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.

Continue Reading...

Many of these men and women are in marriages or long-term relationships. Their lives are dysfunctional and they know it. They'll expect to spend months, if not years, in 12-step meetings, individual therapy and marriage counseling in hopes of saving their relationships. If they're lucky, they have understanding partners who can see beyond the addiction.

Continue Reading...

The 86-year-old Playboy magazine founder exchanged vows with his "runaway bride," Crystal Harris, at a private Playboy Mansion ceremony on New Year's Eve. Harris, a 26-year-old "Playmate of the Month" in 2009, broke off a previous engagement to Hefner just before they were to be married in 2011.

Playboy said on Tuesday that the couple celebrated at a New Year's Eve party at the mansion with guests that included comic Jon Lovitz, Gene Simmons of KISS and baseball star Evan Longoria.

The bride wore a strapless gown in soft pink, Hefner a black tux. Hefner's been married twice before but lived the single life between 1959 and 1989.

Continue Reading...

Jonathan and Ivory have been in a relationship for five years. They love each other, a lot. Problem is: Jonathan wants kids. Ivory does not. After deciding that this wasn't something they could resolve as a couple, they break up. Amicably. With a lot of respect and compassion for one another. And when it comes time to tell their friends and family about it, they turn it into a song.

And breaking up's a mess
So please be there for us
You don't have to choose
Though it'll be awkward, yes
Invite us to your parties
We will work it out
Don't feel weird
We love all of you
After 5 whole years
By each other's side
There are just some things
No relationship can survive

Continue Reading...

My fiancé and I are a pair of deeply-in-love 20-somethings who, like any young couple, have had our share of rough financial patches. We're both very hardworking people and have always managed to stay afloat without any handouts. I recently lost my job during the holidays and am scrambling to find work while saving for our rent next month. I told my fiancé that if we were still short on cash I could borrow a hundred bucks from my father for a bit just to tide us over.

During the conversation he casually said that his parents told him as soon as he turned 18 and moved out that they would never help him financially again, as he is now an adult and therefore must be completely independent. That seemed reasonable enough, but upon inquiry he went on to say that even if he were in dire monetary straits and facing eviction that they would still refuse to lend him even a hundred dollars.

Continue Reading...

It’s the women who lose. Not only are they saddled with the consequences of sex, by dismissing male nature they’re forever seeking a balanced life. The fact is, women need men’s linear career goals – they need men to pick up the slack at the office – in order to live the balanced life they seek.

So if men today are slackers, and if they’re retreating from marriage en masse, women should look in the mirror and ask themselves what role they’ve played to bring about this transformation.

But, "fortunately, there is good news," Suzanne Venker writes."Women have the power to turn everything around. All they have to do is surrender to their nature – their femininity – and let men surrender to theirs. If they do, marriageable men will come out of the woodwork."

Continue Reading...

Prosecutors in the central Yaroslavl region said the unidentified woman, described as a devout Pentecostal Christian with a psychiatric record, was so distraught when her husband died of natural causes in 2009 that she believed he "was bound to resurrect."

An investigation was opened after the body was found in a dumpster in a plastic bag in July.

The prosecutors' office said Monday that the woman kept the cadaver in a bed in a room of her apartment and asked her children to talk to it and feed it.

The office says two children decided to dispose of the body when the family moved to another apartment.

Continue Reading...

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.

Continue Reading...

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!

Continue Reading...

If parents in Norway, a country with a robust public infrastructure to support families, aren't happy, one shudders to think what American moms and dads are up against. Researchers at Texas A&M University found that 90 percent of new parents reported a sudden deterioration in relationship and sexual functioning after having a baby, sudden -- but enduring. A majority of parents reported a persistent degree of unhappiness throughout the eight-year study, released in 2010.

Continue Reading...

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!"

Continue Reading...

Wanted to get your advice. I'm stuck.

A few things on me, should they prove to be helpful: Female in my late 30s. Highly educated, C-level executive in male-dominated field. Financially responsible and pretty much extremely responsible otherwise. I take pride in my ability to get shit done, as it has served me well in life. In good health. Pretty much checked-the-box on most things middle-class folks would consider important in life, and in the "right" order.

I married young when I did not know what I wanted in a partner. I am an alpha female. I am attracted to alpha men. The confidence, really. I am deeply and utterly attracted to extremely confident men. Right now, I imagine the ones I have been privileged enough to have known and have admired. As I type this, the adrenaline flows.

As we've grown into adulthood, my husband has become a super-emotional type. And he is angry often and in general seeks external validation for his self-esteem. I eat my emotions. I specifically see anger as a sign of weakness, and in general I work extremely hard at everything I do in life without much thought. That is what I am comfortable with, and that is how I am able to survive in this world. I own my life and take full responsibility for the confident, hardworking, minimalist nature of my communication style.

Continue Reading...

New research from the University of California, Los Angeles, suggests that couples should listen to such premarital doubts long before they walk down the aisle, as uncertainty during an engagement can portend a strained marriage and early divorce. (Unless you’re Julia Roberts, in which case it portends winding up with Richard Gere and living happily ever after.) For brides in particular, the data show, doubt may be a reason to say, “I don’t.”

Continue Reading...

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.

Continue Reading...

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.

Continue Reading...

Before Beirut, we had lived in Turkey and Iraq, the latter of which was my wife Kelly's base. (She’s a correspondent for NPR.) Those weren't fun times, spending so many months apart. Among other problems, it was difficult to be a man, changing diapers, while my wife swash-buckled her way across Mesopotamia. With the mother of our daughter based in Baghdad, I learned how to excel at various domestic chores and also how to worry. What would happen if a mortar fell or if bad guys tested the glass on her armored truck? What would people think of a blonde woman traveling to Anbar Province? The Middle East, for my wife, was the big league. For me, it was a place to find a good doctor and maybe some daycare. Alone on a Friday night, I'd pour myself another glass and wonder: Was this it?

Continue Reading...

Somehow it seems to bother her more than it does me.

Or, well, she’s the one who keeps bringing it up.

I’m not sure what brings it to her mind exactly.

My history, I mean—that is, my history as a drug addict, alcoholic and hustler. My wife and I were married over a year ago and I guess we both thought it would have gotten easier for her by now—which it definitely has—but she is still uneasy whenever an addict character is in some movie we’re watching, or I accidentally start telling a story that is connected with my using—which happens fairly often since, even though I’m 30 and have been sober for four years, my life was more or less consumed with either using, or trying to recover from using, from the ages of about 17 to 28. The fact of the matter is that a lot of my experiences are from times when I was in rehab, or some halfway house, or some even more sordid situation.

Of course, I try to edit myself. But it does slip out.

Continue Reading...

See, as long as we’ve been together, my husband and I have canceled each other out at the polls. There are times over the years when this didn’t matter so much. Politics was a mere blip in our relationship. But lately, our political tension is like a microcosm of the country. We can’t seem to hold a rational discourse. We don’t watch convention coverage together. We don’t even watch the news at the same time.

“You can thank your buddy, Obama,” my husband mutters whenever interest rates go up or a doctor’s co-pay increases. Even a simple drive together can end in discord. Recently, we ran into an annoying highway roundabout, and it kicked off my husband’s eye rolling. “Our taxes at work,” he said.

“I’m quite sure Obama didn’t specify Wisconsin roundabouts in his economic stimulus plan,” I said. “If anything, that would fall under your buddy, the Republican governor.”

Continue Reading...

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.

Continue Reading...

A historian of early Christianity at Harvard Divinity School has identified a scrap of papyrus that she says was written in Coptic in the fourth century and contains a phrase never seen in any piece of Scripture: “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife …'”

"The faded papyrus fragment is smaller than a business card, with eight lines on one side, in black ink legible under a magnifying glass. Just below the line about Jesus having a wife, the papyrus includes a second provocative clause that purportedly says, “she will be able to be my disciple.

Continue Reading...