This is the ideal age difference between couples, according to science

People say love is blind, but a study claims that age difference can determine the longevity of your relationship.

The idea of ??meeting someone significantly older or younger raises quite a few reactions.

Case in point:  When 45-year-old French President Emmanuel Macron was elected in 2017, the world was shocked by the fact that his wife, Brigitte Trogneux, was 25 years his senior and is now 70 years old.

At the time, Macron had spoken about the international obsession with the age difference between him and his partner.

"If I were 20 years older than my wife, nobody would think for a moment that we couldn't legally be together," he told Le Parisien, "It's because she's 20 years older that I that many people say, 'this relationship cannot be sustainable, it cannot be possible'.

While there are always exceptions to the rule, research has shown that relationships with specific age gaps are more likely to end in separation.

According to a study conducted by Emory University in Atlanta, the greater the age difference, the greater the chance of separation. After analyzing data from 3,000 people, researchers found that couples with a five-year age difference are 18% more likely to divorce than people of the same age.

This percentage increases to 39% for couples with an age difference of 10 years and to 95% for those who are "separated" by two decades. For those 30 years apart, the likelihood of divorce is 172% higher than peers.

So what is an ideal age gap?

As for the "ideal" age gap, contrary to popular belief that couples need to be several years apart for a relationship to blossom, researchers believe it's one year. In this case, the chances of separation are only 3%, compared to a couple of the same age or a couple with many years of age difference.

"It may be that the types of couples with these characteristics are more likely to break up for other reasons," said Hugo Mialon, one of the study's researchers.

The same research concluded that the longer a couple stays together, the lower the chances of divorce. Specifically, those who counted five years of relationship were 76% less likely to break up.