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.

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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Instead of a marriage prenup, leave it to the ancestors of Solomon to figure out a divorce prenup. Yes indeedy. This week, Israel's Knesset (the country's Parliament) informed the High Court of Justice it would vote on a bill aimed at dividing assets of couples undergoing divorce procedures before the divorce was granted.

This concept is designed to prevent a spouse — usually the spurned one — from extorting a larger settlement in exchange for agreeing to the divorce.

According to the petitioners, the husband uses the power of the purse to get agreement from the wife in the majority of cases. In Israel, as in the U.S., more women launch divorce proceedings than do men.

The Haredi parties (religious leaders) strongly oppose the bill regarding it as an attempt to weaken the rabbinical courts' power. (In the Jewish faith, you have to get a get, a blessing/permission from a rabbi, before getting a divorce.)

A court can rule that you and your hubby split up, but until they get a get, the religious feel they can't remarry, and that the divorce is not accepted in the eyes of God.

The problem with the new law, others argue, is that it would make divorce so egalitarian that the person who suffers doesn't get a little extra for the hassle and pain. And they say, it may make divorce too easy.

However, let's face it. Few people are cavalier about divorce and most come to that decision with great difficulty.

The bill was approved last July, but it is up to the Knesset to make a final decision.

Gov. Sarah Palin just won an important vote. Despite Alaska's legislature finding that she abused her power by firing a public safety commissioner, the state personnel board issued its own report and said she didn't violate "Alaska Executive Ethics Act in connection with these matters."

Those matters were reportedly being annoyed that Walt Monegan, the public safety commissioner, wouldn't fire her sister's ex-husband, state trooper Mike Wooten, who she despised. 
As we reported, Palin denied the claim and said Monegan was fired in July because she wanted the department to head in a new direction. The case became known as Palin's Troopergate.

"The Governor is grateful that this investigation has provided a fair and impartial review of this matter and upholds the Governor's ability to take measures when necessary to ensure that Alaskans have the best possible team working to serve them," Palin’s attorney, Thomas Van Flein, said in a statement after the report was released Monday. 


However, Monegan is as confused as others by this new report.

Monegan told The Associated Press on Monday he was "perplexed and disappointed" by the latest report, which was prepared by Timothy Petumenos, an independent investigator for the Alaska Personnel Board.

"It conflicts with the first investigation and then casts doubts on both of them. So, it doesn't really resolve anything," Monegan said. "If it did, then I could walk away. It does seem to fly in the face of circumstantial evidence."

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Logic tells you that if you are a stressed-out pregnant woman, somehow that anxiety will become your baby's norm, and even seep into his or her personality. But for a long time, no research confirmed that. Well, until now.

Professor Marta Weinstock-Rosin of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem School of Pharmacy has been fascinated with this subject her entire work life, and now her experimental work with rats has demonstrated the connection in a conclusive, laboratory-tested manner.

"There is an enormous advantage in working with rats," says Weinstock-Rosen. (No, she's not talking about cheating ex-husbands but the animal kind.)

Researchers were able to compare offspring of stressed rat mothers with offspring whose mothers were not stressed. They also were able to compare the results of administering various types of stress at different periods during gestation to see which period might produce which behavior.

And guess what they discovered?

Stress during pregnancy caused developmental and emotional problems for the rat pups, included impaired learning and memory, less capacity to cope with adversity and symptoms of anxiety and depressive-like behavior.

Weinstein-Rosin says that all these symptoms parallel impairments that occur in kids born to mothers who experience stress during pregnancy.

According to Science Daily, further experiments by Weinstock-Rosin and her students have shown that the culprit was the hormone cortisol, which is released by the adrenal gland during stress and may reach the fetal brain during critical stages of development.

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Rosie O'Donnell never minces words. Part of the reason we love her, right? In supporting Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson, whose mother, brother and nephew were tragically murdered in Chicago, she blamed "guns and domestic violence."

In her blog, O'Donnell wrote, "Guns and domestic violence are a lethal combination — injuring and killing women every day in the United States. A gun is the weapon most commonly used in domestic homicides. In fact, more than three times as many women are murdered by guns used by their husbands or intimate acquaintances than are killed by strangers’ guns, knives or other weapons combined. Contrary to many public perceptions, many women who are murdered are killed not by strangers but by men they know."

Those men could be husbands, ex-husbands or even stepfathers.

She also cited these stats:

• Nearly one-third of all women murdered in the United States in recent years were murdered by a current or former intimate partner. In 2000, 1,247 women, more than three a day, were killed by their intimate partners.

• Of females killed with a firearm, almost two-thirds of were killed by their intimate partners.

• Access to firearms increases the risk of intimate partner homicide more than five times more than in instances where there are no weapons, according to a recent study. In addition, abusers who possess guns tend to inflict the most severe abuse on their partners.

• In 2002, 54 percent of female homicide victims were shot and killed with a gun.

Details are still sketchy on who shot Hudson’s family.

Hudson’s mother, Darnell Donerson and brother Jason Hudson were with the Oscar winner’s nephew, Julian King, at the boy’s home in Chicago. His mother, Julia Hudson, was not in the house at the time of the murders.

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CBS has crossed The Ex List off its schedule.

The series stared Elizabeth Reaser as a 30-something woman who’s told by a psychic that if she doesn’t wed within a year, she’ll never walk down the aisle. Oh, and to complicate things, and give you the raison d’etre of the series, the psychic also says that the guy she’s going to marry is someone she dated before.

The plot sounded like a romantic twist on classmates.com, where you can reconnect with high school flings and find out if true love lurks in your past. “The Ex List” only aired four times and then — poof — was gone, as were many viewers after the first three outings.

But while CBS has decided it doesn’t want any more dates with this “Ex,” that doesn’t mean the network isn’t committed to topics about dating and dealing with Ex’s. Whether you’re divorced or single, dealing with an ex is rarely a piece of cake and offers plenty of comedic fodder.

Still on CBS’ schedule is The New Advenures of Old Christine with Julia Louis Dreyfus as a divorced mom on Wednesdays, followed by the new series Gary Unmarried, staring Jay Mohr as a newly divorced painting contractor who strives to balance work, shared custody of his two children, a controlling ex-wife, and his foxy new girlfriend.

We all hear the varying stats on infidelity: in one recent study of 4,884 married women, some 6 percent said in computer questionnaires that they had been unfaithful in the last year. But finally someone has addressed a more intriguing question in the scientific study of marriage: are women remaining true to their husbands in their hearts?

“It’s certainly plausible that women might have increased their relative rate of infidelity over time,” Edward O. Laumann, professor of sociology at the University of Chicago told The New York Times.

“But it isn’t going to be a huge number. The real thing to talk about is where are they in terms of their relationship and the marital bond.”

Meaning in layman’s — or rather laywoman’s — terms: did someone stray at a troubled time in the marriage or at the end of a failing relationship?

Was the infidelity a momentary fling and the marriage can be repaired? Or did it torpedo a relationship and lead to divorce?

In The New York Times article, sociologists pointed out that women are cheating more because they have more options than in the past when they were sequestered in their homes with a brood of children. Now many are working women interacting with a larger pool of people and — surprise, surprise — not that much different than men.

And even for women who stay home, cell phones, e-mail and instant messaging appear to be allowing them to form more intimate relationships outside their marriages, therapists say.

The article also examined why there might be conflicting data on infidelity. In that study referenced up top, a joint project of the University of Colorado and Texas A&M University, only 1 percent of those same women admitted to adultery in the last year when asked about it in person.

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Getting divorced is an emotional experience – even if it happens in a virtual, online world. A Japanese woman got so angry when her virtual husband ditched her that she hacked the system to whack him.
 
According to Japanese police, the woman, who was jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used the man’s identification and password in mid-May to log onto the Korean interactive game Maple Story (right) to carry out the virtual hara kiri.

The woman was a 43-year-old piano teacher in Miyazaki, the man was a 33-year-old office worker in Sapporo. "I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry," the virtual cougar told investigators.

Reality check. This did not happen in the real world. Her online avatar had met and “married” his online avatar, who then dumped her without warning. Any woman can understand the hurt. While the couple was happily “married,” he had told her his login and password, perhaps as a way of showing trust. Mistake!

She did not, officials said, plot any revenge in the real world. Still, if convicted, she could face a prison term of up to five years or a fine up to $5,000.

As AP noted, players in Maple Story operate in a two-dimensional virtual world where they engage “in relationships, social activities and fighting against monsters and other obstacles."

Instead of remaining in the virtual world, and perhaps sending a monster after her avatar, the man went to the police when he discovered that his avatar was kaput.

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