Birth Month Compatibility for Marriage: Which Months Are Not Good?

Having a long and happy marriage undoubtedly depends on a lot of factors—like how much you know about your partner before getting engaged, how you're able to resolve conflicts, and how closely your values align when it comes to major life decisions (like having kids, for example). But it turns out that something much more inherent, and seemingly benign, can affect your marital longevity: the month in which you were born!

In two studies, one with over two million German couples and another performed by random sample, researchers actually found some crazy patterns as far as who marries who—and who divorces who—the most, all based on birthdays. (Note: The studies appear to only cover straight couples, hence the male/female nature of the data below.) Here are some of the more interesting factoids. Remember, though, these are only stats—they definitely don't guarantee a blissful (or soon-to-be broken) union.

The studies show that marriages more often occur between people who are born in the same month or a couple months apart—in fact, people generally marry someone whose month of birth is within four months of the own. However, there are some interesting nuances: Women born in January most marry guys born in March, over those born in their same month. Also, women born in August are most likely to marry guys also born in August, but they are least likely to marry guys born in September.

While data showed that people prefer to marry a partner born in the same month or with a couple months, guys born in the second half of January tend to marry women born in the second half of October over two times more than expected, which is definitely an exception to the "rule."

Men born in March who wed women born in July are eight times more likely to divorce than any other birth month combination.

Apparently, when men born in February marry women born in May, their relationships tend to be "explosive"— these couples have higher divorce rates than researchers expected.

Men with birthdays in the later half of November divorce twice as often as guys born any other time of the year. And who they marry has nothing to do with it—this goes for men who wed women born in any month.