Next time your other half complains about a lack of love between you and their parents, you might want to show them this first.

Apparently the closer a woman is to her partner’s parents, the higher the risk of divorce. Studying data from over a 26 year period, the University of Michigan found that during the first year of marriage, women who reported having a close relationship with her partner's parents, increased the couple's risk of divorce by 20 percent. In a stranger twist to the study, when a husband reported having a close relationship with his in-laws, the couple’s risk of divorce decreased by 20 percent. So how does your relationship with his mum affect your chances of a successful relationship? Author of the study Terri Orbuch, suggests that women who form close bonds with their in-laws too early are more likely to fail at placing ‘emotional boundaries’. While we’re not suggesting you don’t work on making sure you create a bond (because family is always important), the research suggests that jumping in too early will make you more likely to stress out about the relationship and interpret advice from in-laws as criticism. So next time you need a breather from your other half's family activities, you could be doing your relationship a favour.