Some want you to believe that love is merely a science and there’s a formula to determine whether you will stay together or divorce. One of those places is The Journal of Family Psychology which released a study showing that those in relationships where the guy is better looking than the girl are more doomed to divorce.

"The relative attractiveness in a couple matters more than the absolute attractiveness of each partner," according to one researcher in the study, UCLA's Benjamin Karney, PhD.

Ah, so that is why Jennifer Aniston got dumped by Brad Pitt, the logic goes. She’s not as good looking as Pitt, but Angelina Jolie is more beautiful than he is, so voila — that explains the chemistry.

The only problem with this analysis is that it reduces attraction to looks and not a more enduring connection — based on loyalty, intelligence, common interests. If people believe this study, they will have yet another reason to worry about fidelity.

Even our article on “How to Catch a Cheating Husband,” didn’t suggest you should worry if he’s better looking than you.

The sages have long said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Years ago, I compiled pictures of long-term couples and discovered that they often had the same face shapes and, more often than not, looked as if they belonged to the same family.

What I gleaned from that unscientific study is that love can be triggered by familiarity. If the husband in the Karney study was more attractive than the wife, both of them were less satisfied with the marriage.

Satoshi Kanazawa, PhD, an evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics, offers his own explanation as to why the couple might be less happy — handsome men make bad husbands.

The splits. The fits. The emotional pits. And all the couples who called it quits.

This past year had it all. Some stories touched us, others moved us, many angered us, and a few even tickled us.

After much culling and sifting, we narrowed it down to 20 of our top picks from 2008. We hope you enjoy this little look back as we prepare to move forward.

The Let’s-Just-Be-Friends Award
(Most Amicable Divorce)

Robin Williams and Marsha Garces Williams

Talk about civil unions. No sooner had the couple announced their split after 19 years of marriage than they signed an official agreement stating "we commit ourselves to the collaborative divorce process and agree to seek a positive way to resolve our differences justly and equitably” — all for the sake of their two children. For those of you playing along at home, this is the way to go.

Runner Up: Dixie Chick Emily Robison and singer Chris Robison. How do we know they were both “ready to make nice”? Their divorce took a mere six months, and the filing was a scant two and a half pages.

The ‘Til-Death-Do-Us-Part Award
(Most Devoted Husband)

Mohammed Bello Abubakar

When Nigerian cleric Abubakar, 84, was told he had to divorce all but four of his 86 wives, he refused – even though doing so might lead to the death penalty. He is currently behind bars, fighting for his love. And you thought “Titanic” was the greatest love story ever told.

The Golden Goose Award
(Biggest Settlement)

Madonna & Guy Ritchie

Ynetnews.com did not specify whether the man wore boxers or briefs — but it did indicate that said underwear is the lead evidence in a rabbinical court divorce case. Yep, underwear.

A suspicious Israeli wife snagged her husband’s underwear shortly after he disrobed and brought them to a forensics lab to be tested for a “third party’s” DNA. Turns out, she was right.

The woman also brought a saliva sample of her own and two of her husband’s cigarette butts. (Sidenote: Why do cigarettes seem to be at the center of multiple divorce cases?) Two samples were found: a man’s, which matched the DNA on the husband’s butts, and a female’s — which did not match the wife’s saliva sample.

DNA first surfaced in divorce court as evidence in a 2000 Florida case, when a West Palm Beach woman took the bed linens from her Vermont vacation home to a lab for testing.

The rabbinical court has taken the current evidence into review; apparently, there’s serious money at stake. Too bad all that cash comes down to Fruit of the Loom.

Here is a role a South Korean actress didn’t want to play. In a real-life drama, Ok So-ri was handed a suspended jail term for having an affair, which is against the law in South Korea. It was a high profile case that tested the decades-old law prohibiting extramarital affairs and naturally gave the tabloids a tantalizing tale to keep readers mesmerized for months.

A year ago, Ok acknowledged during a news conference that she had had an affair with an opera singer for a few months in 2006. She stressed the affair was a result of her loveless marriage to actor Park Chul, who was a friend of the singer.

Naturally, Ok was not okay with the country's law — nor were others. She fought back, maintaining that the law was unconstitutional and an invasion of privacy. However, the conservative country’s court upheld the ban, which is part of South Korea’s 55-year-old criminal code.

Technically, Ok could have faced a prison sentence of up to two years, but few do serve time. As the Seoul newspapers reported, supporters of the adultery ban say it promotes monogamy and keeps families intact. Opponents argue the law violates privacy.

Complaints have been filed with the Constitutional Court three times — in 1990, 1993 and 2001 — to abolish the law, but the court has upheld it every time. While women's rights group were the ban's biggest supporters in the past when the law was meant to keep philandering husbands in line, in recent years some husbands have begun pressing adultery charges on their unfaithful wives.

Feminism and economic independence means that women do not have to put up with bad behavior. However, better to get divorced than have an affair.

Moses may have passed the Ten Commandments on to the Israelites, but a preacher has added a new one. Thou must have sex every day for a week. And guess what? Couples say it is helping their marriage.

As The New York Times reported, on November 16, Rev. Ed Young, a TV host and pastor of the evangelical Fellowship Church in Texas, told his parishioners to have a week of "congregational copulation." He did so while preaching in front of a large bed and reading from the Bible.

In encouraging people to have more sex, he noted that it would turn people from "whining about the economy to whoopee."

And having more whoopee certainly has helped improve people's moods and mindsets.

Lisa Young, the pastor's wife, who gamely dressed in knee-high black boots and jeans, noted that a week of sex may even help people forgive infidelities, addiction to pornography and bitter hurts, although, she said, in addition, “there’s been some pain.”

As we've reported, infidelity is hard to forgive; maybe sex can be as helpful as therapy, which many can't afford right now. It's hard to have sex with someone you feel betrayed by, but maybe the lack of sex was a cause of problems too.

After all, in the early stages of courting before marriage, most couples are having a lot of sex. That eventually tapers off with the strain of kids, jobs and mortgages. The Youngs, parents of four children, have been married for 26 years and can relate to these real-life problems. As Rev. Young jokes, kids stand for "keeping intimacy at a distance successfully."

If you make the time to have sex, it will bring you closer to your spouse and to God, he said. You will perform better at work, leave a loving legacy for your children to follow, and may even prevent an extramarital affair.

This was something that former View host Debbie Matenopoulos didn’t want to see. On Internet sites, there were rumors that her husband was cheating. Now to her shock and dismay, her husband, the music executive Jay Faires, has surprised her by filing divorce papers in California.

"I am deeply saddened by the dissolution of my seven-year relationship with my husband, a man I truly believed I would be with forever," Matenopoulos said in a statement to E! News, where she now works. “Although my public persona may seem unconventional at times, I do not take marriage and family lightly, and I am quite traditional.”

Faires filed for divorce in Los Angeles Superior Court citing the usual — irreconcilable differences. He also said that, since the couple does not have any children and she is gainfully employed, he should not have to provide any spousal support.

It appears, he wasn’t supporting the relationship for some time. The couple, who married in July of 2003, did separate in March of this year. But like many women, Matenopoulos thought they were going through a rough patch and that maybe a separation would give them time to appreciate what they had.

But perhaps she should have read How To Tell If Your Man Is Cheating. Although she may have known that less than 5 percent of couples who separate ever get back together, hope is something all of us have when it comes to reviving troubled relationships.

Before it is truly over, women try really hard and are willing to forgive many sins in an effort to keep their marriages afloat. However, the boat has now left the dock and Matenopoulos will sail on solo, seeking a safe harbor with someone who will appreciate her, which is just what she deserves.

“I’ve been trying to sell this house for two years,” Chris Wealty said. He dropped the price from $850,000 to $599,000; still no interest. The house sits empty, once home to a married couple. They are trying to divorce, but settling the financial terms depends on selling this house in College Park, a neighborhood north of Orlando, Florida.

So he decided to advertise. On a large (and not very attractive) sign in the front yard, he wrote “3,400 sqft Lake View House: $599,000. Helping me get divorced: $ priceless $. 407 592 4964 (Husband)”

As he told the Orlando television station WESH, he and his wife had been married for 17 years, and had been in negotiations for several years over a divorce settlement. The house is in one of the nicer areas, former orange groves surrounded by lakes near the well-known Winter Park. It is not far from the modest bungalow where Jack Kerouac wrote Dharma Bums, a home that is now a writer’s colony.

But a nice four-bedroom, three bath house, a pretty view, a good neighborhood have not been enough. Housing prices in Orlando, which went up 34 percent from 2004 to 2005, have now dropped by 20 percent. One leading real estate expert, Robert Schiller, says Orlando prices will drop another 30 percent this year.

Thus Wealty’s desperation. If he doesn’t sell the house soon, he said, he faces foreclosure. One of his neighbors opined that putting up a sign airing dirty laundry was kind of “white trashy,” so the experiment hasn’t endeared him to the community. But his life, and his wife’s life, have moved on.

When asked what his soon-to-be-ex wife thought of the sign, Wealthy answered: “Well, to tell you the truth, I'm not real sure. We don't talk much these days except through lawyers.”

No kidding.

For every bride who discovers she had an ally, a mother-in-like, after the wedding, there are those who realize they have a monster-in-law. My monster-in-law gave me a fuzzy sleep suit with a big zipper up the front the first year of our marriage, possibly the least sexy piece of clothing ever. I felt like the Easter bunny. It was royal blue.

But the mother-in-law in the beautiful coastal town of Ravello, on Italy’s Amalfi Coast, must have been a doozie. The Italian press was all over the story of a man who got his marriage annulled this week because of interference by his wife’s mother. One Italian newspaper talked about mother-in-laws who put themselves between husband and wife, “with the docile tenderness of a Rottweiler.”

The Italian press readily conceded that it’s usually the husband’s mother, and not the wife’s mother, who acts like a Rottweiler. Last year a poll by Eures, a job portal on the internet, said that 3 out of 10 Italian divorces were due to "the unusually close attachment of Italian men to their mothers." The mothers sometimes move in, take care of the house, and often criticize their daughter-in-law’s housekeeping, cooking or child rearing.

This case was not nearly as severe; it hinged on an oral contract. Antonio Paolillo, a car dealer, was set to marry Maria Assunta Gemma Criscuoli in 1998, and there was a little bambini on the way. Paolillo, 27 at the time, apparently was apprehensive about his mother-in-law-to-be. So just before the wedding he told his bride, 21, that she had to keep her mother out of their marriage.

If not, he said, he would get a divorce.

Does your spouse chew too loudly? Maybe he can't beat his smoking habit. Or perhaps he's garnered a bit too much attention from the ladies? According to The Times of India, these minor annoyances have morphed into major grounds for divorce. If you follow our Relevant News coverage, you may have noticed a trend. Some of the most unusual divorce stories come from one country: India.

Taking a cue from Western culture (unfortunately, that would be us), Indian couples have increasingly rushed to the courthouse should a facet of the beloved's bother them. Of course, these are just a handful of cases of the already low 1.1% divorce rate for the country.

Couples have supplied a plethora of off-the-wall reasons to split. We recently wrote about the man who filed because his wife's acne was "traumatic" and he could not share a home with her. A few weeks back, a homemaker gambled in the temperamental stock market and her husband wasn't willing to shoulder the financial loss with her. Just a few months ago, a frustrated husband drew up divorce paperwork should his wife light up one more cigarette.

Have you ever wondered how difficult it must be for Jennifer Aniston to see Angelina Jolie portrayed as a model mother on magazine covers? To her credit, Aniston, who divorced Brad Pitt after he started an affair with Jolie while filming Mr. & Mrs. Smith, has stayed mum about their relationship. She did slip once when she mentioned how Pitt and Jolie were insensitive for portraying a 50's family scene in W Magazine when the wounds of her break-up were still so raw.

But she didn't unleash — except to girlfriends like Courteney Cox — her feelings about the woman who seduced her husband. Until now. She is promoting her Christmas movie, Marley & Me, and it seemed the right time to unload. (The title of her next film, He’s Just Not That Into You, might be too close to home.)

In the December issue of Vogue magazine, Aniston commented on her annoyance at Jolie for recounting a detailed timeline of how she fell in love with Pitt.

"There was stuff printed there that was definitely from a time when I was unaware that it was happening," said Aniston, who could have benefiting from reading our story on How to Catch a Cheating Husband.

"I felt those details were a little inappropriate to discuss,” Aniston said. “That stuff about how she couldn't wait to get to work every day? That was really uncool."

Yet she seems to have less icy feelings toward her ex, Brad Pitt, who was equally responsible for the affair. After all, it takes two to do a tantric tango.

"[We've exchanged] a few very kind hellos ... and congratulations on your babies," she said.