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.

Remember the story about Iraq war veteran Marine Sgt. Tyler Ziegel and his post-homecoming wedding? If you don’t remember the story, you likely remember the photo — and not the one at the right: the groom in military dress, bride at his side, his face brutally disfigured by a suicide bomber.

The story, alas, does not have a happy ending, even by depressing TV-movie standards. According to the UK’s Times Online (in a story I, and, it seems, much of the US press, missed until now), Sgt. Ziegel and his wife have divorced after just about a year. What’s lovely here, though, is the Times story itself: respectful, thoughtful, compassionate, clear-eyed in its recognition of reality — and its finding of a silver lining. Read it all, but here’s a highlight (slash, spoiler):

The fairy tale, as we know it, was not meant to be. They were too young to be married. Too young to process the possibility that what led them into a lifelong commitment was a desire for certainty in an uncertain world.
There is no mystery, no implosion, no tragic conclusion. There were factors that added up. Factors that at the time they could not have foreseen. That a marriage would not offset the consequences of Ty’s injuries. That it would not compensate for the loss and the grief felt by a young woman losing her father.
Everyone suspected it was too soon — that maybe it wasn’t right. But nobody spoke out. Others, strangers, projected onto them what they needed to believe.
They were larger than life. When we heard their story, we put ourselves in their shoes, imagining what we would do in the same situation. Renee personified the courage and strength we hoped we would have. But she was 18 years old. And neither is prone to introspection. They weren’t people who asked why. Between the two of them, they had so much life experience, but the emotional narrative of their lives never caught up.
What made us think it would? Why did we have such high hopes for them in the first place? Nobody really ever knew Ty and Renee. Not even Ty and Renee.
But this is not the end. They emerged from the marriage with warmth and affection for each other — not anger and recrimination.
She was there when he needed her most; she showed up and stood by him. That is more than many people will ever have in a marriage. It is something they will always share.

Here is this week’s installment of Ask Lynn, the advice column that BG’s alter-ego writes for MSN.com (powered by Match.com). This week, Lynn responds to a letter from Daria, who is quite content being single.

But if she’s happy without a partner, why write? Could she be lying?

Definitely not! But Daria needs to know that loving her independence does not preclude loving someone else; Oh, and not every guy is going to embezzle hundreds of thousands of dollars from you.

It’s a must-read. Then, when you come back here, a must-comment!

Check out what our neighbors to the north have discovered: men are about twice as likely to report depression stemming from divorce than women.

According to the AFP news agency, men aged 20 to 64 who had divorced or separated were six times more likely to report an episode of depression than those who remained married, according to Statistics Canada. Women, however, were only 3.5 times more likely to have had a bout of depression after a marital breakup than those still in a relationship.

Neither the study nor the news report on it gave any real indication of why this was. What would have been interesting is if they paired these statistics with ones on who initiates divorce and reasons cited for the split. I wonder, for example, if women are initiating the divorces more because of cheating spouses and the like. In which case they are probably six times more likely to be pissed off after divorce than men. Or hey, vice versa.

But do check out that little happy nugget of news at the bottom. Turns out it takes only four years to get over the complete and utter devastation of losing the person you love. Well sheesh, if they can solve that one, now can they tell us how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop?

Via Broadsheet:

It sounds like the opening scene of a promising Indian indie: 40 family members gather to agree on a suitable bride for an eligible son. As it turns out, says the son, there’s no suitable bride for me; I’m not interested in women at all. (Women’s clothing, yes. But not women.)That son — who was kicked out of the house that day — has now come back to live with that family as their daughter Rose, though her mother still hides her dresses and jewelry when she gets the chance. At the end of the day, though, there’s really no hiding at all anymore: Rose (just Rose) is now India’s first transgender talk show host. Her show, “Ippadikku Rose” (“Yours, Rose”), will be broadcast to up to 64 million people in the southern state of Tamil Nadu later this month. It is, according to the New York Times, “expected to cause a sensation.”

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