How to Predict Divorce with 94 Percent Accuracy

We're attending a wedding this summer. And, like any prospective wedding guest, before we buy a gift we're going to figure out how likely it is that the couple will eventually divorce.

Call us callous, but we're not plunking down $500 for Fine China soup bowls if we know they'll end up being the food dish for the bride's breakup dog. Not in this economy.

But how to tell if the marriage will last? An answer comes from across the pond--one that was arrived at thanks to research done right here in Seattle.

James Murray, a professor emeritus at UW's School of Applied Mathematics, filmed 700 Seattle-area newlyweds talking about testy topics like money and sex. Couples who managed to be nice to each other during such discussions got positive points, those were got angry got negative points.

They plugged the results into a mathematical model and predicted which couples would stay married. After 12 years, their predictions were 94 percent accurate.

Murray further categorized his interview subjects as either "validators," "avoiders," or "volatiles." If both partners belong in the same category, they stand a good chance of staying together.

If not, "some couples might as well get divorced right away," Murray told the Daily Mail of England.