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

This week Lynn advises Searching in New Hampshire — a 50-ish single mom looking for a man who is willing to date a woman with small children. Where should she look without moving to a bigger town? Read Lynn’s suggestions then come back here to comment!

Via Mary Elizabeth Williams at Broadsheet:

Marital breakups are rarely easy, but for couples with children, they often come with the added nagging fear that you’re forever ruining your kids’ lives. But a new study (PDF) affirms what anyone whose own childhood resembled a Richard Yates novel suspects — that sticking together for the sake of the kids can backfire.

The study, provocatively titled “Are Both Parents Always Better Than One? Parental Conflict and Young Adult Well-Being” (from the California Center for Population Research at the University of California-Los Angeles), charts the progress of 1,963 households from teens to early 30s. While citing that “children tend to do better living with two biological married parents,” the study is a reassuring academic loogie in the face of self-sacrifice, an acknowledgement of the role of “poor quality marriage” in drinking and dropout rates.

Speaking about the study to Science Daily, the paper’s co-author, Cornell associate professor Kelly Musick, said, “the advantages of living with two continuously married parents are not shared equally by all children … Children from high-conflict families are more likely to drop out of school, have poor grades, smoke, binge drink, use marijuana, have early sex, be young and unmarried when they have a child and then experience the breakup of that relationship.”

An intact marriage isn’t automatically a successful one — for anybody. (The study also helpfully cites previous findings that “although marriage confers benefits to adults on average, those in poor quality marriages are no better off than the single and, indeed, may fare worse on some measures.”) Despite our continued cultural insistence upon equating divorce with failure, for parents whose relationships have become unbearable, the best way to save the family may be to dissolve it.

From the New York Daily News:

What we saw Monday was rubbernecking, slowing down to gawk at a smoldering wreck. It doesn’t mean another 5.2 million people suddenly wanted to see a “reality” show about raising eight kids.

What happened Monday, in fact, took the focus away from what the show has always been about. What was envisioned as an irresistibly cute fifth birthday party for their sextuplets became a footnote to Jon and Kate’s simmering anger toward each other and the suddenly uncomfortable tabloid life they signed up for.

Now, sure, the fate of a “reality” TV show about a couple raising twins and sextuplets will not be the biggest long-term issue for those kids if their parents split up.

But being on TV is what Jon and Kate seem to do now, and it’s hard to see how Monday night’s sad, uncomfortable dance will create the kind of long-term television viewers really want to follow.

Sad and uncomfortable, most of us can get without turning on the TV. It’s not that we have any inherent problem with discomfort on “reality” TV. Watching supermodels eat maggots seems to be cause to tune in, not tune out.

We are intrigued by physical exhaustion on “Survivor,” we feel the frustration of the overweight on “The Biggest Loser,” and we love seeing Gordon Ramsay fillet his erring chefs on “Hell’s Kitchen.”

But watching an actual relationship deteriorate — the cold silence, the simmering resentment, the little cruelties — that’s not much fun.

Right. A lot of us can get that without turning on the TV, too. So when it comes to reality-TV couples, perhaps it’s time to look away — and maybe toward the genuinely charming (and even edifying) The Little Couple, whose honeymoon period, we hope, will last a good long time.

Reruns from February 2, 1998…

Laura writes: I’m 36, divorced (for over five years), and have been seeing a great guy for four months. But last week, a guy I fell head over heels for a year ago came back into my life (after having moved away for a year). I really like the guy I’m seeing, but have never felt that “magic” with him — as so wonderfully talked about in “Sleepless In Seattle” in the attic scene with the old wedding dress. I did feel “magic” with Mr. Return.

My plan of action is to spend time with Mr. Return on a non-sexual, nothing but friends basis to see if there is, truly something there. I want to be fair to the guy I’m dating, as well as to my soul — after all, I so want to find my destiny, and believe that abiding love has that “magic.” Do you have any other ideas? Do I sound like I’m totally barking up the wrong tree? Your advice is most welcome.

Lois Lane writes: I’ve been married for seven years (not happily) and about a year ago I met up with my ex-boyfriend from high school. It was like we never broke up. My husband can provide for me with material things but not emotionally. On the other hand my ex is there for me emotionally, but not for material things. Should I divorce my husband or should I stay for the sake of the kids? I’m so sad!

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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 …

Courtney E. Martin had an interesting piece at The American Prospect the other day about the ways in which the legalization — here and there (but not there) — of gay marriage and has prompted her to reevaluate her own aversion to the tying of the knot. As a feminist wary of wedlock myself, I can’t help but nod along with her argument that historically, marriage is both heterosexist and just plain sexist. At the same time, it’s hard for a straight gal to condemn an institution that once considered women property at the same time that her gay friends are happily flocking to California to make their love public, official, and legit in the eyes of the very law that heretofore shut them out.

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Here, your weekly installment of Ask Lynn, the advice column penned by BG’s alter ego at MSN.com (powered by Match.com). This week, we meet a fellow who’s about to become a dad…and he’s already “Overwhelmed.” The problem? When he’s home from work, his pregnant girlfriend basically won’t let him out of her sight — not to get a beer with friends, see [his] mom, or buy a pair of shoes, he says. How can Overwhelmed hang on to any shred of his “me” time? (And how can his gf not realize that she’s gonna want grandma on her good side?) Find out what Lynn has to say, and then, on your you-time, come back to comment!

From NPR:

If you have a happy marriage, you might let your kids date more. If you have a bad marriage, you may keep your teenagers closer to home. A new study links parents’ satisfaction in their own relationships to the dating rules they set for their children. Alex Cohen talks to Stephanie Madsen, lead author of the study and professor of psychology at McDaniel College, about what that link says about parents.

Give it a listen and let us know what you think!

“Mom! You’re totally embarrassing me! Next time you cheat on dad, get somebody cute, OK?”

According to a totally unscientific, self-selecting survey conducted by the prestigious research super-team Cookie Magazine and AOL Body, out of 30,000 respondents who self-identified as married women with children, 34% claim to be getting action between soccer practice and piano lessons, if you know what I’m saying. But this being the Internet, it’s also pretty likely that 33% of those 30,000 respondents are guys who really just like the idea of mom waiting for the UPS guy in lingerie while dad is…well, thinking about dad just ruins it.

While cheating is against the BG creed, thank God someone is at least paying attention to the sex lives of mothers, whether in actual practice or pure speculation. Though of course, actual practice would be much, much better. I mean a card on Mothers’ Day is nice, but after raising you, doesn’t she deserve a nice big, hard….hug?