not indicate that the couple has a prenuptial agreement. The filing states Kutcher signed the document Friday, hours before it was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Kutcher and Moore married in September 2005 and until recently kept their relationship very public, communicating with each other and fans on the social networking site Twitter. After their breakup, Moore changed her name on the site from (at)mrskutcher to (at)justdemi.

Kutcher currently stars on CBS' "Two and a Half Men."

Messages sent to Kutcher's and Moore's publicists were not immediately returned Friday.

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Court records show a judge finalized the actress' divorce from Death Cab for Cutie frontman Ben Gibbard on Wednesday in Los Angeles.

Gibbard and Deschanel, who stars in Fox's "New Girl," were married in September 2009. They had no children together.

The actress filed for divorce in December 2011 after separating two months earlier.

The judgment does not provide financial details of the breakup, although it states that the former couple's marriage cannot be repaired by counseling or mediation.

Deschanel was nominated last week for a Golden Globe for her work on "New Girl."

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I'm at a crossroads in my marriage and life and I don't know what to do. No matter how much advice I receive from my parents, friends and one counselor, and no matter how many advice books I read, I still can't seem to come to a decision that gives me peace of mind. I have been separated from my husband (I'm living in an apartment; separate bills, bank account, etc.) for going on four months. The question is whether to file for divorce or reconcile.

We have been married for eight years, together for 13. It's been a stormy relationship from the beginning. To make a very long story short, the issues have centered around his drinking, his temper and anger, his children (my stepchildren), a terminally ill parent, and the fact that over time I landed somewhere on Page 2 or 3 of his priority list.

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Romney testified that Tom Stemberg, the founder of Staples, had properly appraised the value of the company’s shares at $2.25 during the divorce. But a year later the share price closed at exactly 10 times that amount on the first day of its IPO.

As we noted yesterday, the divorce testimony was the “October Surprise” with the most potential to actually be surprising. It seems like it may not disappoint. While initial rumors that Romney lied about Staples' value under oath appear overblown, the story is not particularly flattering at a time when both candidates are desperately trying to attract female voters.

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The business partner is Tom Stemberg, the founder of Staples, one of Bain’s greatest success stories, and who went on to be an adviser to Romney and speak at the Republican National Convention. According to TMZ and a filmmaker who interviewed her in 2008, Stemberg’s ex-wife, Maureen, alleges that Mitt Romney lied about the value of Staples, pretending its stock was virtually worthless so as to prevent Maureen from getting much money from her ex-husband.

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Up until recently I've been reading your columns and your advice seems clear and to the point. I am in a serious bind. My wife of five years began a relationship with someone from her past. I discovered the relationship and through many other lies told she confessed to it and stated it was best if we got divorced.

Now, to give you a brief overview of our marriage, it was mediocre at best. Sex wasn't the issue; she complained about my lack of "love," as she called it, and I never really responded past her cries for attention. Fast-forward to today, we still live together (we both have nowhere to go), we have casual sex, speak more openly about ourselves and our past relationships and future relationships. In other words our "new" relationship has developed into something better than our five-year marriage; we hold no secrets. She confesses, I confess and we love it. My problem is I have a mall intent on ruining her current new long-distance relationship with her boyfriend.

I do not want to, but it's almost a male thing to fight back, not with fists but through love and better affection and more sex!

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My husband had left me for another woman. I was juggling two kids, in and out of divorce court, and felt my lid about to blow. As luck would have it, I’d just turned 50, too. Even I knew I needed time for introspection, but why the extra burden of keeping silent, I wanted to ask, but didn’t. And why couldn’t I blow off a little steam, listen to music and converse over dinner with other people at the retreat? Life was hard enough. And my teacher knew I wasn’t the silent type.

I spend the bulk of my workday in front of a computer, but at heart I’m a social animal. Though shy as a young girl, once I reached adulthood I became a confirmed extrovert, joining a long line of female talkers on my mother’s side of the family who could easily hold the thread of one story at bay while carrying on the next.

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This week in news that proves the world has turned upside down, twice-divorced "hopeless romantic" Kim Kardashian is talking about what she'll do differently when she gets married "next time," while one of Hollywood's most enduring couples, Danny DeVito and Rhea Perlman, have announced they're splitting up. Yup, go ahead and imagine a world where Kim Kardashian is getting married again and Danny DeVito is on the market. Because it's probably coming. Oh, yes, it's coming.

In the new issue of Tatler, Kardashian, who last year married Kris Humphries after knowing him eight months, broke up with him 72 days after her much-ballyhooed reality-television-event wedding, and is still not legally divorced, says, "When I look back at interviews I gave [about previous boyfriends] saying, 'We're talking about marriage, etc.,' it's embarrassing. And I really believed it at the time!"

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I love reading your columns and am very grateful for your insights gained through hard experience. These past three years have been extremely difficult as well as incredibly illuminating for me. I graduated college, had my heart broken by the man I love, saw the breakdown of my parents' marriage, left to work with refugees in a conflict zone, and saw so much excruciatingly painful suffering. I had large patches of my hair fall out, was diagnosed with hepatitis B, was incredibly fatigued, and had major depression. I'm glossing over these experiences just to give you the context for my question. The protective shell of my innocence about the world and my own morality has been broken. I've also been drifting in these past years, searching for meaning, for some firm ground to get stronger. I have traveled extensively, meditated and talked to some very inspiring people. I also met a man that I love very much and who has been with me through the worst year of my depression. Slowly, and through the tremendous support of my family and friends, I've emerged from the ashes and overcome my depression.

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I'm seeing a wonderful divorced man who isn't interested in being married ever again. That's music to my ears, because I'm not interested in the institution of marriage either. So what's the problem? Both of us have just realized how seriously we are behaving with one another. We each know that we are definitely not ready to settle down and even the idea of doing so fills us with nauseating fear. Yet ... we are behaving with each other as though we already have "resigned" ourselves to one another. What's happening here? Any perspectives are greatly appreciated.

S

Dear S,

This is a great question. Just to recap: I hear you saying that you wish to avoid automatic relationship behavior. You want to think through what you're doing with this man and what it means, and so does he. Nonetheless, you find yourselves acting in certain automatic ways that feel limiting and not true to your ideals. You want to escape the trap of acting unconsciously according to some unacknowledged pattern or conditioning.

It makes sense that you would want this. So I encourage you to keep communicating about such things when they happen.

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I read your column religiously. Now I am going to tell you my problem.

I am a mom of three teenagers, and divorced. I never even wanted to be a mom, but my ex had wanted kids. He was addicted to alcohol and cocaine, and although heartbroken that I left him, he is not at all a parent.

So, for the last few years, I have been single parenting, and finishing my degree. Here is the problem. At school, I get straight A's. But my first work experiences have not gone well. I think I have ADD -- inattentive. I am sure I have something -- maybe SCT -- sluggish cognitive tempo.

I am so aware of my deficiencies -- my tiredness, my slowness in understanding what is going on.

Half a year ago, my son had an accident. He is not quite the same since. He "hates" me. He is verbally abusive and is sometimes physically threatening. I lose my temper and threaten him that he can live with his dad. He doesn't want to, although he thinks his dad is a "good" parent. His dad does not want him, actually.

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Us Weekly reports that after nine years of marriage, the two comedians -- who looked great together as Gob Bluth and that woman he married on "Arrested Development" -- are getting a divorce. To add to America's collective frustration at seeing the two split, a source told the magazine that "It's very amicable." They have two children, Archie, 3, and Abel, 2.

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Here's the situation: I've been married to my husband for 13 years. All but the first year have been miserable. He never adjusted to being a father -- never understood that his needs came second. He's terrible with money (mine, his and ours) and has plunged us into debt while I was in a coma by using my credit cards and borrowing money from my elderly father, which he spent on no one knows what. He refuses to take responsibility for any of his actions (it's always "that asshole"). He won't do anything fun with our kids (two girls -- ages 9 and 12) -- he'd rather sleep on the weekends. He has serious stress/anger management issues for which he refuses to seek help; he throws things, calls us names, punches walls and we never know what will set him off. He parents sporadically if at all -- since he "doesn't understand girls." He loses his temper and verbally abuses them. "Stupid cow" and "lazy bitch" are some of the things that spring to mind.

He took a pay cut when I returned to work so he didn't have to commute -- a cut of about one-third. Despite the fact that we can barely cover our debts. In short, he acts like a 3-year-old, and adds little if anything to our lives.

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I am 37. It's an age by when I thought I would have the answers to questions and choices life threw at me. But with every year that I have grown older, the less it seems to me that there would ever be a time when I am sure of the answers or the choices I have to make. So I am writing this to you now because if I don't know what I should think or do, there doesn't seem to be much shame in seeking help. It might be useful to point out that I live in a culture where seeking help for "personal" problems is looked down upon.

So, this is the situation. I've been married for about 12 years now, to a man I picked for myself right after college. There have always been personality differences -- I am gregarious and speak my mind (even about things that aren't spoken about here) and he is quiet. My husband is, overall, a nice guy. He is kind and generous and has always given me the space that I have wanted. But in the last 12 or so years, it seems, there has been so much space granted that there is really no marriage left. We have a 7-year-old daughter whom we both love dearly. We have very few disagreements on how we want to raise her.

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Three years ago, my boyfriend and I had been together for three years. We were very happy and were living together in my home country. He was then headhunted for a position overseas, and we moved to this foreign country.

We married last year in this foreign country, but he emotionally checked out of the marriage after five months, saying it was nothing to do with us or me. I later found out he was having an affair with an ex-girlfriend who lives in his home country, and that he had been meeting up with her on business trips as well as texting and emailing her while in bed beside me. Our being less than happy as individuals, or together, didn't come as a surprise. Between moving countries, looking for work, renovating a new home, learning a new language and generally finding our feet here, I had expected something would have to give, even if only temporarily.

But the betrayal came as a huge shock to me.

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My life has changed dramatically in the last year. I recently got a way better job that pays nearly double what I was making just a few months ago, which has allowed me to rent a bigger, better, safer, nicer apartment. Today, I went to see a financial planner to figure out a way to start saving money for retirement, building an emergency fund, and paying off my student loans. That felt pretty good. I have made so many life improvements. I have a plan now, and I believe I can stick to it. The problem is, it's just for me. The plan doesn't factor in the possibility of another person. And I understand that. I get that I should be self-sufficient. But somehow it makes me sad.

I got a divorce about a year ago -- not because anything "happened," but because things just weren't right. I didn't feel right. We both felt we could do better. And my ex-husband has already moved on and found someone great. All but one of my closest friends have found their partners or gotten married or pregnant in the past year or so, all while I was sleeping on an air mattress in an empty dorm-style apartment working two jobs. I did things the opposite way. Got married young and got a divorce when everyone else was settling down. I'm bordering on being in my mid-30s, and I'm still rebuilding.

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A few days ago, Katie Holmes, the other half of TomKat, the mother of Tom’s only biological child, and the impetus of his notorious Oprah couch-jump, filed for divorce in New York. As Amy Argetsinger points out at the Washington Post, Holmes becomes the third Mrs. Cruise to jump ship at the age of 33 (which probably has some numerological-Scientological significance Beck would be able to explain).

About the only person surprised by this is Tom Cruise, who turns 50 today (he was born on the third of July).

Whatever went on behind closed doors, the Cruise-Holmes union seemed, to those of us following it obsessively at TMZ and Us Weekly, like a P.R. stunt. Holmes staggered through publicity appearances like a catatonic, while Cruise’s egregious and desperate determination to convince us that the relationship was legit comprised the worst performance of his acting career.

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Summerscale had a critical and commercial success with her previous book, "The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher"; it was both an account of a murder in a 19th-century British country house and a history of the first police detectives. Her new book, "Mrs. Robinson's Disgrace: The Private Diary of a Victorian Lady," has a less sensational subject, but one on which feelings tend to run just as high: divorce. It's the story of one of the first modern divorce cases in Britain, and like "The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher," it resonates with the literature of its time, specifically Gustave Flaubert's "Madame Bovary."

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My life has become somewhat of a joke. I am 32 years old, have two children, and am about to get a divorce. I have always strived to accomplish something in life, have a career, a marriage. It was all going along fine (or so I thought), when I received an accidental voice mail from my husband five months ago today, discussing the fact that he was going to leave me. I was breast-feeding my 4-week-old daughter at the time, and I just shook and froze. The whole world stopped. I confronted my love partner of seven years, and he left. He told me he wasn't happy and had suicidal thoughts and he is not who I want him to be. He also told me I have never understood him or supported him as a musician. I have paid for both of us the whole time we were together. He never worked full-time. The focus was always on him.

About a month later I discovered, thanks to all the networking websites available these days, that he has left me for a 17-year-old guitar student of his, who just graduated high school. Upon further research it came to light that he was cheating on me with her while I was pregnant. Her online chronicles paint a fairly obvious picture. She threw herself at him, but don't get me wrong, Cary, I realize fully that it was my ex's fault for egging her on.

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