Like everywhere else in the world, divorce rates are rising in Egypt. It's not too surprising, really — we've written before about the rising statistics of divorce in basically every country where it's legal. According to an article I recently read, though, the rate of divorce in Egypt isn't just up. It's way up.

It seems that almost 50 percent of couples are getting divorced. That's comparable to most of the Western world, but rare for an Islamic country. Here's the interesting part, though — these couples are getting divorced within the first four years of marriage, and one of the two leading causes is sexual frustration.

Islamic and sociological scholars are blaming the harsh rules on sexuality outside of marriage. Apparently, even kissing outside of marriage is condemned. While I'm sure that keeps their teen pregnancy rates down, it doesn't take a genius to figure out why the Egyptian people are frustrated.

In the Western world, we experienced similar troubles until the advent of birth control and the womens' lib movement. The difference was that in our society prior to that, divorce was still largely stigmatized and woman couldn't really work. Apply the same sexual rules to economically free couples who are able to get divorced whenever they want to, and you've got yourself a one-way ticket to splitsville.

Let's face it, if you tell a bunch of adolescents and young adults that they can't get past first base without getting married, you're going to see a lot of ill-advised weddings. What did they think was going to happen?

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It seems like every week we report on a new country experiencing an upswing in divorce, and India is no different. I read an eye-opening piece the other day about the rise of Indian divorce, and some of the possible causes.

The article basically said that three things are at the root of the Indian divorce boom. One, couples have more money, making them less dependent on their families for support. Two, women are becoming more economically self-sufficient than ever before, making them less dependent on their husbands. Three, and probably most notably, Western influence has become more ingrained in Indian culture, making the traditional Indian marriage not good enough anymore.

Couples want love, instead of just family-sanctioned baby-making. It seems Indian couples are in a real catch-22. The only way they can break free from traditional cultural norms is to distance themselves from their parents and extended families. If they do that, however, they lose the support structure that is inherent within that way of life. While it's easy to look at a rise in divorce as a bad thing, I think it rarely means that more marriages are failing. It means that just as many marriages are failing, but now the parties involved are empowered enough to do something about it.

The piece referenced one woman, Christina, who ran home to her family because her new husband was beating her and kicking her out of the house in the middle of the night. Her parents' first reaction was the old-style one -- they sent her home and told her to make it work. Later, Christina found out that her husband was gay, and went back to her parents. This time, they welcomed her back, understanding that the marriage wasn't going to work.

Because I’ve been known to have a one-track mind, I’m still thinking about what I wrote about last week: Should some people just stay single?

My partner and I have been talking about this a lot lately. We are two of the most compatible people I’ve ever known. We live together. We run a business together. We work in our home office together.

And we are completely and utterly sick of each other. Actually, that’s not entirely true. We’re not sick of each other, we’re sick of not being alone.

Here’s the thing: We’re both very independent people. We’re both people pleasers. We both go out of our way to make the other person desperately, completely, ragingly happy. It’s exhausting, and I don’t think we want to do it any more.

We want to eat what we want for dinner. We want to stop discussing the color of paint on the walls. We want to stop planning and talking and communicating. We both just want to be left alone.

I was reading one of my favorite columnists, Lisa Kogan from Oprah’s O Magazine. She and her — what? Husband? Fiance? Boyfriend? Non-domestic partner? — live in two different countries and have no plans to change that situation. They’re in love. They’re monogamous. They’re happy. They see each other once a month.

I wonder if that would work for us. I mean, separate continents might be a bit much. I’m not in love with the idea of schlepping the baby across the ocean on a monthly basis. But maybe separate places in the same city might work.