BOSTON — Four years after Massachusetts became the first state to allow gay couples to marry, there have been blissful unions, painful divorces and everything in between.

ALBANY — Gov. David A. Paterson has directed all state agencies to begin to revise their policies and regulations to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions, like Massachusetts, California and Canada.

SAN FRANCISCO — Gay and lesbian couples in San Francisco rejoiced on Thursday over a State Supreme Court decision affirming their right to marry even as political leaders on both sides of the issue girded for an extended fight over the ruling in the courts and at the ballot box.

The California Supreme Court, striking down two state laws that had limited marriages to unions between a man and a woman, ruled on Thursday that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.

I’ve failed at marriage before, but that’s helped me become better at it. I’ve learned the deadly sins of relationships, and how to recognize them and avoid them.

Potentially big legal fees, health-insurance needs and the expense of separate households cause some couples to stay under one roof even when their marriages are all but dead.

Being best buddies with your spouse can mean a happy marriage.

After 12 years of unwedded bliss, two friends of mine recently got married. The reason: Her job offers health insurance benefits to married couples but not unhitched cohabiting ones. Now it turns out these two may have been at the leading edge of a trend. According to a new poll, 7 percent of respondents said they or someone they lived with decided to get married in the last year in order either to have access to health insurance benefits or to give their new spouse access.

Seven percent of Americans say they or someone in their household decided to tie the knot in the last year so they could receive healthcare benefits, a poll finds.

LAST NOVEMBER IN BOSTON, Joshua Janson, a slender and boyish 25-year-old, invited me to an impromptu gathering at the apartment he shares with Benjamin McGuire, his considerably more staid husband of the same age. It was a cozy, festive affair, complete with some 20 guests and a large sushi spread where you might have expected the chips and salsa to be.