Researcher Jianguo Liu, an ecological sustainability expert at Michigan State University has co-authored a study calculating the damage divorce causes to the environment. Taking data from 12 countries they found that when one household splits into two, electricity use rises 53% while water use rises 42% (hardly surprising when the steamy shower-sharing days are just a foggy memory). In the US in 2005, divorced households used 73 billion extra kilowatt-hours of electricity.
As most couples who split up can't bear to be in the same room together – much less the same house – it's no shock that divorce and breakups mean increased pressure on housing stock and increased demand for new builds (and resulting infrastructure such as roads), not to mention the increased likelihood of additional car ownership. If there are children involved, there may also be duplication of furniture, books,
toys and electronic gizmos in the two homes. And the study didn't even include the carbon costs of smashed wedding china, Saville Row suits smouldering on bonfires, wedding albums thrown on the tip – or the ecological fallout from putting yourselves back on the market.
The growth of single-person households (whether through relationship breakdown or not) is significantly eco-unfriendly, as other research has shown that one-person households use more energy, land, household goods and appliances per capita.
So what's someone in a crumbling relationship to do? Lie back and think of Gaia? Or bide your time until you find your next soul/flat mate and move in on the first date?
A 2005 study by Richard Lucas (coincidentally also at Michigan State University) found that a person's happiness plummets around divorce (especially men) then rebounds over time, but on average never returns to levels from the marriage's heyday. The data (from an 18-year study) found these results didn't vary according to age or sex.
My mother (in an unscientific survey) always told me this was the case, especially with men in my hometown. The ones who left their wives for younger models (or just the lass at the department store cosmetics counter) felt dissatisfied in later years. After all, the first wife fancied him in the salad days, but could he ever feel secure that the second (or third) spouse fell for his charms or just the shiny ones he bought for her at Tiffany? Was it simply a matter of (younger and firmer) tit for tat?
Obviously serious issues such as violence, neglect and infidelity often lead inevitably to divorce. But sometimes the causes behind relationship breakdown seem to be exhaustion and a feeling (for both parties) of being taken for granted. Once children arrive and you're sleep-deprived and short on me-time, it's easy to turn on each other (instead of turning each other on as in the halcyon days). Resentments grow, along with fantasies of an easier life with someone new – especially if there's a cute-and-carefree colleague in the mix.
Harder (but ultimately more rewarding?) to turn off the telly/computer/Wii and rediscover each other, before your bond is irretrievably broken. Flirt a little. Have fun together. Less whining and a bit more wining and dining (and perhaps a few sessions with Relate) may just help you realise you've already found Mr or Mrs Right and save your marriage – and help save the planet while you're at it.
They say that breaking up is hard to do. If you didn't already have a tear in your beer, now they say it's bad for the planet too.
