Last year we reported that tough economic times make long distance relationships more difficult. As people struggle to make ends meet, finding cash for phone bills and plane fare has become more difficult. Well, ironically, in addition to making LDRs harder to sustain, the financial collapse has also made them more common.

According to this weekend’s New York Times, “commuter marriages,” in which married couples live apart, are trending up, as the tough economy forces people to take jobs in far-flung locales, away from their spouses and in some instances, children.

In 2006, the Census Bureau reported that 3.6 million married Americans (not including separated couples) were living apart from their spouses. In March, Worldwide ERC, the association for work-force mobility, released a report revealing that three-fourths of the 174 relocation agents surveyed had dealt with at least one commuter marriage in 2007, a 53 percent increase since 2003.

One couple that spoke to the Times is split between Pennsylvania and New Zealand, where both are professors at local universities. A second couple, formerly freelancers in voice-over work and writing, now work in Chicago and New Orleans, respectively.  Other commuter couples interviewed for the piece deal with the distance between New York and Brazil, Detroit and Chicago and the United States and Israel.

Technology is helping these couples cope with being far away from each other, and some are even finding that the distance adds romance to a stale relationship. But they shouldn’t worry too much: according to our article on long-distance relationships, “LDR couples’ levels of relationship satisfaction, intimacy, trust, and commitment are identical to their geographically close counterparts.”

Do you know anyone in a “commuter marriage”? Would you consider taking a job in another city, or country, if it meant living apart from your husband?

Many of us have probably had a month (or three) where our sex appeal and appetite are so voraciously on fire that we’ll (half jokingly) wonder, “Am I a sex addict?”

Then the well will dry. Months will pass. And the question turns into a mocking shadow of itself. (”Am I sex-repellent?” seems more appropriate).

Such musings aren’t cute little time-fillers for the writer of this week’s New York Times Modern Love piece. An in-and-out of treatment center sex addict, Benoit Denizet-Lewis succinctly and swiftly crushes any romanticized ”pop-psychology” views anyone may have of a person so swimming in sex he knows nothing of “dry spells.”

Excerpted from a chapter in his book, “America Anonymous: Eight Addicts in Search of a Life” Denizet-Lewis would often cruise Internet sites looking for sex and then blow off any type of responsibility to get it. He lost jobs, boyfriends, friends and entire years of his life where he couldn’t for the life of him sign off of the Internet. His affliction for porn and chat rooms were so eyebrow-raising that he installed Internet blocking software (the type parents use for children). That tactic didn’t work out too well. He soon just went ahead and bought another computer.

The story begins as the writer skips out on a childhood friend’s wedding to meet up with two different men he’d been chatting with. The reader then takes a peek inside the logic of a sex addict:

“If Mike didn’t show, I had a 19-year-old backup plan named Travis, a regular in one of the AOL chat rooms I frequented. We had never met in person, but he lived close to Mike, so it seemed logical that I should have sex with both of them on this trip — Mike in my car, Travis in his apartment.”

Such double-deckers were a common occurrence, and as the writer goes into treatment he compares the sex high as the same any substance abuser may garner from an addiction to drugs and alcohol. An entire psychosomatic condition fueled by a moment of finally “feeling OK.”

He considers himself “sober” today but addresses the inherent trickiness of cultivating a normal love life. What’s unique about sex addiction, is that it’s unrealistic to think one will cease having sexual experiences—an alcoholic could theoretically never drink again, but could someone put a lid on sex?

Throughout therapy the author settles on cathartic but generic solution:

For me, recovery is about far more than not meeting strangers for sex in deserted parking lots. It’s about learning not to harm others or myself. It’s about living an authentic, unselfish life—the opposite of addiction.

According to a story in today’s Channelnewsasia.com, a 47-year-old Australian engineer named Satish Narayan awoke on December 8 to a warm feeling in his trousers that could be attributed to none of the usual or fun activities usually associated with the marital bed.

Rather, the warmth he experienced was a literal case of pants of fire.

His wife, Rajini Narayan, who appeared in court today on murder charges, allegedly doused his genitals with methylated spirits and set them on fire because she believed he was cheating on her.

Prosecutors say she wanted to burn her 47-year-old husband’s penis “so it belongs to me and no one else.”

But it turns out that there’s nothing much left for Rajini Narayan, 44, to claim after her dramatic attempt at exerting ownership.

The fire in her husband’s nether regions spread quickly when he jumped out of bed and knocked over the bottle of methylated spirits. The house and a neighboring property sustained $700,000 in damages. Satish Narayan faired far worse, eventually dying in a hospital last week.

“It’s just his penis I wanted to burn, I didn’t mean this to happen,” said Rajini Narayan.

For obvious reasons, she has been remanded in custody until January 10, pending the results of a psychological assessment.

Now just a few parting words to those of you who might look to Rajini Narayan as a role model for how to deal with one’s own unfaithful partner.

1.    Attempting to illustrate that someone is a cheater or liar by literally setting his pants on fire does not make you come across as poetic or just. It simply makes you look crazy.

2.    If you want things to work out, this is not the way to do it. Burning his penis will most likely not result in him being more faithful to you.

3.    Bed sheets and fire do not go together. Did The Burning Bed teach us nothing? Please, friends, keep the heat in the bedroom and the fire on the stove.

Although we scoff when perfectly taut starlets claim “it’s from yoga!” we’ll certainly dust off our stretchy pants and mats if the downward facing dog may help us reach orgasm more frequently.

A recent study claims women who practice yoga and some of the eastern-based thinking techniques of mindfulness report more satisfying sex lives. While the article doesn’t mention exactly why, it touches on the fact yoga is, after all, derived from many of the positions in the Kama Sutra and is meant to increase flexibility.

The second tier of the study, mindfulness, actually makes perfect sense for helping women orgasm. Mindfulness, training one’s self to be absorbed in the present moment, is certainly a female downfall when it comes to getting it on. During sex, us cerebral gals are often a fuzzy, jumbled blur of emotions, self consciousness, and (oh yeah) the desire to get off. Hell, the sex is over before we’ve made it to number three on the short list.

As an added bonus, the article also mentions yoga may cure men of premature ejaculation. (!!!!!!) In India, 68 men who come way too quickly on a regular basis, were either given the choice of prozac or a daily hour-long yoga session. In the end, the study states the yoga-happy men “had both subjective and statistically significant improvements in their intra-ejaculatory latencies, similar to participants in the pharmacologic treatment group.”

So if yoga can help cure premature ejaculation and finnicky orgasms who cares about washboard abs! What’s a runner’s body when you can go to sleep just as satisfied as the grinning bedmate next to you.

Nobody will ever discount the scientific phenomenon of beer goggles. Being more open to less than stellar sexual options is, unfortunately, as common a side effect from drinking as frequent bathroom breaks. But who would’ve thought those beer-infested nights would leave a permanent aftertaste on who we find attractive long after the martinis have worn off.

According to a study by researchers in Canada’s Lakehead University women who consume an average amount of alcohol (40 drinks or so a month) are less adept at distinguishing facial symmetry—one of the biggies of attractiveness. The study gathered up 45 non-alcoholic social drinkers and showed them pictures of 60 male faces. Each were shown in pairs, with one face being more symmetrical than the other. The results overwhelmingly indicated the more the woman had drank in the last six months the crappier they were at perceiving symmetry.

Scientists think alcohol alters a person’s ability to see and appreciate symmetry, which may be one of the reasons why everyone looks so damn good looking after one too many glasses of wine.

For women, alcohol may actually change the brain structure and decrease their visual perception abilities. Seeing as this is the first study to question and analyze such things, researchers still don’t know if the effects are permanent or how long after not drinking they continue.

No wonder men are so overzealous in feeding us drinks. It’s an evolutionary tactic the human race all but depends on for procreation and survival.  Vodka, more important in helping us find true love and acceptance than we ever, ever thought.