And on Monday, Eliza Bern’s article in mX sparked even more conversation on the topic.

Bern suggested the way forward was through unconditional acceptance and same-sex marriage. I agree 100 percent.

Equality is not something that can be done in fractions. There can be no “mostly” equal.

This may sound a little free-love of me but I do wish everyone could just get along.

So what is stopping this country from joining the likes of Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa and Portugal in legalising same-sex marriage?

There are some very persistent arguments that seem to be trotted out regularly by objectors.

Step forward the most vocal: religious groups.

They have one of the saddest, and at the same time, most laughable arguments.

They say active homosexuality is wrong because it means sex outside of marriage. But they’re against the one thing that would solve the problem – marriage.

I don’t think we’ll ever get the religious institutions to agree. But the church is hardly scandal free and is fast becoming more irrelevant in marriage, even for straight couples, with more people electing a garden wedding or city hall over the constraining and antiquated ways of the church.

We were married in a Catholic Church (we are not religious; but it meant a lot to our family that we have a church wedding) and I struggled to find acceptable church passages, prayers and hymns that wouldn’t insult our guests who are in same-sex relationships, or openly gay.

Most readings from the church preach marriage as the union of a man and a woman (and more still that didn’t position women as subservient – thought that is another matter entirely). Which is a long way from the love, forgiveness and acceptance that God is supposed to be about.

Then there are the people who say legally recognised gay unions would threaten the institution of marriage.

How can allowing more people the opportunity to get married do anything but strengthen the institution?

As a recent Facebook post pointed out, philandering straight guys such as Tiger Woods and Jesse James are surely more of a threat – soiling the reputation of marriage with a blatant disregard for their spouses.

Non-famous heterosexuals are also doing a good hatchet job. A 40 per cent divorce rate? It’s a joke.

But that’s not as bad as the postman in Germany who married his dying asthmatic cat last month.

In the same week, a Korean man married his pillow in front of a priest.

And last year a Japanese video gamer married a video game girlfriend that lives inside his Nintendo DS in a legally binding ceremony in Guam.

Yet in Australia we won’t give two rational, adult humans – who love each other and want to be together – the opportunity to declare that to society in their own marriage, just because they’re of the same sex?

Civil unions or registered partnerships are a step in the right direction, but are still in that grey “mostly equal” zone. It won’t be enough until it’s bonafide, proper, legal marriage.

The gay community could never ruin the sanctity of marriage. If anything, it would revitalise a flagging, boring old institution that is in desperate need of a fresh breath of life.

There’s never been a better time than now. Legalize it so we can stop wasting our breath pushing rational arguments on a government that is clearly too blinded by their own religious prejudices to see clearly.

I knew it! I’ve been saying it all along.

Says the Daily Mail in London:

“Half of men will upgrade a common cold to flu and describe headaches as a migraine to gain maximum sympathy.

They will also moan more than women when suffering a bug or virus.

This is despite the fact they catch fewer colds and flu each year – five compared with women’s average of seven.”

Certainly rings true for me – we’ve spoken before about Den and his Man-Colds. The worst of it is, he refuses to go to a doctor, happier instead to self-diagnose and then sit on the couch with a little silver bell, ringing for my attention when he needs his nose wiped and whatnot.

But I have another thing to put forward to you – men use this same talent of gross exaggeration in the opposite way as well. Den doesn’t usually cook in this house. For three years now, cooking has been mostly my domain. Sometimes I relish it, but lately I’ve lost my cooking mojo and happily left the task to Denis for a couple of weeks now to see how he would cope. He’s stepped up, but my Lord is it at a cost.

You see, every meal he makes – whether it be throwing hunks of meat into the slow cooker or whipping up a spag bog – has to be fawned over for at least 48 hours after the fact. How good it was. How great it tasted.

And yet, if I do the same I’m lucky to get a “tastes great” without fishing for one.

Anyone else find the same thing? Men and their exaggerating? Do women have an equivalent affliction I can’t think of right this second?

New York Times Magazine recently published this long piece on whether marriage is good for your health or not. Very early studies into the matter, circa 1858, concluded that marriage is a healthy estate and that single people died from disease “in undue proportion” to their married counterparts.

New, updated research is being carried out on the subject of marriage and health at the moment, with researchers finding that it is not simply the act of being married that ensures you better health, but whether the marriage is a happy one or not.

Says the article:

“While it’s clear that marriage is profoundly connected to health and well-being, new research is increasingly presenting a more nuanced view of the so-called marriage advantage.

Several new studies, for instance, show that the marriage advantage doesn’t extend to those in troubled relationships, which can leave a person far less healthy than if he or she had never married at all.

One recent study suggests that a stressful marriage can be as bad for the heart as a regular smoking habit. And despite years of research suggesting that single people have poorer health than those who marry, a major study released last year concluded that single people who have never married have better health than those who married and then divorced.”

So happy married people are better off, health-wise, than single people. But if you’re going to be in a bad marriage, you may as well be single for the sake of your health. And if you’ve gotten divorced once, the research suggests that we find that experience so stressful that it’s hard to recover from.

Sounds intense.

This research is all borne from the emerging area of science known as psychoneuroimmunology, which concerns the interplay between behavior, the immune and endocrine systems and the brain and nervous system. Spiritual types have been onto this “you are what you think” field for years, seems like science is catching up now.

A bad marriage can be as bad for your heart as a smoking habit. Quite literally, if you have your heart broken you won’t ever fully recover?

What do you think?

Instead of throwing him out, setting her lawyers on him or sobbing hysterically, Laura called bullshit.

What ensued was her husband going through a mid-life crisis and Laura giving him the space to do that in his own home. By letting him have his solitude, he worked through his issues in his own mind and came back to his family.

Laura’s initial article on the ordeal was published in the New York Times last year, causing great controversy along the way. Here is an excerpt:

“Here’s a visual: Child throws a temper tantrum. Tries to hit his mother. But the mother doesn’t hit back, lecture or punish. Instead, she ducks. Then she tries to go about her business as if the tantrum isn’t happening. She doesn’t “reward” the tantrum. She simply doesn’t take the tantrum personally because, after all, it’s not about her.

Let me be clear: I’m not saying my husband was throwing a child’s tantrum. No. He was in the grip of something else — a profound and far more troubling meltdown that comes not in childhood but in midlife, when we perceive that our personal trajectory is no longer arcing reliably upward as it once did. But I decided to respond the same way I’d responded to my children’s tantrums. And I kept responding to it that way. For four months.

“I don’t love you anymore. I’m not sure I ever did.”

His words came at me like a speeding fist, like a sucker punch, yet somehow in that moment I was able to duck. And once I recovered and composed myself, I managed to say, “I don’t buy it.” Because I didn’t.

He drew back in surprise. Apparently he’d expected me to burst into tears, to rage at him, to threaten him with a custody battle. Or beg him to change his mind.”

Since then, the article has evolved into a book. Here is Laura talking about it on ABC News last week:

Is this method a revelation? Could more marriages have been saved with the same attitude? After all, in just about every argument there can come a point where you know you’ve gone too far, said too much, to ever reverse the situation. Could the same ring true with divorces?

Of course, every marriage and every break up is different, but what I love is that Laura believed in her husband enough to know that he was just freaking out. He got through it, but I wager that if she’d reacted – yelled, screamed, fought back – that we would be looking at just another divorce statistic rather than this book.

“My husband loves the middle of a quiche and I love the outside. He hates exercise, I love it. He knows everything there is about music, I know very little. Does that mean that we are incompatible or refreshingly different?

The fact that you may enjoy different ways of doing things to your partner really doesn’t matter, so long as you feel close. You will find that if you feel close to your partner, you will decide that you are compatible and in those moments that you feel less close, you will probably feel incompatible. How close you feel will depend on your mood.

No doubt, when my husband is in a good mood, he thinks I’m really loyal. In a bad mood, he probably thinks I’m stubborn. When I am in a good mood, my husband is an optimistic person. When I am in a bad mood, I can easily think he is unrealistic. In a bad mood, my husband probably thinks I am opinionated and in a good mood, he might think I’m expressive.”

Den and I are about as different as two people can be. And Sophie is absolutely right: Depending on my mood, the time of day and presumably whether Mercury is retrograde to Saturn or some such nonsense, I feel very differently about my husband.

He’s realistic, and then negative.
Loyal, and then stubborn.
Practical, but then nagging.

Sometimes, when I’m in a good mood I can’t possibly see how we could ever not get along, the two of us. It’s like a magic balance that we strike. Then when it’s all going bad I wonder how on earth I ever manage to put up with him.

Not that this is one-sided, it cuts both ways. I know he thinks my little quirks are cute – until they’re downright annoying. My naive optimism is no doubt refreshing, until then he suddenly thinks I’m a complete flake. I’m charmingly scatterbrained when he’s in a good mood, I’m downright messy and disorganised when he’s not.

The trick with being opposites is to constantly seek that balance between you. But it’s not always going to work out.

At least, when everything else goes to hell, we know that at our core we both want the same things from life, and morally speaking we are on exactly the same page. Everything else is just semantics and keeps us guessing, if nothing else.

Are you and your partner identical twins or so different it sometimes blows your mind?

The divorce rate is insane, and divorces are easier and cheaper than ever to go through with.

Meanwhile, something like 40% of children are born out of wedlock, proving that we no longer need to be married to raise a family. In addition to that, the stigma of having children without marriage is long gone. Hell, you don’t even need a man to have a child anymore. You can do it on your own with enough money and courage.

What does this mean for the institute of marriage? Is it becoming unfashionable to be married?

I’m still collecting my thoughts on all this. The subject is huge, obviously. It’s a lot of sorting. I’m interested in everyone’s opinions on it. So please feel free to comment here.

Let’s start with this. If you’re married, why did you decide to get married? If you’re actively against marriage, why is that?

Plenty more posts to come in future weeks with musings about it… I’m fascinated with it at the moment.

I am fast learning that my husband is a creature of habit. He gets very comfortable with the things that he knows well. For example: All day every day, we hear the same four music tracks over and over and over and over…. and over… and over. Every few months he finds a new set of music tracks to play over and over and… well, you get the idea. He’s lucky the world has gone digital, if he were playing a cassette tape it would’ve broken by now from sheer use. If he were playing a CD, he’d blow up the player.

It’s not that I hate his taste in music – for the most part, I can tolerate it. The first hundred times or so, I barely notice it. Sometimes I even sing along. But (he’s playing it as I write this) by now, it just makes me want to stab myself in the ear with a pen to stop the noise.

He asked this morning if I’d prefer he wear headphones, which was very thoughtful and sweet of him. I think I now need to take him up on it.

Denis. Honey. I changed my mind. Please put your headphones on. (Speaking of headphones, how hot are the pictured ones from Swarovski Fashion?!)

What about you? Hate your partner’s music taste? Do they obsessively play the same stuff over and over? Is it a showdown for control of the sound system every day or do you plug in your own iPods and live in separate music worlds?

While these affairs rarely led to the break up of the man’s marriage/relationship, over a third of them lasted for months or even years… meanwhile around a quarter of the wives were generally clueless to the goings-on behind their back.

It is suspected that these affairs usually start in the workplace. (Thank God I work right next to my husband on a daily basis from home, or this news might have me a basket case already!)

So who does the responsibility lie with? With over 25% of the mistresses saying that they would have an another affair with a married man if the opportunity arose, I kind of want to instantly blame the women. Whatever happened to the sisterhood, anyways?

Why is it that we always jump to branding the other woman for her skills of seduction, like she’s some red-letter harlot that set her sights on our men?

Perhaps it’s the fact that 21% of these women think it’s “sometimes okay” to poach another woman’s man, and only 13% of them believe that it’s morally his problem, not the mistresses’. How is it NOT his problem? Do people really think men are so thick-witted that they don’t even realize when they’re being unfaithful?

If so, I think the men have done a brilliant job of playing dumb this entire time.

Bettina Arndt appeared on the Today show this morning, citing the new trend that men such as Tiger Woods are “accepting responsibility” for their philandering actions. I’m sorry, but blaming a “sex addiction” for your actions is the furthest thing possible from taking responsibility.

And with outcomes like yesterday’s successful suing of a mistress to the amount of $10 million for “stealing” a woman’s husband, it would seem that even the law doesn’t think the men are to blame.

Says Australia’s Nine News: “Cynthia Shackelford, 60, told the North Carolina court that she gave up her teacher career to raise their children and support her husband Allan’s legal career, the Daily Telegraph reported.

Using a rarely used law, Mrs Shackelford claimed her husband had been happy and in love with her before his mistress, Anne Lundquist, 49, pursued a relationship with him.

After a two day trial the jury awarded Mrs Shackelford $10 million after she proved alienation of affection, a legal term for adultery, as well as causing severe emotional distress.”

So. What is the appeal of an affair? I know they must go on everywhere, all the time, without most of us even knowing. But what is in it for the mistresses, who are apparently orchestrating the entire thing singlehandedly?

Is it really wives vs. mistresses from now on? And why aren’t we blaming the men?

If you’re thinking of Alphabet Dating, now’s a great time to start. You can check back in every week to get ideas, or just head straight over to $30 Date Night and see what’s doing over there that interests you.

A is for African Cuisine
Find a local African cafe that serves traditional food, eaten with your hands in true African style.

A is for Acrobatics
Attend a local circus or tumbling course together and learn something new!

A is for Airport
Head to the viewing area of your local airport and watch the planes come in. Take a picnic with you to make it even more special!

A is for Apple Picking
If it’s apple season, find a pick-your-own orchard where you can spend an afternoon among the fruit trees. Take your spoils home and bake apple pie together afterwards.

A is for Art Gallery
Take your date to see an art exhibition or to a gallery opening!

A is for Arcade
Cash your $30 into coins and be big kids again at a video game arcade with your sweetheart for date night!

A is for Audience
Become part of the audience for a fun live TV show. Apply online – it’s usually free – and go see behind the scenes at a TV studio. If you go for a game show you may even win some money!

A is for Automobile
Take a cruise in your automobile with your sweetie by your side.

A is for getting Arty
This is a great at-home date if you can’t leave the house because you have children. Pick up some paper, professional graphite pencils and take a quick online tutorial on how to draw. Then have your partner pose for you while you sketch an arty image of them. Take turns posing! You may even convince them to let you practice your life drawing if you’re lucky!

Got any more dates beginning with A for us?

We’ve waned from our usual Wednesday night date night, which means some weeks go by with us forgetting to schedule a date night… and while we’ve had lots of quality time spent together, that’s really not what it’s all about.

It’s served to really reinforce to us again that if you don’t have a schedule and structures in place, date night will never happen. It’s too easy for us to fall off the wagon and end up in front of the TV every night (the fact that Den gave me the entire Sex and the City Box Set for my birthday also hasn’t helped matters any!).

So.

We’re getting back on the date night horse. (It’s a fancy horse, too!) We’re recommitting to date night with each other again. And if you’ve forgotten all about your own date nights too, we recommend you do the same.

Remember the rules?

1. Pick a night every week.
That is your night together. Don’t schedule anything over the top of it. If you absolutely have to, then you can negotiate in advance with your partner to move it to another day for that week only.

Wednesday is our date night.

2. Take it in turns to organise.
It is no fun for one person to continually be the instigator of date night every time. If you’re stuck for ides, guess what? We’ve done the hard work for you. If you head to $30 Date Night and set up an account, you can even save a list of the date ideas you love the sound of so that you can refer to it when it’s your week to organise the date.

3. Mix it up.
Humans are creatures of habit. If you don’t consciously choose to do new, fun things with your partner every week then you will end up at the same favourite restaurants (think about how many times you go to the same place to eat out, or order takeaway from the same Thai food shop…) or doing the same, comfortable activities again and again.

You may love doing those things, but your relationship will not thank you for it. Remember, it’s been proven that doing new things together as a couple sparks the same hormones as when you first fell in love! Bring back the butterflies by doing something fresh and different every week!

And remember, it doesn’t matter if you have kids, or your budget is tight, there are ways around all those things and that is essentially what $30 Date Night is all about. Don’t make excuses. Don’t wiggle your way out of it. Just do it.

Who’s with us?