Psychology Today blogger Dr. Stephen T. Sinatra tipped us off to a recent study on the effects of marriage and heart health. Turns out, staying in an unhealthy relationship can do more than damage your psyche: It can calcify your arteries. Says Sinatra:

Married people experience less cardiovascular disease than single people, however, a bad marriage can be disastrous to the heart.

Researchers studied married couples' communication styles while also tracking their heart health, concluding that women who experienced severe hostility during marital disputes had the highest level of calcification. Husbands who exhibited the most controlling behavior during marital disputes had the highest of all men in the study.

What's happening? The body is producing stress chemicals, and the angrier or more controlling you are, the more your arteries suffer.

I'm thinking a new slogan here: "Divorce: It does a body good."

A new sleep study reports that women in unhappy marriages suffer from more sleep problems than those in happy unions, and sleep problems, in turn, lead to other health issues. This is the first study to track marital satisfaction and sleep. Unfortunately, divorced women are prone to sleep issues, as well. Not getting the most out of your eight hours? Check out a directory sleep clinics.

The magic little pill may spell trouble. According to a June 2008 report, a Harvard Medical School study said Viagra may add to marital stress. A couple used to dutifully kiss and go to sleep. Now he's popping pills, looking to reclaim his sexuality. Some wives may say Hallelujah, others may feel ambushed into re-creating his sexual fantasies. And all that while the laundry needs to be done.

Then there's another possibility. The study doesn't say it, but it's also possible he's met someone new, someone young and frisky. That's why he's taking Viagra.

Read more here.

It looks like when Amy Winehouse's incarcerated hubby threatened divorce, he thought it was the only way he could make her see reason. Both Blake Fielder-Civil and Amy's mother believe that she is flirting with overdose and may have only months to live.

"I've already come to terms with her dead," says her mother, Janis. "I've steeled myself to ask her what ground she wants to be buried in, which cemetery. Because the drugs will get her if she stays on this road. She's invited me to the Grammy awards next month, but part of me thinks she won't be alive by then."

Recent TV stories have shown grainy video footage of Amy lighting and smoking a crack pipe, and everyone around her is worried. It looks like Blake's pleas have worked in the short-term, at least, and Amy checked herself into rehab on Saturday.

"Every day I fear the prison chaplain is going to walk into my cell and break the news that Amy is dead," says Fielder. He has given up drugs for good, and wants her to do the same. He says he wants them to grow old together and sees no possibility for that while she's still spending $1000 a day on cocaine.

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I'm not certain if I reached the proverbial "end of the Internet" the other day, but I read an idiotic blog posting by a writer from London's The Business magazine. If it wasn't the end, here's hoping it was damn close, or else the Web has become a very dumb place.

He says the reason divorce rates are rising is because women are using the pill and it's screwing up our sense of smell.

Yeah, see, before I even try to explain it, you're already tuning out. The reasoning is that we pick prospective mates based on a sub-conscious sense of smell that attracts us to them. That much I can deal with. I know all about pheromones. But he says since the pill mimics pregnancy, it alters that whole chemical balance and leads us to be attracted to the wrong guys.

Not much scientific reasoning behind this one. Just a blogger needing to fill his space for the day, I think. And that means the Internet is turning out just like TV.

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A couple from California has written a recently published book on how marriages can be saved. Now, the book is published by Focus on the Family and their quotes in a McClatchy Newspapers story are couched in religious overtones. But setting those things aside, these two sound like they have some reasonable advice.

The first thing Joe and Michelle Williams point out is that despite the fact that their book was published by a religious organization, the two of them aren’t clergy. So this is not a couple of ministers telling you what they think God says you should do. On the contrary, these are two very imperfect people. They’ve each been married four times. They had a two-year separation from one another, and Joe has dealt with alcohol abuse.

Religion has been a big key in helping them get their marriage back on track. And that’s simply not going to work for everyone, yours truly included. But they also seem to have some decent real-world advice. They talk about not giving up who you are in a relationship. They talk about sticking with activities you enjoy, even if your spouse doesn’t, which is one thing a lot of people probably don’t stop to think about.

Of course, a lot of people here at FWW are already divorced. But if you’re in the “contemplating divorce” stage, and if you’re a person of faith, this may be a book you want to check out.

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Somewhere, Lorena Bobbitt is smiling.

A court in Taiwan has granted a man a divorce because his wife has been threatening to cut off his penis.

What a perfectly lovely story this is.

The couple has been married for 10 years. Two years ago, the wife began to suspect that her husband was cheating. And that's when she started making threats against his manhood. She would wake him up in the middle of the night to interrogate him and let him know that bad things might be happening to that sensitive part of the anatomy.

You think that’s sick, try this: She started sharpening a knife and leaving it next to the bed. Think about how brave this guy must have been to get into bed every night with a woman like that.

So, given all this information, the court decided there was no way this couple could continue living together and granted the divorce.

See what you started, Lorena?

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It may sound cold and callous, but a man in China has been granted permission by a Chinese court to divorce his comatose wife.

Sounds horrendous doesn't it? Like the kind of thing you'd expect to see in a soap opera. But under the circumstances, it is the right thing to do.

The man's wife has an incurable condition and will be in a coma for the rest of her life. He has agreed to arrange for her care. But he also has an ailing mother to take care of, so the court has permitted his divorce. There are no easy decisions here, for either the court or the man involved.

A story in the China Post briefly says that the comatose woman can't "fulfill her role as a wife." I was just about to suggest that rulings like this show that maybe Chinese authorities are beginning to demonstrate a more progressive approach. But this is still a very patriarchal society. I can't help but wonder what the court's ruling might have been if things were reversed, and it was the husband in the coma.

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Here's a divorce story from the international press, but I have no doubt it's true everywhere.

The story comes out of Madrid, and I saw it on the website of Pakistan's Daily Times. The gist of it is that a lot of professional athletes get divorced and abuse drugs during the first year after their playing days are over.

It doesn't take much thinking to figure it out. You spend all those years being cheered, making millions, having something all-encompassing around which your life revolves. And then it's all gone.

I'm not sure what happens abroad, but here in the U.S., a lot of former pro athletes and coaches end up taking jobs as sports analysts on TV. For some, it turns into a long-term second career, and I think a big part of the reason they do it is that it keeps them connected to the game. And if that keeps their marriages from falling apart, then it's a good thing.

There's been a lot of talk lately about the National Football League's poor record of taking care of its former players, many of whom suffer tremendous physical problems after retiring. But you have to wonder whether any of the pro leagues are seeing to the mental health of their former players. With all of the spouses and families that could be impacted when athletes have trouble adjusting to retirement, it seems like something the leagues should be doing.

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Whenever I hear about a couple that splits up after being married for a long time, the first question that always pops into my head is a simple one: What happened?

As we all know, there are many reasons that people seek divorced in midlife. It could be a midlife crisis — that's a big one among men. It could be just moving into different stages of their lives, particularly for women who stayed at home and raised kids.

However, I read a story the other day that offered up a more firm explanation, and it makes a lot of sense to me.

Louann Brizendine, a neurologist in California, says that our brain chemistry changes as we go through menopause. The chemicals that give us those "maternal instincts" everyone talks about are on the decline as we get older.

And Brizendine says that leads us to become more independent as we age. According to a story in the Sydney Morning Herald, the majority of divorces in couples over age 40 are initiated by women. Perhaps this could be one reason.

I love learning about things like this. It's easy to feel isolated when you go through a divorce, so every time you discover something that lets you know that you're not alone — that what you're experiencing is not unique to you — it's a good feeling.

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