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I’ve entered the season where, lockstep at about a 15 year remove, couples are splitting up the way once they got married. I think I know enough to say that no couple is really immune; in a year or five, if my husband Carl and I don’t manage to navigate well, we might be there too. Changing and growing together while dealing with life is a pretty tricky deal: part goodwill, part effort, and a good part luck and timing.

And yet I’ve got to say that as we come up to our 18th anniversary, I’ve noticed one thing about our arguments: They just get shorter and shorter. This may partly be because we’re running around with two young boys and simply out of breath.

But I think it’s also because we know which arguments are standard. One of us is frequently late, partly due to a native optimism (“It’ll only take ten minutes on the Don Valley Parkway”) and partly due to being able to focus on whoever that person is talking to fully. The other of us is a scheduler who moves two children from martial arts class to birthday party to nap to dinner.

Not us, yet.

Collisions are inevitable, and although I wish I could say that they’re all good natured, the truth is they still result in one party pacing while the other party is late.

But where we used to have a half-day argument about respect for one’s partner, respect for others’ schedules, planning in time to be late, weekends that are too full of obligations, and (on one memorable occasion) questioning of each other’s cognitive abilities, it now frequently comes down to a few sharp-edged texts and:

“Sorry I wasn’t paying attention”
“Thanks. Sorry for over-scheduling.”
“Got it.”

And we’re done. Truly done. It’s not a bottom-line issue for us any more, this one. We have accepted each other’s sharp edges, worn them down a bit so we’re a closer to the middle, and then learned to work around the bumps.

When people talk about marriage being boring — and every relationship, in my opinion, has its cycles — they usually mean it in a bad way. (See this piece.) But I’m kind of glad to have boring, boring arguments. For one thing, it leaves more time to get the next barbeque.

What’s your take?

I just called my father up and said to him “say something wise.”
“What?” he said, “What do you need?”
“I’m writing a blog around Father’s Day and I need you to share some wisdom.”
After telling my mother that I was on the phone asking, my dad came up with some wisdom for, well, anyone, but particularly for 20-something year olds: Find something you love to do, do that, and if you can, earn a living at it.

I’m pretty sure he chose that bit of advice not just because he’s a semi-retired university professor, so that’s kind of his target market, but he may also still consider me vaguely in the age category even though I’m actually 41. But it’s also very him: That’s what he did, and it did make him happy. And so have I.

The great thing about my dad this year though, is that he could share that with me. Last winter he had a brain injury, likely an aneurysm, and for many days we were not sure what faculties he would recover. I’ll know we’re back to normal life when being able to call him up like that doesn’t give me a little thrill: This moment almost didn’t happen. (I’m motivated to check out Kate Daley’s Father’s Day gift guide too!)

Relationships with our dads can be complicated ones. Although I grew up in the 70s to the strains of Free to be…you and me, it was still my father who seemed to be the one who was the interface to the larger world; the person who conveyed more of the wings than the roots.

In that spirit I was hoping you all would share something you learned from your father: A saying, a habit or anything else, in the comments.

I’ll pick a random winner from all the comments received before noon, Friday June 15, for a copy of Rob Rainford’s Born to Grill, since I’m willing to bet a lot of us learned how to barbeque at our father’s sides. The usual rules apply: You must be a resident of Canada, but not in Quebec, and of the age of majority in your province. By entering you give us permission to quote your entry and name you the winner. You also agree to accept the prize as awarded, or a prize of equal value.

So please comment away: What have you learned from your dad?

Holidays aren’t always easy when your family doesn’t conform to the glossy photos. I had a lovely Mother’s Day thanks in large part to my six year old, who must be at about the apex of holiday observance – enthusiastic, sweet and fresh – my 16 month old’s smiles, and my husband.

But my eldest child, my daughter Emily, who passed away 4 days after she was born, was of course missing. And so my Mother’s Day includes a trip to the cemetery. (I forgot my phone, so this picture’s from her birthday in March. And yes that’s Liam brightening up the shot.) I joined the daughters and sons who were grieving their mothers, the other mothers in the children’s section of the grounds, and other families marking loss as well as celebration. There’s a tendency to nod to each other, especially in the kids’ area: We know something other people don’t, yet.

A friend of mine remembered that Mother’s Day doesn’t quite begin and end with breakfast-in-bed for me, and she sent me this link to a remarkable column, No Fear of Flying: Kamikaze Missions in Death, Sex, and Comedy written by Michelle Mirsky for McSweeney’s Internet Tendency.

In the space of My Darkest Year, in no particular order, these things happened. My younger son died. My marriage ended. A rabbi and renowned jazz musician whom I’d only met once performed my son’s funeral. People applauded.

So, I thought I’d share it with you. I was also reminded of the equally touching Comfort Food by the then-newly-widowed Madeleine Greey, from our April issue.

If you are in the time after mother, after child, or grieving other losses, happy after-Mother’s Day.

Say what you will about the Time magazine cover – and I’ve no doubt you’ve got plenty to say – it’s caught our attention. And that’s the point, isn’t it?

Is such an image likely to spark intelligent discussion? Uh, no – this is the Internet. [Web editor's note: Point taken, but there is intelligent talk on the Internet! - JG] The point of a cover like this is to incite, or re-ignite, a war. A war between women. With a single image, Time has managed to hit myriad hot buttons: motherhood (conveniently right before mother’s day), parenting styles, feminism, ageism, health… too many to count.

And anyone who gets pulled into the chatter is invariably reacting emotionally — because how else can you respond? It’s hair-trigger journalism designed not just to go viral the second it emerges, but to polarize and marginalize women. Walk away from the image, people. Just walk away.

For more of Sarah’s rants, check out her thoughts on Mother’s Day marketing right here.

Jenn’s note: Managing editor Sarah Moore, pictured at right, joins us regularly on More Daily – you may remember her from her fabulous 40-second rant videos online. She’s also chatting on our Facebook page, so be sure to like us there!

Apparently, the Monday after Mother’s Day is one of the two days on which the most women sign up to the infidelity-facilitating site Ashley Madison: In 2010, a year where most days the site saw 2,000-3,000 women sign up, over 31,000 did on that day.

Let’s hope most of them were window-browsing.

Now look, I get how a single day can come to symbolize everything wrong with family life. The Christmas after I had my eldest son I told my husband, who had not quite managed to get me a gift before Boxing Day the year before (there were extenuating circumstances) that if he blew it, as ridiculous as I knew I sounded about it, I was going to be really, really upset.

It wasn’t about the gift. It was about the sea change in our marriage from being about “us” to being about “who gets up with the baby this round of teething?” And to be frank it was also about my body having taken the brunt of the childbearing, my career having taken the brunt of the maternity leave – and just needing to know that he would come through for me on this one particular day.

But women, from one who has been there: Please, let’s not let holidays take over our thinking. When tens of thousands of women are extracting revenge – for what, lack of an overcrowded brunch? – by joining a site promoting infidelity, something’s gone awry.

I propose a simple solution. If there is a Mother’s Day event or gift that you want, let your spouse know. Don’t assume he knows. Yes, he should by now. If he fails to follow through, let him know how serious an issue it is – don’t go cruising online for a replacement.

Of course you could just send him a link to our last-minute Mother’s Day gift guide. (By the way, you could win all those gifts – click through the slideshow to enter!)

Happy Valentine’s Day! You can’t miss it can you? And yet sometimes in the flood of red and chocolates and roses I think actual love gets lost.

So I wanted to share this. I wish I’d kept better notes on where it came from – it’s been a file on my personal computer for years. These are the requirements for trust, and to my mind, the foundation of a good long-term relationship. When it comes time to talk to my son about how to be a good partner – and how to spot one – this will be one of the things I pull out.

Acceptance: I may not agree with you or like the way you do or say things all of the time, but my love for who you are is unwavering.

Openness: I will take risks with you and share who I am, what I feel, what I do in ways that respect you and me.

Reliability: You can count on my being there. My support for you will be strong and nourishing.

Congruence: I will work to make my words and actions match, and when they do not I will acknowledge it to myself and you and work to grow beyond the incongruence.

Integrity: I will honor my word to you. If I fail you or me I will own it and make amends.

If your kids – or nieces or nephews or friends – were asking you about real true love, what would you share as a foundation?

Yes, it’s our obligatory Valentine Day’s week post on online dating. Did you know 1 in 5 relationships now start online? As someone who met her husband online — 19 years ago over a 2400 baud modem — I’m going to put it out there that if you’re not happy with your relationship status, I think you should go for it this spring.

Not because, dear reader, you need a man to make you happy, but because some man is missing out on you right now.

I recently had the chance to speak with Kimberly Moffit at Match.com about online dating, and I asked her about mistakes to avoid when online dating. Here’s what she shared with me.

Don’t negate the power of your picture
Any picture at all will get you 10 times the views for your profile that a profile with no picture will get – and remember, online dating is a numbers game. Other things to avoid: Don’t focus on who you were in the past – leave out kids, dogs, holiday sweaters and so on. Get a friend to take a new picture and take a picture that features your face – that’s what people want to see. It’s best if it’s a picture that makes you feel great when you log in.

Don’t mistake dating for sales
Yes, your online profile should be positive – but it should also reflect who you are. Don’t claim you love hiking when you prefer takeout. Share what you really love – that author you think isn’t highbrow enough might just be what draws someone’s interest.

Don’t be vague
If you’re not interested in dating anyone under 35 – say so. There is no sense wasting your time and theirs when you’re going to go home and decide there is no way you can continue to see anyone who thinks Madonna’s version of “American Pie” is the original.

Don’t treat email like a novel
Keep your first message short, specific and focused on setting up the next step – usually a date. The point is to see if the other person’s interested, not to share your life story in the hopes of discovering you’re soul mates. The soul can wait a week.

Don’t waste your time or theirs
Over 90% of people know within the first 15 minutes of a date whether there’s hope for the relationship or not. If you already know there’s no spark, it is just fine to say “thanks for your time, but I really don’t see us together.” It might seem a little harsh, but remember that you’re there for a goal: To find someone you want to date, not to provide conversation for all comers. (Kimberly points out that Match.com helps you manage your time better by learning your preferences with their “daily 5″ feature – something to keep in mind when choosing a dating site.)

Don’t give up too soon
It’s rare that your first date will be the person you find suitable long-term, so give yourself room to keep looking. Keep a time frame like six months in mind, and push yourself to try one or two dates a week during that time. You’ll be more likely to meet someone compatible than if you go in bursts of frantic dating followed by periods of keeping to yourself.

If you are entering or have entered the world of online dating, share your tips and tribulations in the comments! And for more don’t miss Everything you wanted to know about midlife dating.

There’s online buzz about the New York Times’s piece that ran this weekend this weekend about “friend divorce” – how women grow apart, and how to end a friendship.

We’ve covered this topic ourselves: What to do when a girlfriend dumps you. Women’s relationships can be very intense and it seems like no one really hands you a friendship manual for managing grown-up girlfriends.

I have to tell you, it happened to me for the first time this year, at least the first time in about a decade – a friend decided our friendship was over, based on being different places in our lives – and I was surprised at how much grief was involved, even though in the end I had to agree with her. In most cases if a friendship’s ended or come to a close in my life, it’s just been a gradual drift. But this one was not. And it hurt.

Have you ever had a friendship end painfully, at least since university? How do you handle these things?

Three little words, but they are so hard to say. In the madness of January, getting back to work, and medical appointments, I recorded a birthday party – for a wee lad – on the wrong weekend, and completely missed it this week. My friend Deb, said lad’s mum, left me the sweetest message on Facebook along the lines of “everything okay? We missed you!”

And the words that came to mind were not quite so sweet.

Learning to admit when you’ve made a mistake has been a really hard lesson for me. As a kid growing up, I got through school being the one with the right answer. Getting facts straight was a lot easier than learned what to do when you I stumbled. And in university I sometimes used my creative side to muster elaborate excuses for missed deadlines.

But there’s another way. Be up-front. I learned this little life lesson first professionally, when I was an executive assistant for a non-profit: It is much, much easier for colleagues and bosses to fix the problem if you just admit it and get on with resolving it. But in my personal life I still get that throat-constricted feeling that probably comes from my inner six-year-old: How do I get out of this one?

And I’ve tried to pass that lesson onto my son, being clear and low-drama when I’ve made mistake: Ooops. Let’s fix it.

And yet in a world of social media where it seems like everyone’s sharing pictures of their beautifully and creatively decorated homes, smiling families, and gourmet, well-plated meals…I think sometimes we forget that life is messy. All our friends’ Facebook feeds look like they are living the high life of vacations, parties and witty conversation. Which is why my status this morning reads: Missed a birthday because…I screwed up. Sincerest apologies to [my friends]! On the plus side, I am doing my part to keep social media real.

Take a minute, if you can spare one, to tell me some time you messed up and what you did to admit it…or deny it!

A good friend of mine has been struggling through a divorce this year and I’m pointing her at editor-in-chief Linda Lewis’s editorial in the February/March 2012 issue, where she discusses her divorce for the first time, and then benefits of taking the high road when co-parenting. Drop by and tell her what you think!

I really love that the ‘net has become a place for divorced women to connect with each other and share their experiences as they go along. When a big life change hits like that, it really helps to hear from people who have been there. Here are five of the best divorce blogs I’ve found as I’ve been looking around this year. Please add links in the comments to any divorce bloggers you love!

The Bitter Divorcée
Annie’s blog’s tagline is “on bitterness, contradiction, culture, and kids” and that really pretty much is it. Love her directness and willingness to get down to the real hurdles of coping with teens and co-parenting issues.

Irretrievably Broken
While I could complain that our pseudonymous narrator takes a few blog hiatuses now and then, the archives alone are worth a read. For a sample, try The Myth of the Clean Break.

Postcards from a Peaceful Divorce
Molly Monet’s blog can restore hope for civility to a situation that is almost inevitably confrontational. She also candidly shares continued challenges – like how to share past mistakes with a new partner.

Divorced at 50
Not only does “Movin’ On” write with clarity and honesty, she tackles really interesting subjects in “grey divorce” – aging, working, and dating after 50. I love that she links to articles and research around the web.

…and of course Deborah Moskovitch, who has been a More.ca contributor for some time, blogs at The Smart Divorce.