Read; weep. Nothing to add.

World of Warcraft is definitely not for someone facing the end of three decades of marriage. Yet I am all of these things as well as a Darkspear Troll mage, with my home in the Barren Lands, a savanna populated with livid pink T-Rexes who wear blue necklaces and matching earrings. I am Level 21 (out of 70), just high enough to get out of the newbie playpen and die suddenly as I stray past cave bears or mega-spiders. /snip/

In many ways, “WoW” was weirdly evocative of what I faced in life. I was newly alone and, like my avatar, dependent on the skills I had, not the ones I wished for. At each turn, I seemed to be facing new dangers. Often, I died. But I rose again and again, finding within myself a bedrock strength that even this calamity did not erase.

My son and I learned “WoW” together. While he commandeered the keyboard, I sat beside him, to help him choose a path…My son has a generous, intuitive spirit. Though I’ve done my best to seem normal, like a weather vane he reads my moods. For weeks, I walked like the Undead through the routines of family life. I felt as gaping as the creatures in Undercity, a “WoW” metropolis, with their chests ripped open to expose neon-colored hearts….Then my son would invite me to play, his voice shiny with intentional cheer. I would find myself with his arm curled around my neck like the tenderest, toughest vine. His fear of what was happening to us moored me to earth. The end of love is a voyage to an unknown land, with mysteries and dangers that I had to learn to navigate…

So here are my “WoW” lessons, thanks to my son:…

Nope, sorry! Click here to behold Robin Kirk’s amazing essay in its full, gory, glory.

Remember when breaking up with someone over the phone was scandalous? (What, you couldn’t be bothered to jump in your horseless carriage and look your ex-to-be in the eye?) Now, Jezebel flags the inevitable: not just breakups, but full-on divorces, celebrity* and civilian**, announced — for the first time, to the divorce-ee — via Twitter. Mercifully concise, I guess, but #tacky! “Please,” writes Sadie Stein, “don’t let this become a thing.”

Hear, hear. Though actually, for legal purposes, tweeting’s too concise. Quoth a lawyer at Divorce Saloon: “To say that you ‘twittered’ your intentions to divorce your spouse to your followers on Twitter and that that is somehow enough ‘notice’ of a pending divorce action? That that would be tantamount to ‘personal service’ as required by statute? I don’t think the day will ever come.”

All of that said, while I’m all for every discussion about maintaining civility in the bluish glow of technology, I want to say this for the record: our little beeping and blooping machines have brought far more friends, lovers, and allies together than they have torn asunder. Tweet on!

—-

* “In the past few months, Kelsey Grammer, Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy and Eva Longoria all replaced the time-tested PR statement with a tweet. Maybe they feel like their fans deserve to hear it from them.”

** “Apparently one guy did this…without consulting the wife he was divorcing, writing ‘My wife has left me, I wasn’t good enough, isn’t that a shame’ before she’d had a chance to tell her friends or family.”

Arianna Huffington introduces a new section, HuffPo Divorce:

“I’ve always thought that, as a country, we do a lousy job of addressing how we can do divorce differently — and better. Especially when there are children involved. That’s why I’m so excited about the launch of HuffPost Divorce.”

Anything that can help families cope with divorce is a good thing. Better still, a considered collection of personal, legal, practical, and psychological pieces that approach and elucidate divorce in the myriad ways… now that sounds really kinda awesome! Inspired by Nora Ephron, fleshed out by family law professionals, essays and advice, and authors of topical books.

It’s almost impossible not to feel a tiny tad jaded, thinking about divorce-affected people as a publishing niche, but that’s exactly what we are. Half the population! I wonder if this is the beginning of more like this.

Meanwhile, I welcome the story and information sharing that may well become a resource for one of life’s most changing events. As a person who went through a starter marriage in her twenties, and who is a child of divorce herself (actually, once I counted and there have been no fewer than 12 divorces in my immediate family) I’d love to dip in now and again to say, find ways to manage doubled parental visiting guilt and the impending holidays!

Enabling Supporting the time-honored marketing scheme theory that everything is OK if it results in shopping, UK department store empire Debenham’s has introduced a kicky new concept in retail therapy: the divorce registry!

Another nail in the coffin of the sanctity of marriage? Liberating new trend? Stupid marketing gimmick? What do you think?

MSN.com, Match.com, HappenMagazine.com: they’re in a healthy and satisfying 3-way relationship. Meaning that you can find MSN/Match.com’s “Ask Lynn” columns –penned by BG’s alter ego — over at Happen now as well.

This week Lynn helps Edgy in Erie, a gal living with, and raising her kids with, a guy who has not fully extricated himself from his unhappy marriage. Namely:

1. He hasn’t followed through with the divorce.
2. He has cheated on me with her.
3. He talks to her often and seems overly concerned with the goings-on of her life (beyond kid-related things).

After three years, does this guy need understanding, or a kick in the pants? Read the full letter — and Lynn’s response — at Happen, then comment below!

In a depressing new study—about an already sad topic—oncologists Dr. Marc Chamberlain and Dr. Michael J. Glantz and their colleagues found that women given a dire health diagnosis were more likely to be abandoned by their (male) mates than in the reverse scenario.

If couples are happy before the diagnosis, it appears that men are more likely to abandon wives who become seriously ill. If couples are already troubled before a partner becomes ill, the finding suggests that women in unhappy marriages are less likely to proceed with a divorce if their husbands become ill.

(Same-sex couples were apparently not a part of the study.)

While this plays into many of our society’s worst stereotypes–and women’s worst fears–about non-committal males, perhaps being aware of this research ahead of time will help doctors help couples facing a grim diagnosis and long treatment. Who knows? Maybe men and women who are more conscious of the marriage-challenging stress that lies ahead may be better prepared to deal with it when it happens.

There was an approximately 50 percent chance that this would happen.

I would remind everyone that breaking up via text is tacky, but I don’t need a fatwa against this site:

A Saudi man has divorced his wife by text message, a newspaper said earlier this month.

The man was in Iraq when he sent the message informing her she was no longer his spouse. He followed up with a telephone call to two of his relatives, the daily Arab News reported. …

Saudi Arabia practices a strict form of Islamic Sharia law, and clerics preside over Sharia courts as judges. Under the law a man can divorce his wife by saying “I divorce you” three times.

The Saudi man was in Iraq to participate in “what he described as ‘jihad,'” according to the Arab News. (via AOL)

Look, sometimes when you’re rushing to Iraq to aid al Qaeda militants, you don’t have time to do things properly. (And the other half of you are thinking “if only divorce was this easy here!”)

Here, your weekly installment — now on Mondays!* — of Ask Lynn, the advice column penned by BG’s alter ego at MSN.com (powered by Match.com). This week we meet Edgy in Erie, and right away we see where she got her classic alliterative nom-de-lovelorn:

“I find myself on edge all the time,” she writes of her boyfriend, “because …

1. He hasn’t followed through with the divorce.
2. He has cheated on me with her.
3. He talks to her often and seems overly concerned with the goings-on of her life (beyond kid-related things).”

Yep, Erie, we’re all edgy now too.

How to take that edge off? Find out what Lynn has to say here, and then come back here to comment!

* Our latest season of all-new adventures wrapped up last Monday >sniff<! Stay tuned for more …

Because you know you’ve always been curious about your neighbors lives, the Binghamton (N.Y.) Press & Sun-Bulletin has created a database called “Why We Divorce”. It uses state Department of Health records to detail county-by-county in New York state the reasons people cite for the demise of their marriage. Mental (and “other”) cruelty was the number one reason people across the state divorced in 2005, which was the last year the numbers appear to be available. Abandonment came in at number two. And apparently only five people in the entire state of New York, pop. 19,306,183, divorced because of adultery that year — which, we assume, is probably a little like when celebrities split citing “irreconcilable differences” (i.e. “We have irreconcilably different opinions of Madonna“).

On a more upbeat note, the site also tracks the most popular wedding month per county in the state. Even if you’re not from New York, you know you’re curious when most Staten Islanders get married (August) and how many January weddings there were in Herkimer County (9). That, or one may learn that come October in Dutchess County, those with wedding fatigue may wish to get the heck outta Dodge.