Unexpected Habits That Can Sink a Marriage

You Lunch with the Wrong Folks

Your boss did it. Lisa in accounting did it. Your best friend, Lynn, did it. Even your upstairs neighbor did it (and noisily). Everyone’s doing it—getting divorced. Not you, you say. But you’re in a high-risk group if you go by the “divorce cluster” data from a study led by Rose McDermott at Brown University. The people in your social network—everyone you rub shoulders with habitually—influence your attitude about relationships. People with divorced friends are 147% more likely to become divorced. Statistically speaking, the more your friends, co-workers, siblings, and acquaintances have done it, the more likely you might one day say to your husband, let’s do it. Let’s get divorced too.