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."

Although the current record stands at $180 million, The Mirror is projecting a Michael Spencer, a brokerage firm executive and Tory party treasurer, and his wife's divorce could top that figure.

Spencer and wife Lorraine were married 25 year when they split late last week. He's ranked 62nd wealthiest person in Britain; she's looking at a major payout, as recent settlements have awarded as much as 50 percent to exes.

The Telegraph reported on his vast sums, ranking Spencer Britain's fifth most powerful banker:

"...he has homes in Holland Park, New York, and Suffolk, a large private wine cellar and an extensive art collection. For his 50th birthday, he threw a $2.75 million party near St Tropez, with live music from Robbie Williams."

Yes, pop star Robbie Williams, who played one hour of his greatest hits for a mere $1 million.

Just as Spencer indulges, he also knows how to hand over the cash to just causes. His brokerage firm, ICAP, which he founded in 1986, rings in the holidays every year with Charity Day. Traders compete to raise the most money, donating all profits to organizations of their choice. Last year's total: $12 milion.

Get ready for a hefty settlement. Looks like Charity Day might come twice this year...

Photo: thisismoney.co.uk

The Washington Post recently reported on Japan's declining marriage rate. Short story: Men are looking to wives to take over maternal roles, and that scenario isn't very appealing to most single Japanese women:

"There is the rarely stated but almost universal expectation of Japanese men to be fed, clothed and picked up after. 'I am willing to take care of and give comfort to a man whom I care about, but that does not mean I want to be his mother,' she said."

In fact, WaPost found that women who had married were less likely than their male counterparts to remarry after divorce. The article states that post-divorce, men are unhappy and remarry quickly, while "the women are relatively happy and often delay remarriage." Perhaps it's the "burn me once" theory?

In addition to the lack of women looking to take on the mommy role, a stalled economy and a posh home life are keeping adult children in their parents' homes. A Calgary Herald piece from early August reported that Japanese parents — fed up with housing, feeding, and taking care of their single adult children — were taking matters into their own hands and organizing events exclusively for parents to find mates for their children.

"A government report from 2005 showed 71.5 percent of men aged 25 to 29 were unmarried, compared with 47.1 percent in 1990. For women, 32 percent from 30 to 34 years of age were single, compared with half that number in 1990."

With her bare hands! Pardon the exclamation points, but this is something out of a Stephen King short story. According to the LA Times, what was thought to be standard B&E is now turning out to be much more.

Fifty-one-year-old Susan Kuhnhausen returned home in September of last year to an intruder, hammer in hand, ready to bludgeon his victim. He did, in fact, get one blow in, but before he could do further damage, she wrestled the hammer out of his grip, then proceeded to strangle him to death.

Police have been investigating since the September attack, and recently uncovered a link between Kuhnhausen's ex-husband and the deceased attacker.

Investigators believe that Michael Kuhnhausen, distraught over the divorce, hired the attacker to kill his wife. Bits and pieces of a paper trail are slowly revealing that the attack was premeditated and Kuhnhausen to be the mastermind.

Michael Kuhnhausen was taken into custody and charged with conspiracy to commit murder and attempted murder and held on $500,000 bail.

Fortunately, Susan Kuhnhausen is in the clear: Police say she acted in self-defense. She acted very well, indeed.

Most often, the government stepping in to the average citizen's life is not so much of a good thing. But what do you expect in Shanghai? But sometimes, stepping in isn't such a bad thing, after all. The Chinese city now offers divorce counseling free of charge to couples filing with Shanghai's Songjiang District, reports web site china.org.cn.

Since last June, all couples have had access to psychological consultants from the district's Psychological Consultant Association. Consequently, 30% have accepted the offer, and 70% of those couples have reconciled. Overall, more than 300 divorce petitions have been dropped.

And for the remaining husbands and wives who would like to proceed? The counselors help to negotiate custody and division of property. Did we mention this is free of charge?

China isn't the only country stepping up to the divorce-mediation plate. Australia's Family Relationship Centre offers "providing free information for families, the centre has qualified, professional staff to help families with the difficulties associated with separation or divorce," says the Manning River Times.

A spokesperson for the organization says she hopes families see the center as an alternative to court entirely.

Doesn't seem like such a bad idea, does it?

Canadian web site globeandmail.com reported recently on what may be a national record. Nope, not the Olympics. The length and cost of a Vancouver couple's divorce proceedings.

Bernard Lotzkar and his former wife, Marian, appealed the $1 million legal bill that followed their 29-day court hearing. The former couple squabbled over everything from inheritances (justified) to gold coins (really?) to airline mileage points (oh, c'mon!).

The former Ms. Lotzkar's attorney "...billed her for 904 hours; his associate ... for 1,464 hours. Bills were also sent out for two lawyers who spent a total of 210 hours on research."

Just to put this in perspective, Britney's legal fees amounted to less than $750,000.

But who to top the Canadians than the Americans? Last year, a Connecticut couple spent 86 days in court and racked up a $13 million, according to The Hartford Advocate.

Let's hope we don't have more stories to file under "ridiculously expensive court cases" anytime soon.

Married men are 7 percent more likely than married women to commit adultery. And when a man has an affair, he doesn’t seem to consider the consequences of his actions. So says a study to be published in the fall, “So What Did You Do Last Night? The Economics of Infidelity.”

Infidelity for women peaks at 45, the study found. For men, it peaks at age 55.

Gee, what 55-year-old confessed adulterer has been in the news this week?

John Edwards, who claimed a week ago that he at least had been “99 percent honest” in his statements about the young filmmaker Reille Hunter.

“… [A] wealthy, famous politician such as John Edwards is a man with plenty of opportunity, and it seems that he gave the costs of getting caught little consideration. [That] fits well with our findings,” Bruce Elmslie, an economics professor in the Whittemore School of Business and Economics at the University of New Hampshire and a co-author of the study, told Firstwivesworld.

The study, co-written with Edinaldo Tebaldi, assistant professor of economics at Bryant University in Rhode Island, was based on data from the United States General Social Survey.

It is unusual in that it looks at infidelity from a cost-benefit analysis, rather than a sociological or psychological point of view.

Other points made in their study:

1. Men who are more likely to commit adultery:
• Live in cities (where there is greater opportunity to escape discovery)
• Do not have a college degree
• Do not belong to any particular socioeconomic group

2. What men do not take into account when having an affair:
• The economic status of the new woman, or her ability to bear children
• Their wife’s educational level
• Religion

"As with spousal education, men don't weigh the costs — spousal quality or eternal damnation — when deciding whether or not to have an affair," Elmslie said.

The BBC recently reported on an unusual circumstance for Egyptian divorce: a housing shortage. Affordable housing, to be exact.

Young couples in Cairo spends not weeks, not months, but years saving for an apartment in a soaring real estate market, and, according to a women's rights activists quoted in the piece, by the time a husband and wife can purchase a home and move in together, they're "sick of one another." Consequently, Egypt boasts a high newlywed divorce rate.

(Meanwhile, couples are doing just the opposite in the States. Those who would love to split up view divorce as a luxury — and are forced to stay together, burdened by the unbearable weight of decades-long mortagages and the crushing blows of the domestic housing market.)

Cairo has deemed it's situation a "marriage crisis," and measured are being taken to remedy the problem.

In fact, the housing crunch has inspired a "wealthy businessman" to give away an apartment for every day of Ramadan this September. Newly married couples will be chosen through a random drawing on an Egyptian game show; apparently, huge numbers have registered.

The Australian posted a recent article on the impact of divorce on the environment. The claim? That the results of divorce — multiple homes, cars, energy use — is eating way at the earth's resources. One can't argue with that, especially as a new report by the Australia's Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts released the following numbers:

"A four-person family that breaks up will generate around 43 percent more garbage than they did when they were together. They will use up to 34 percent more water and up to 70 percent more energy, depending on the type of new dwellings being occupied."

But what we can argue with is the alternative: Stay in a broken relationship? And keep the kids there, too, just to cut down on the garbage and utilities? Please. A rise in energy consumption seems far less detrimental than forcing kids to stay in a glued-together, patched-up broken home. With the electricity they save now, they'll be running up their therapist's bill with all the hours they'll spend sitting on the couch in 10 years.

And let's remember, with second marriages come a union of two houses to one. Live Science reports that the environmental footprint of U.S. households who had "weathered divorce and remarriage shrank back to that of married households."

If researchers are looking to pin the environmental crisis on something, divorce is really the least of our worries.

Half of all Yemeni girls are married by the age of 18. Nujood Ali (right), didn't really have a fighting chance at making it through her teens without a husband. By the age of 10, Nujood had, in fact, been married off — and divorced.

Nujood in one of a handful of landmark cases of child divorce in the Middle East. Fortunately, Saudi Arabian officials and child advocates are looking to end child marriages before there's ever a need for a dissolution.

The Associated Press has reported that the Saudi government is putting pressure on families to hold off on adolescent unions and arranged marriages, such as one 11-year-old boy who was passing out wedding invitations in class (he's to marry his 10-year-old cousin), the article describes, as a young boy would do with birthday party planning.

The Human Rights Commission has stepped in to aide the minors, and, along with clerics who also oppose the marriages, is urging Saudi government to pass legislation setting the minimum age for marriage.

No one can deny that this is a much larger issue than a "way of life." There are politics, religion, and money at stake, as well as a perspective that Western cultures will never have the capacity to understand. Fortunately, there is someone who is chipping away at the rules, the traditions, and most importantly, the inequality.