Mediate Michigan

If spring is the season for love, is summer the season for divorce? A rash of recently announced celebrity divorces and separations—Tiger and Elin, Al and Tipper, and now the Gores’; daughter, Karenna—makes it feel as if everyone is untying the knot these days. Some married couples can’t help but wonder, are they all on to something?

“I think divorce could be contagious,” says Robi Ludwig a New York City-based psychotherapist who previously hosted the reality TV show, One Week to Save Your Marriage. ” If there’s a trend where people handle glitches in their relationship by ending them, that could be seen [by others] as a possible solution.” Al and Tipper may have been inspired to split after living through both of their daughters’; marital woes, she says. Karenna separated from her husband several months ago, according to their statements to various media outlets. And the Gores’; younger daughter, Kristin, filed for divorce from her husband in 2009. While it’s well established that children from divorced homes are more likely to get divorced themselves, parents may not be immune to their children’s divorces, either. “I’m working with a couple whose daughter moved back in with them after her divorce,” says Ludwig, “and the marriage is in trouble because the mother is focused on the daughter’s troubles and the father feels his emotional needs are being ignored.”

via Gore Marriage Breakups: 5 Risk Factors for Divorce – US News and World Report.