And how do the chances of breaking up change over time?These are some of the many questions Michael Rosenfeld, a sociologist at Stanford, has been asking as part of a longitudinal study he started in 2009.Secretly, your anger won’t be satisfied until you’ve brought them around to your way of thinking and shamed them for the times they stepped away from it. In fact, they their past, or your plan will work and they will feel really horrible about it. If they start defending their past, it’s going to push the two of you farther apart.Their sudden righteous anger will turn your virginity into something that you’re holding over their head; they’ll stop valuing it and respecting you for it as much.“We know a lot more about the relationships that worked out than the ones that didn’t,” said Rosenfeld.“The way the census and other surveys tend to collect data just doesn’t produce a very good picture.

(REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni) Many men and women are seemingly rejecting those cougar and sugar-daddy stereotypes, as some experts are seeing that a substantial portion of middle-age and older singles are willing to choose partners who are younger than themselves.(He has also, by the way, uncovered some really interesting data about how people meet their partners). Both straight and gay married couples are far less likely to separate than their non-married counterparts.The chart below shows how the likelihood of breaking up changes as time goes by for straight and gay couples, both married and not. For same-sex married couples, the break-up rate falls from roughly 8 percent for those who have been together for 5 years to under 1 percent for those who have been together for at least 20 years.Relationships that don't work out are bizarre things, miniature lives that burn out like stars.We all have our regrets—the one(s) that got away, the one(s) that never should have been. How frequently do two people go their separate ways?