Post-Vacation Divorce

From Bloomberg:

The post-vacation hangover may be dangerous for your marriage.

Filings for divorce spike twice a year, in March and August, according to a new study. University of Washington sociology professor Julie Brines and doctoral candidate Brian Serafini found divorce filings seem to follow the annual schedule of family holidays: lowest in November and December, then peaking in March after the passage of winter holidays and Valentine's Day. Filings drop in April and don't spike again until August—after July, the most popular month for vacations.

"Family life is governed by a 'social clock' that mandates the observations of birthdays, holidays and other special transitions," Brines and Serafini write in the study, presented this weekend at the annual conference of the American Sociological Association. Their study provides "the first systematic, quantitative evidence of a pronounced and durable 'seasonal' pattern in the timing of filings for divorce."

Read more here.