After a whopping 72 hours of marriage, reality starlet Kim Kardashian has filed for divorce from her NFL beau, Kris Humphries. According to People, she is citing “irreconcilable differences” as the reason for their quick split, however we believe it may have something to do with the fact that putting your wedding on TV in front of millions of viewers and banking upwards of $20 million of of it might not be the ROCK SOLID BONDING material that marriages should be based on.

From People magazine:

“I hope everyone understands this was not an easy decision,” she says in a statement to E!, which airs her reality shows. “I had hoped this marriage was forever, but sometimes things don’t work out as planned. We remain friends and wish each other the best.”

“Sometimes things don’t work out as planned”?!?!??!?!?! Uf. If the issues in a marriage are so terrible that you don’t work on them longer than THE FIRST TWO MONTHS YOU ARE MARRIED, I can’t imagine that you’d “REMAIN FRIENDS.” Right?

What do you think? Was the marriage a publicity stunt? Or perhaps their marriage destroyed by reality television and America’s obsession with celebrities? Any other possible ideas?

img via harpersbazaar

According to NewsJunkyJournal, a new dating site has been launched that aims to connect “affluent” singles with their perfect “trophy date.” Cue the “what has this world come to” groan.

Via the source:

The site caters to those looking for any type of relationship; friendships, casual dates, sugar daddy / sugar mama / sugar baby arrangements, love, or marriage. “Whether someone is looking for marriage, just looking for people to date casually, or something in between, we can offer them the convenience of online dating with the high class service of a personal matchmaker,” says Phillip LaPorte, Co-founder of MytrophyDate.com.

Back to my “time to leave Planet Earth” moans, I guess I really should just shut my trap. Who cares what kind of relationships people are looking for as long as they aren’t doing harm to themselves or others? If a rich old guy wants a hot young lass on his arm and can find her on this site, then they’ve done their job, right? Who cares if it’s not the perfect “met in college, dated for years, married and had children (and then later had a horrible divorce)” that we’re used to?

My only worry is that people may claim they are looking for just a sugar-daddy/baby relationship, or someone MIGHT say they’re ready for a long term commitment, but may not be totally honest in those statements. A “trophy” may SAY she’s looking for marriage when in reality she’s just looking to score some free dinners, and an “affluent” older lady may be fibbing when she says she’s okay with just “casually dating.” Each of these situations could lead to broken hearts, angry breakups, or worse.

What do you think? Is MyTrophyDate just catering to a market? Or are they creating a vicious monster?

Just kidding. Not really. It’s more of a publicity stunt than anything else by Dr. Neil Clark Warren, the man behind eHarmony and “compatibility”-based matching. According to his new article at The Huffington Post, On Second Thought, Don’t Get Married, he shares his thought about the increased divorce rate around the country and what we can do to put a stop to it:

Of course, no one intends to be in an unhappy marriage. Bad marriages don’t just happen to bad people. They mostly happen to good people who are not good for each other… [But] when two people have a relationship which is predicated upon broad-based compatibility, there is every reason to be optimistic about their long term prospects. A marriage of this type has virtually no chance of becoming “obsolete.” If all of us together can focus on the challenge of getting the right persons married to each other, it just might change our society more than anything else we could do. Goodness knows, when marriage is right, little else matters nearly so much.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with an expert (Warren is a clinical psychologist) in the field giving his own business a little plug in an educational article, but we have to think that a man of his age and belief system (eHarmony was founded on Christian principles) might not be the best person to be offering unbiased advice.

What do you think? Do you think Dr. Warren is correct in believing that finding a compatible mate will ensure you don’t get divorced?

Via BlissTree

In what is Hollywood’s most recent whirlwind romance, actors Rachel Weisz and Daniel Craig have reportedly married in a secret ceremony in upstate New York this past weekend. The British couple, who were only accompanied at the ceremony by their children from previous marriages and two witnesses, have only been seeing each other for 6 months, but according to locals in a town they vacationed in, they look as though they’d been together for years. According to US Weekly,

“They picked up groceries at a little corner shop, probably to take home and cook or prepare for their roast,” a local told Us Weekly at the time. “They walked through the street like a married couple who had been together for ages — very much in love, very cozy and cute.”

Perhaps this is what marriage is supposed to be like – less glitz and glamour and flowers and expensive dresses, just two people in love with those closest to them.

Although the marriage was a definite shock, especially considering Rachel Weisz was engaged to her ex, director Darren Aronovsky, for 5 years, we wish them luck in the future!

What do you think? Would you marry someone you had been dating for six years, or do you think love takes more time to mature?

We’ve been seeing a lot of blame passed around recently – with the WhatsYourPrice prostitution case to the  Match.com sexual assault scandal and then the (not so much) investigation into the PlentyofFish site murder. Once again we see a divide between personal self-control and whether or not a website is facilitating adultery with the Gather.com article about Manhunt.net, a gay dating site which offers an option to sign up as (or search for) a married man.

Gather makes a legitimate case that although it it ultimately a man’s decision whether or not he will cheat, a site specifically catering to a married man looking for a gay fling might be a very underhanded way of destroying marriages. While Manhunt.net is of course catering a growing niche of men who are realizing their sexuality long after dedicating themselves to woman, and to men looking to deflower a “straight” man, it’s possible that they are doing more damage than good.

All in all, we believe that sites are merely recognizing the same thing that Americans are… that marriage is not as much a necessity as one might think. The difference between a married man cheating with another man and a guy who realizes he’s gay a few years into a relationship and breaking it off, is monumental, and it’s sad to think that men around the world are stuck in sexless marriages because they realize too late that they are attracted to men.

What do you think? Is Manhunt.net to blame for men who cheat on the site? Or should people be held personally responsible for their own actions?

Despite their 17 year age difference, a source says that the couple are a “perfect pair,” and that Paul’s children love her as well.

It’s always surprising to me when a person who has gone through an extraordinarily difficult split ends up getting married again. Sure, the problem might be that you two weren’t meant for each other, but it also shines a spotlight on the underlying issues in marriage as an institution. Paul lost an unheard of $50 million dollars in his divorce with Heather Mills, and yet has decided to jump into another with no prenup?! YIKES.

What do you think? Is the problem with marriage the two people who are involved, or is there a problem inherent in the institution?

I’ve always been somewhat confused by our collective lack of interest in celebrity weddings. I mean, sure, we all love to see two blasphemously attractive people date, we like to see them out in public doing normal things (not to say that isn’t weird in itself), but once the marriage happens, were like, ‘eh, over it. Call me when you divorce.’

Such is not the case of the wedding of William and Kate, or the future king and queen of England. They aren’t movie stars or models or singers, they’re not even from our country, and their becoming KING AND QUEEN is something our ancestors fought for us to NOT care about. What do the king and queen even DO?! I cant imagine it is cool enough for them to make PLATES with their FACES on them.

Contrary to my opinion, though, it seems as though everyone else in our country just can’t WAIT for William and Kate to marry, and are celebrating by purchasing every houseware available with poorly drawn caricatures all over them.

So can you explain it to me? What’s with our undying fascination with the Royal Wedding That Will Have No Effect On Us Whatsoever?

The above chart might be a funny jab at marriage and the stereotypical  idea that when people get married they become angry sexless bores, but it is also a visual representation of all the things wrong with marriage and how you could hypothetically create a happier one (assuming marriage is an equation, which obviously, it is not). It comes from the book and blog “Spousonomics” by Paula Szuchman and Jenny Anderson, which provides a humorous, but fairly factual look at contemporary marriage and its mathematics.

The “existential dread” included, much of this chart is pretty accurate… married couples do tend to begin concentrating on trivial things and ignoring the important stuff. So how can you use this chart to ensure you don’t find yourself in a Hulu-filled, sexless marriage? By actively working to not let that happen. Many studies have shown that, for example, having sex a couple times a week (even if you’re “not really in the mood”) can improve a couple’s intimacy and relationship.

So what is this chart doing on a dating advice site? Well, it is especially important before you get married that you haven’t already fallen into the marriage-mindset. Dating is supposed to be the most exciting part of a couple’s life together, so as you get into a relationship, keep Spousonomics in mind, and flip that chart upside down!

via newhomesbolton.ca

I realized that the world was becoming more progressive when my mother, a devout Spanish Catholic, said that it was a “smart idea” for a boyfriend and I to move in together before we started talking about marriage. Of course I already knew that, and we had plans to move in together anyway, but it was a shock to hear it from my mother, who I assumed thought I was still a innocent virgin who had never even seen a boy’s bed.

So it was only a bit of a shock to me this morning when I read that 92% of British newlyweds already live together. This number is a stark contrast to 25 years ago, when only 10% of couples cohabited before getting married. This information was discovered from a poll by eHarmony.co.uk. Dr. Gian Gonzaga, Director of Research & Development at the company, said of the results:

“Whilst a lot has changed in the journey couples take to marriage, one thing remains true. It is important to take the time to understand if you and your partner will be compatible across the long haul.”

The survey compiled a few other stats that were fairly interesting, including that half of newlyweds had spent time “on a break” before getting married, and that more than a third were already raising a child together before marriage. This is far different than 25 years ago, when only 20% had ever broken up before getting married, and a minuscule 9% that had a child before getting married.

These numbers show many things, one being of course Gr. Gonzaga’s conclusion, that people are taking the time to prepare and ensure they are ready for marriage, but also that we as a whole might becoming more progressive about sex and relationships! Here’s to fingers being crossed that this trend can help us stem the flow of teen pregnancies, divorces, and child neglect.

What do you think? Would you prefer to live with a boyfriend or girlfriend before marriage, or would you rather wait until you are officially husband and wife?

Via Googlenews

AshleyMadison is one of the most highly controversial dating sites on the web today. With its motto “Life is short, have an affair,” it shocked and angered married men and women everywhere who couldn’t believe someone would make a living off selling adultery. Interestingly, though, no one ever took the time to see what the site was like before they made a judgment call. Luckily, a reporter at MSNBC decided she was going to get the real deal, by going undercover on AshleyMadison as a married woman looking for an affair. Her findings were very interesting.

The most important thing she learns is that although CEO Noel Biderman claims the site is a place for people lacking “intimacy” in their marriages (re: sex), many of the men on the site are actually looking to forge real bonds with the women they court. Men who write long drawn out paragraphs about themselves and “get excited” to see an e-mail from her.  On the other hand, of course, she meets a few guys who are definitely the exact stencil of what Biderman talked about: men who just aren’t getting laid the way they’d like to in their marriages. More depressingly, she meets men who aren’t bored from years and years of marriage – one guy is a newlywed, another not even married yet.

The common trait in all the men? Boredom. They are bored with their lives, their marriage, their children, their jobs… just bored. So it makes sense that they would stray. They enjoy sharing with her stories that would bore their wives and regale her with tales of their past that their wives have inevitably heard a million times. The most revealing quote from a man she meets sums the whole idea of infidelity up perfectly:

“I love to cook and go to restaurants, watch a bunch of movies, sporting events — you know, all the normal stuff that when done repeatedly would make someone sign up for a site like this.”

So, what does this mean for marriage? Could cheating happen to any of us? I’d say the answer is yes. And although I still cringe at the idea of Noel Biderman, swimming in his pool of money that he made by potentially ruining peoples’ lives, you’ve got to admit he found a niche in a market that hadn’t been conquered yet, and for that you’ve got to give him credit.

Read the incredibly interesting tale of a woman undercover on Ashley Madison at MSNBC.