Moses may have passed the Ten Commandments on to the Israelites, but a preacher has added a new one. Thou must have sex every day for a week. And guess what? Couples say it is helping their marriage.

As The New York Times reported, on November 16, Rev. Ed Young, a TV host and pastor of the evangelical Fellowship Church in Texas, told his parishioners to have a week of "congregational copulation." He did so while preaching in front of a large bed and reading from the Bible.

In encouraging people to have more sex, he noted that it would turn people from "whining about the economy to whoopee."

And having more whoopee certainly has helped improve people's moods and mindsets.

Lisa Young, the pastor's wife, who gamely dressed in knee-high black boots and jeans, noted that a week of sex may even help people forgive infidelities, addiction to pornography and bitter hurts, although, she said, in addition, “there’s been some pain.”

As we've reported, infidelity is hard to forgive; maybe sex can be as helpful as therapy, which many can't afford right now. It's hard to have sex with someone you feel betrayed by, but maybe the lack of sex was a cause of problems too.

After all, in the early stages of courting before marriage, most couples are having a lot of sex. That eventually tapers off with the strain of kids, jobs and mortgages. The Youngs, parents of four children, have been married for 26 years and can relate to these real-life problems. As Rev. Young jokes, kids stand for "keeping intimacy at a distance successfully."

If you make the time to have sex, it will bring you closer to your spouse and to God, he said. You will perform better at work, leave a loving legacy for your children to follow, and may even prevent an extramarital affair.

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This was something that former View host Debbie Matenopoulos didn’t want to see. On Internet sites, there were rumors that her husband was cheating. Now to her shock and dismay, her husband, the music executive Jay Faires, has surprised her by filing divorce papers in California.

"I am deeply saddened by the dissolution of my seven-year relationship with my husband, a man I truly believed I would be with forever," Matenopoulos said in a statement to E! News, where she now works. “Although my public persona may seem unconventional at times, I do not take marriage and family lightly, and I am quite traditional.”

Faires filed for divorce in Los Angeles Superior Court citing the usual — irreconcilable differences. He also said that, since the couple does not have any children and she is gainfully employed, he should not have to provide any spousal support.

It appears, he wasn’t supporting the relationship for some time. The couple, who married in July of 2003, did separate in March of this year. But like many women, Matenopoulos thought they were going through a rough patch and that maybe a separation would give them time to appreciate what they had.

But perhaps she should have read How To Tell If Your Man Is Cheating. Although she may have known that less than 5 percent of couples who separate ever get back together, hope is something all of us have when it comes to reviving troubled relationships.

Before it is truly over, women try really hard and are willing to forgive many sins in an effort to keep their marriages afloat. However, the boat has now left the dock and Matenopoulos will sail on solo, seeking a safe harbor with someone who will appreciate her, which is just what she deserves.

“I’ve been trying to sell this house for two years,” Chris Wealty said. He dropped the price from $850,000 to $599,000; still no interest. The house sits empty, once home to a married couple. They are trying to divorce, but settling the financial terms depends on selling this house in College Park, a neighborhood north of Orlando, Florida.

So he decided to advertise. On a large (and not very attractive) sign in the front yard, he wrote “3,400 sqft Lake View House: $599,000. Helping me get divorced: $ priceless $. 407 592 4964 (Husband)”

As he told the Orlando television station WESH, he and his wife had been married for 17 years, and had been in negotiations for several years over a divorce settlement. The house is in one of the nicer areas, former orange groves surrounded by lakes near the well-known Winter Park. It is not far from the modest bungalow where Jack Kerouac wrote Dharma Bums, a home that is now a writer’s colony.

But a nice four-bedroom, three bath house, a pretty view, a good neighborhood have not been enough. Housing prices in Orlando, which went up 34 percent from 2004 to 2005, have now dropped by 20 percent. One leading real estate expert, Robert Schiller, says Orlando prices will drop another 30 percent this year.

Thus Wealty’s desperation. If he doesn’t sell the house soon, he said, he faces foreclosure. One of his neighbors opined that putting up a sign airing dirty laundry was kind of “white trashy,” so the experiment hasn’t endeared him to the community. But his life, and his wife’s life, have moved on.

When asked what his soon-to-be-ex wife thought of the sign, Wealthy answered: “Well, to tell you the truth, I'm not real sure. We don't talk much these days except through lawyers.”

No kidding.

For every bride who discovers she had an ally, a mother-in-like, after the wedding, there are those who realize they have a monster-in-law. My monster-in-law gave me a fuzzy sleep suit with a big zipper up the front the first year of our marriage, possibly the least sexy piece of clothing ever. I felt like the Easter bunny. It was royal blue.

But the mother-in-law in the beautiful coastal town of Ravello, on Italy’s Amalfi Coast, must have been a doozie. The Italian press was all over the story of a man who got his marriage annulled this week because of interference by his wife’s mother. One Italian newspaper talked about mother-in-laws who put themselves between husband and wife, “with the docile tenderness of a Rottweiler.”

The Italian press readily conceded that it’s usually the husband’s mother, and not the wife’s mother, who acts like a Rottweiler. Last year a poll by Eures, a job portal on the internet, said that 3 out of 10 Italian divorces were due to "the unusually close attachment of Italian men to their mothers." The mothers sometimes move in, take care of the house, and often criticize their daughter-in-law’s housekeeping, cooking or child rearing.

This case was not nearly as severe; it hinged on an oral contract. Antonio Paolillo, a car dealer, was set to marry Maria Assunta Gemma Criscuoli in 1998, and there was a little bambini on the way. Paolillo, 27 at the time, apparently was apprehensive about his mother-in-law-to-be. So just before the wedding he told his bride, 21, that she had to keep her mother out of their marriage.

If not, he said, he would get a divorce.

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Does your spouse chew too loudly? Maybe he can't beat his smoking habit. Or perhaps he's garnered a bit too much attention from the ladies? According to The Times of India, these minor annoyances have morphed into major grounds for divorce. If you follow our Relevant News coverage, you may have noticed a trend. Some of the most unusual divorce stories come from one country: India.

Taking a cue from Western culture (unfortunately, that would be us), Indian couples have increasingly rushed to the courthouse should a facet of the beloved's bother them. Of course, these are just a handful of cases of the already low 1.1% divorce rate for the country.

Couples have supplied a plethora of off-the-wall reasons to split. We recently wrote about the man who filed because his wife's acne was "traumatic" and he could not share a home with her. A few weeks back, a homemaker gambled in the temperamental stock market and her husband wasn't willing to shoulder the financial loss with her. Just a few months ago, a frustrated husband drew up divorce paperwork should his wife light up one more cigarette.

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This story involves an old dog, and one new trick.

On Monday, a court in Naples was supposed to hear a plea for the dissolution of a marriage of 19 years. The husband had been a widower when they met. He hired the woman to pick potatoes on his farm. What could be more romantic?

They married, even though he was 30 years older, and worked together, earning enough money to build a deluxe hotel in Barano d’Ischia, a popular mountain town above Maronti Beach. Barano, population 10,000, is on the island of Ischia, just outside the Bay of Naples. That hotel was so successful they eventually had a small chain of hotels.

For the last week or so, leading up to the court hearing, the case has been the talk of Barano.

Why?

Because the man asking for a divorce is 91 years old. And although the wife, 60, agreed to give him a divorce, she was unhappy about her settlement, saying that she wouldn’t have enough to eat, and that she had been evicted from their home. In explaining why she deserved more of his social security money, as well as the house, she countersued, saying that he had a lover. (“Hai un’amante.”)

That’s when things got nasty. He counter-complained: She was the one who had taken a lover.

The case was due in court on Monday, but the 91 year old sent in a note saying he was sick. So the court adjourned the case until March.

That was certainly not going to stop Italian newspapers, blogs, and television stations from mulling over the meaning of the case. One TV crew went to Barano to get some local reactions. I don’t speak Italian, but it’s worth watching the video just to see the man at the end. His gestures can only mean, “I just hope I can do that when I’m 91.”

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Some call it karma or comeuppence,  or stars colliding but not in your favor: Sienna Miller's romance with "Brothers and Sisters" star Balthazar Getty now seems over.  Sources say that Getty was stalling getting the divorce he had promised, and now the relationship is over.

As we reported, Miller was caught canoodling with the very married Getty this summer. The affair sparked a lot of criticism since Getty has a wife and four children, one just a baby.

Although his representative released the standard defensive, that the actor had had problems in his relationship before this happened and he and his wife were in the midst of separating, the news came a shock to his wife, Rosetta.

In the past four months, Rosetta has played it smart by building her own life away from her husband but still welcoming him to share the children's birthdays and school events. This allowed him to see what he was missing while the novelty of something new perhaps wore off with the ho-hum of everyday life. Plus, it's hard to be involved in a relationship that so many disapprove of, something the couple faced on a daily basis. Getty complained about the intrusiveness of the press, calling it "dangerous."

Last weekend, Miller acknowledged to Us Magazine that it's "nice not to have a relationship that the press constantly want to scrutinize."

Well Sienna, the press wouldn't be scrutinizing it as much if you were not with a married man.

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A 50 year longitudinal study of 17,000 people in Great Britain, the National Child Development Study, has concluded once again that children of divorce are more likely to struggle academically and have emotional problems, are usually less well educated, and are more likely to divorce themselves.

But as Tolstoy said, “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” And unhappy families, whether they divorce or not, have unhappy children.

Consider what life was like in one Italian family that is now facing divorce.

The mother and father face five years in prison for completely refusing to consider the effects of their incessant arguing on their 12 year old son as they pursued a divorce. Italian privacy laws have withheld the names of the parents, but not their behavior. Prosecutors in Milan have asked the judge, Cesare Tacconi, to charge the mother and father with mistreating a minor.

The child, prosecutors say, had a "syndrome of anxiety and depression" that prevented him from concentrating in school. When a court-appointed health worker visited the home, the report said the son seemed “disturbed,” had fallen behind in school, and believed, with some evidence, that his parents hated each other.

The prosecutors said, "Each blamed the other for shortcoming and educational errors in bringing up the child."

The parents, the report said, used the child as a psychological punching bag in their battle. It is the first such charge in a European court. Judge Tacconi will decide in December whether or not the case should go to trial.

No word on whether mom and dad have managed to get a divorce yet.

This isn't a trick but a treat. Seems like Tea Leoni and David Duchnovy, who announced their separation in October, were able to put their marital battles aside and take their kids Madeleine and Kyd trick-or-treating on Halloween. Today Page Six in The New York Post quoted a source who said, "They were very cute and were holding hands."

The source said Leoni "looked very mellow and relaxed" while chatting with friends with their kids.

It's easy to understand why she may have been stressed this summer after Duchnovy was treated for sex addiction. That is awfully embarrassing for any family especially when it's also very public.

However, people can surrender their egos and hurts for the greater good.

Kids are often the connective tissue that reminds parents how much they share. It is that family time – especially holidays like Halloween, Thanksgiving or Christmas — that is often missed after a divorce. However as a friend once told me, "I loved spending holidays with my ex — just not any other day."

Either way, whether they stay together or separate, one can break up and still rebuild a new family structure where happy times are shared, just not 24/7.

The British comic John Cleese has felt, three times, that it was time for something completely different in his personal life. He is divorcing wife No. 3, the psychotherapist Alyce Faye Eichelberger Cleese, after 15 years of marriage. In a recent interview with The Times of London, he had some bitter things to say about divorce, and some funny things to say about marriage.

This marriage was his longest. His marriage to Connie Booth lasted from 1968 to 1978, and the one to Barbara Trentham lasted from 1981 to 1990; both included a daughter.

That is Gripe No. 1 in this divorce. “I'm paying more than £1 million a year right now,” he told the newspaper. That’s $1.6 million at today’s exchange rate. He said, “And we never had children.”

He has also given her $10 million in marital property, which is presumed to include their $1.5 million apartment in New York. But he would hardly be left homeless. Cleese has four homes in California, three in London and a villa in Jamaica.

He has said that if the weather in California could be dragged to London, he would never leave London. But, alas, London is dreary so he spends much of his time in California, or Jamaica.

Gripe No. 2: He is 68, and he’s going to have to keep working to pay spousal support. But keep in mind, work for him is doing voice-overs for animated films, playing Chief Inspector Dreyfus in "Pink Panther 2", due out next year, and doing other films; making various television shows, and appearing in comic but inspirational business training videos.

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