A new study conducted by James H. Fowler, a professor of political science at the University of California, San Diego and fellow researchers from Harvard and Brown Universities shows that divorce is contagious in social networks. In a recent ABC news article Fowler said someone does not necessarily have to get divorced himself to change the way divorce is viewed in a social group.  According to Fowler "You might have a friend, for example, who gets divorced, and that changes your mind about whether or not this is an appropriate option. And then you go and talk to a different friend about whether or not they should get divorced. And so one person's divorce can travel through the network even though the person in the middle isn't really affected."

The article chronicles the Trimble family and how one daughter's divorce set off a chain reaction that resulted in her younger sister's divorce and the end of her parent's 32-year marriage. Dan Trimble, her father, compares his marriage to an immune system. "If your immune system is up to full speed, and you're good and healthy, you're eating right, you're sleeping right, you're getting exercise ... you can be subjected to people who have colds and flu," he said. "But if your immune system is run down, and you get up against somebody who's got a cold or maybe has the onset of the flu, you're a pretty good suspect for coming down with it.

A recent CNN article cites the same study in discussing how the divorce bug is rapidly spreading through the Gore family. Al and Tipper Gore recently announced their separation after being married for 40 years. Soon after her parent's decision to separate, the Gore's oldest daughter announced her split from her husband. It seems it was the younger Gore daughter who may have introduced the bug though when she divorced her husband last year. 

Fowler's study showed that people with a divorced sibling are 22% more likely to get divorced. The numbers jump when looking at divorce in a social context. Apparently "friends have even more influence than siblings when it comes to divorce, according to Fowler's study. People who had a divorced friend were 147% more likely to be divorced than people whose friends' marriages were intact, the study said. The study also revealed a divorced co-worker can increase the likelihood of another employee divorcing by 55%  compared to an employee who works with non-divorced employees."

Some say that the introduction of the divorce bug into your social network is an opportunity to take stock of your own relationship and open the lines of communication with your spouse. . The same way exposure to a bug can strengthen your immune system, the “divorce bug” may have the ability to make your relationship stronger by forcing issues out into the open and allowing for resolution. Author Terry Real recently offered a few tips on how to beat the divorce bug on Good Morning America.