By the time couples have been together for seven years, they're likely to stay together, experts say. In fact, it's more likely the four-to-five-year itch if you want to be accurate.

Findings from a Marriage Foundation report based on new statistics for the UK found that marriage was still the most stable of all unions.

Newlyweds have a 39 percent chance of splitting up, but the research found that those who have been together for around four to five years are at the greatest risk of irreconcilable differences.

The seven-year itch is no more than a myth encouraged by Hollywood fancy, the study discovered.

Once a couple has been together for 10 years, the chances of divorce reduce further to 20 percent. Just one in 100 of those couples married over 40 years are likely to split.

Nearly half of all divorces take place before couples reach the first decade, according to the study's author, Harry Benson.

The study suggested that too many youngsters don't do proper soul-searching before making the life-long commitment, which might explain why so many divorces take place in the first five years.

The ease at which couples find themselves living together is believed to be partly to blame for why so many incompatible or ill-fitting couples end up getting married and eventually, divorced.

The good news is that the rate of divorce slowed down in the 1990s and early 2000s, suggesting that couples are making more careful decisions before they get hitched.