I ran into an acquaintance last weekend whom I hadn’t seen in at least a year. We got caught up on the kids and work and then she said, “You look great!” I replied with, “So do you!” It’s true - she does look great. Per usual.

Another friend was with us and as we are all the same age we soon got honest about the wrinkles and most especially, those two stupid lines that the three of us have between our eyes. We also freely admitted that while we have all said that we would never have plastic surgery, using Botox to get rid of those lines was…tempting. I won’t actually do it (I think) but the thought of erasing them, if only temporarily, makes me ponder it.

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I read a post by Lisa Belkin over at The Motherlode in the New York Times titled The Marrying Kind. In it, she discusses an article that came out in Time magazine last week: Who Needs Marriage? Lisa highlighted a couple of points that seemed interesting and I thought I’d share them here.

• “Forty percent of those polled, for instance, described marriage as being “obsolete.””

• “Half or more of the respondents in the Pew poll say that marital status is irrelevant to achieving respect, happiness, career goals, financial security or a fulfilling sex life.”

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Someone (Was it you?) Tweeted a link to a column over at The Stir titled, “Divorce: The New Pop Culture Topic.” The Stir author, Joanne, was discussing a new page over at The Huffington Post dedicated to divorce. An author that Joanne admires (Nora Ephron) was interviewed about her involvement and said it was important to find humor in the hard things in life. Joanne herself was subject to domestic abuse in her first marriage and pointed out that it’s impossible to find humor in that.

At first I was taken aback because I have friends going through divorce and it is not funny at all. There are kids involved and hearts are broken and it’s painful. I’m also a child of divorce and know all too well how hard it was on me growing up. That being said, divorce does happen and if this page can be a good resource for people who find themselves wading through the murky waters of marital breakdown, then it can be a good thing.

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I have to admit that I’ve been a little bit discouraged by the Internet and its lack of posting about healthy relationships. YES, the divorce rate hovers around 50%, but where are the stories from that other 50%? Most stories I run across are about how to have an affair (AWESOME) or how to recover from divorce or whatnot.

This week, I came across this article from Real Simple about “10 ways to make your marriage divorce-proof”.

I was sold at the #1 Point: Realize that if you can agree on what constitutes a clean room, you can agree on anything.

If you’ve read any of my words here for the past two (!) years or read my personal site, you KNOW that my husband is a neat freak. If I keep up my end of the cleanliness bargain, conflicts are kept to a minimum.

Another point that made me say YES: Marry someone with a backbone who appreciates that you possess one of your own.

People often think that I “wear the pants in the relationship”, but no. My husband my be a quiet guy, but he is in no way whatsoever a pushover. He appreciates my backbone and has no problem in flexing his own.

The other eight points are pretty bang-on.

If you’re irritated by your partner, imagine him as a small child.

No fisticuffs in public.

Procrastinate.

Have sex with each other.

Accept that everybody needs alone time.

If you have to fight, walk and fight.

Let your spouse in on 90 percent of your day-to-day routine.

When you buy gifts for each other, give them at least a full minute of thought.

You need to read the article if you have time, as the descriptions that follow each point are pretty humorous.

Do you have any tips you’d like to add?

I have a friend who is going through a pretty emotional time due to the fact that his wife decided to walk away from him, their fourteen-year marriage and their two young kids. Relationship breakdown aside, the hardest part of the whole deal is the fact that they still have to interact due to those two small beings they created together. It’s not like he can cut her out of his life completely in order to heal faster, because there is the child pick-up and drop-off and all of the other ways that their lives are intertwined.

All I can do throughout our conversations is say, “I’m sorry” and, “This blows” on repeat. While sharing his frustration with how hard it was to have to keep seeing her all the time I made the comment that with kids involved, you’re kind of connected for life. It’s not like back when you were in the dating game and could break up, never to see the person again. He agreed.

You see, I’m not the kind of girl who remained “friends” with my ex-boyfriends. We broke up for a reason and there’s no need to spend any time together. It’s not that all (three) of them were bad people (though one was a train wreck) but once the relationship was over I really couldn’t see a way they would fit in my life. Besides, would my husband really want to sit and have dinner with someone I had made out with? I don’t think so.

I know that some people do stay friends with exes from their dating years and kudos to them for making it work. It may not be my thing but if it works for you? Awesome.

Here’s where I lob it back to you guys. Are you still friends with your ex(es)?

While perusing the {cue Optimus Prime’s voice} World Wide Web for marriage articles I came across a Canadian Parents article titled, “Happy Marriages: Can They Be Predicted?” I was (obviously) intrigued.

I read through the article where the scientist in charge of the study (Oooh…important) described how they had different couples move into an apartment in order to observe their interactions. The observations occurred between nine a.m. and nine p.m. and excluded bathroom time (PHEW).

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I’m back working in an office that I’ve floated in and out of for the past nine years. The senior staff are pretty much the same group as what existed back when I first started. As such, we have a history and there are a few that I consider to be more than mere colleagues; they are friends.

One of these friends seemed a little quiet and “off” last week, so I asked if everything was OK. He told me that he’d talk to me in a bit. A few hours later he emailed me to say that I could come talk to him if I wanted to.

The details are no mine to share, but his marriage has fallen apart. It is done, done, done.

Hearing of any marriage ending makes me sad, but when it happens to someone I actually know my heart aches on their behalf. I want to do something but it has been my experience that there really is nothing I can do but listen. I have not walked the same path, so I have no advice to share and cannot commiserate about the heartache they are experiencing.

What I can do is just be there. To listen, to nod in sympathy, to just let them know that I am here whenever they need me.

I still feel so helpless, though. Any advice from those who have lived through it would be much appreciated.

I don’t know if I have mentioned it on this site before, but the first time that I had sex with my husband was…on our wedding night. Call me naive or old-school or archaic or whatnot, but we both share a faith that encourages you to wait until you are married in order to engage in “relations.”

Thanks to a quick run to the drugstore by a good friend of mine on the morning of my wedding to procure, um, a certain substance, our wedding night was pretty fantastic. As have been every marital encounter since then.

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A few weeks ago I emailed a friend to thank her for a professional opportunity she had set me up with. In the midst of our email exchange, she told me that she and her husband had recently separated. I did not know exactly what to say, so I said what came naturally.

I’m sorry.

She wrote back to thank me for saying the perfect thing. So many people had asked her, “What went wrong?” or “What happens now?” All I could think to say was that I was sorry, and she appreciated it.

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