When it comes to gender dynamics, women are caught between a rock and a hard place. Some men haven’t changed their way of thinking and still expect us to take care of the house and the kids; even if you do find a guy who helps out, he might make you feel worse about yourself just by doing his share. Research published in Personal Relationships found that when a father spent a lot of solo time with his child and the mom perceived him to be a competent caregiver, the woman had a lower self-competence rating. Researcher Takayuki Sasaki said he believes this is because women think they’re expected to play the main role in parenting, even as society tries to shift to a more egalitarian approach. The father, on the other hand, doesn’t feel any worse about himself if the mother is highly involved. “Husbands do not suffer from self-competence losses even when their wives are involved and skillful because that is consistent with cultural expectations,” Sasaki told LiveScience. Do you ever feel like your guy is encroaching on your domain when he helps around the house? [LiveScience]

Since creation, man has been an entity unto himself and woman has been his counterpart. First, God made man; then he made him a girlfriend. Men are the protagonists of our children’s stories, the majority of our doctors, generals and CEOs, the president, Jesus, God, Allah and Buddha. All “men” are created equal. To deny that man is the dominant gender is to deny our vernacular, religion, culture and art.

A few years ago, I slept with your husband. Don’t get me wrong. This isn’t some kind of an apology. Nor is it an explanation. And, trust me, I’m not looking for your forgiveness. Because here’s the thing. All these years later, you don’t even know. Or at least I don’t think you do. Sometimes I see you, and sometimes I see him, and sometimes I see the two of you together, and it’s like nothing happened. But if you ever wake up one day and realize what happened, here’s why I slept with your husband.

Sarah Silverman took a really strong stance in the fight for marriage equality via her Twitter yesterday. She has called on everyone to boycott marriage until it’s legal in this country for all adults, regardless of sexual orientation. But is this fair? Should heterosexuals and homosexuals in select states show their solidarity by protesting marriage altogether? Tell us what you think in the comments! [Twitter]

If this isn’t the greatest argument for gay marriage, I don’t know what is. Can’t we all just get along and play ping-pong? [BuzzFeed]

After dating for a year and a half, my boyfriend and I had a sorta “spur of the moment” elopement at the end of January. We’d both recently graduated college and I have a significantly better paying job that has good health benefits, so the decision to get married so quickly was about getting him covered by my insurance. I had known for a while that I wanted to marry him, and we had discussed it very briefly earlier, so it was a given that we would eventually get married anyway. The weird part is that he never officially proposed, and so now we have a sticky situation to deal with when it comes to telling friends and family. We haven’t told any family yet, and the only people who know about it are my three college friends, who don’t know any of our relatives or other friends. We were planning on him buying me an “engagement” ring sometime soon and planning a wedding in the spring of 2011, and not telling anyone in the meantime. I would just like to know what you would do in this situation, since we obviously can’t undo getting married. We don’t feel any different than we did before we got legally married, so it doesn’t feel like we have much to hide, and we both feel that the true beginning of our marriage would be when we get to celebrate it in front of friends and family. Neither of us is really religious (he’s Buddhist, I’m atheist) and our families aren’t the most religious or traditional to begin with. What’s the best way to handle our situation? — Out of Order

Does the entire wedding industry these days seem like one big racket to you? In your lifetime, how many thousands of dollars have you spent flying all over the country (or out of it) to watch people say “I do,” buying place settings and champagne flutes from couples’ Williams-Sonoma registries, and oohing and ahhing over boulder-size diamonds on your girlfriends’ ring fingers? Adding up the numbers can be a dizzying experience, but what’s truly disarming is the fact that your total payout most likely pales in comparison with the price tag for just one of these celebrations. In 2009, industry-trend resource TheWeddingReport.com reported that the average cost of a wedding in the United States was $19,580—that’s more than $12,500 greater than the median annual tuition at a four-year public college.

All this time, we were thinking that marriage was a challenging institution requiring love, commitment, effort, and compromise. But according to a new study done at the Geneva School of Business, the likelihood of success in a marriage can actually be predicted with mathematical precision. Researchers claim to have cracked the formula for wedded bliss: The woman should be five years younger than the man, from the same background, and 27 percent more intelligent. I’m assuming that 27 percent is the difference between a bachelor’s and a master’s degree?

There is that scene in Bridget Jones’ Diary, where, Bridge (as she’s called) lies on her couch, pajama-clad, bottle of vodka clutched tightly in hand, bemoaning the fate of an untimely death for a single person. She worries that if she were to die, alone in her apartment, it is likely that someone would find her decomposing body three weeks later half-eaten by an Alsatian. 

I too fear the fate of an untimely “single” death. I imagine my distraught mother, overcome with grief, forced to go through my things. Her sadness only magnified as she discovers the true, mind-blowing total of my credit card debt, and then the small stash of “emergency” illicit prescription drugs in my bedside table. I can see her coming to the realization that I’m not the daughter she imagined, but her image of me will truly be shattered when she opens the drawer that I use to store both my vibrators and my financial statements.  I can just see the horror pass over her face, as she realizes that her daughter was not only a bit too sexually adventurous, but also was unfamiliar with exactly what a 401K is.

So I just did something a little out of character: I got engaged when I was out of town last week, and on Sunday after I got home, I sorta kinda announced it on Facebook. (Which is weird because I rarely even use the damn thing ever, seriously.) I guess it was a combination of being excited and not thinking paired with the usefulness of being able to convey the news to lots of people we know all at the same time and the fact that I was tired from traveling and I'm just not a phone person, period. But now I feel kind of sheepish about it. Um, also, one or more favorite cousins may or may not have found out this way. Gulp.

Ideally, a proposal shouldn’t only be romantic or intimate, it should be unique. After all, this is the story we’ll be telling our girlfriends for the rest of our lives, so it better not bore anyone to tears. Top of the Empire State Building? Yaawwwn. Over a candlelit dinner? Cliché! On a beach at sunset? Meh. One suitor who shares a love of New York City history with his girlfriend wrote an email to Scouting New York, a blog run by a film scout that features tons of architectural details and out-of-the way places throughout the city. The emailer was looking for suggestions for a unique location in the city where he could propose to his girlfriend. The blog opened up the query to readers, and the guy ended up going with the first suggestion in the comments, the whispering gallery in front of the Oyster Bar & Restaurant at Grand Central Terminal. What’s a whispering gallery? It’s a usually-domed architectural spot designed in such a way that if a person standing in one corner whispers, the person standing in the other corner will hear the whisper as if the speaker were standing right next to them. The night of the proposal, he led his girlfriend into the whispering gallery. But how did the proposal go? Find out after the jump.

Like most people, I have a variety of pet peeves. I can’t stand it when people litter; I hate it when an able-bodied person takes an elevator up one floor; and perhaps what bugs me more than anything else on the planet is a holier than thou attitude, especially when it’s displayed by someone who thinks she’s being revolutionary when, in fact, she’s being ... how can I say this delicately? Astonishingly non-sensical. Take, for example, Carrie Sloan, a “brand-spanking newlywed” who writes that she and her husband are “re-writing the rules” of matrimony because — get this — she kept her own name! I hate to break it to her and ruin her self-image as a trendsetter, but it’s 2010. Keeping her own name is not a rule she wrote. If being self-righteous in the face of unoriginality were her biggest crime, I’d be willing to overlook it. Unfortunately, it’s not.

I have a friend who came to the United States from Israel to sing opera. He’s kind and funny, and when he sings, the air fills and tingles with his music. But too often, I’ve seen him looking sadly distant. He married his boyfriend last year in Connecticut, but then had to put him on the plane back home. At the moment they see each other once every few months, meeting up in Germany or Greece, but then each returning to a different country, oceans apart. Because our federal government doesn’t yet have an allowance for the partners in gay couples to immigrate on marriage visas, they’re being kept apart. And it sucks. Hopefully, more legislation rolls in like what’s happening in Maryland now.

I had always been sure I wanted to get married, and the longer I dated Dean, the more sure I was that he was the right one for me. That is ... until I got engaged.

Dean’s proposal wasn’t a surprise. I was too nosy to not know it was happening, and I enthusiastically said yes the moment he asked. However, once it happened (in a sweet and thoughtful way, I should add), I began to feel these nagging questions eating away at me: Did I really want to be married? Would we be any good at it?

My boyfriend and I have been together for nearly four years. I recently found out, through my mom, who has a huge mouth, that my boyfriend stopped by to pick up my grandmother’s diamond. We are using it in a simple setting we picked out together. When I picked it out, I was overjoyed. I’m still very excited. But now that it is real, I can’t help but be a little nervous. I don’t ask myself if he is the right person, I just worry about forever being a long time. What if it doesn’t work out? What if it’s the wrong choice? What if 10 years from now we regret getting married? What if I have to get a divorce? I’m a planner by nature. I hope for the best and plan for the worst and I like guarantees. I like to know what is going to happen to me. Is it wrong to be a little bit nervous about all the uncertainty and life changes I am jumping into? — Planner

I love weddings. I stop dead before store windows to gaze at gorgeous dresses and drool over diamond rings. I’m thrilled when I happen upon a noisy banquet in a Chinese restaurant. I read the New York Times wedding announcements every Sunday. I love watching “Say Yes to the Dress.”

But I don’t want to get married again.

Forget about love, romance, or following your gut when it comes to choosing a mate. Instead, rely on math. Scientists in Australia have developed an equation to predict a man’s “optimal proposal age.” They believe they have cracked the code to calculating when a dude should start ring shopping. And the most common age is … 27. But don’t fret if your 20s have come and gone … you’re still in the running. The equation is based on the age that a man is when he decides he wants to settle down versus the oldest possible age he is willing to be when he walks down the aisle. Geez. How romantic. Once a guy figures out his “optimal proposal age,” Tony Dooley from the University of New South Wales recommends that he should not propose to anyone before that age. After that age, he should be prepared to pop the question to the very next girl he gets serious with—as long as she’s the best he’s ever met. Yeah, because relationships are always so neat and predictable. What if she says “no” or he’s a douche? Is that part of the equation? After the jump, the simplified version of the equation. [Daily Mail]

Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall has been married to her husband, Rob, for 47 happy years. In a world where half of all marriages end in divorce, she thinks she has a few secrets to making a relationship survive the inevitable bumps in a road. After the jump, check out a few of those secrets, which she shared in today’s Daily Mail.

I love my husband. He’s a fantastic gent who makes swoon-worthy stuffed french toast, fixes my bicycle when it breaks down, and plus he loves me and stuff. But, when there’s a new tech update, I shudder. It’s a reflex. If only Steve Jobs could see what he did to me last night at the bar ...

Since I already posted an epic save-the-date video today, I thought it fitting to share an epic marriage proposal story to carry on the theme. Actually, this happens to be two stories in one. The guy, you see, a professional illustrator, spent eight months searching for the perfect engagement ring (a “100 year old brass ring with an art nouveau design carved into a piece of red coral”), and then proposed to his girlfriend by writing and illustrating a “magical little story for her that revolved around a story of the ring.” He created 22 drawings, secretly working on them for two weeks, and pasted them into a large antique book in which he was able to actually hide the engagement ring in a secret flap. On New Year’s Day, he presented the book to his girlfriend.