Last year, a survey compiled by the EU's Eurostat statistical office showed that the UK has the highest divorce rate in Europe. The survey highlighted that there are 1.8 divorces for every 1,000 people in the UK, compared to just 0.6 in a country like Luxembourg.

This rather gloomy outlook has been reinforced by recent research released this month by the Marriage Foundation that predicts that around 45% of the couples who get married in the UK this year will end up getting divorced.

However, there is a glimmer of light among all the negative relationship data, as the divorce figures for those who are entering into second marriages are much lower at just 31%.

Age is considered to be a major factor in the failure of first marriages and the success of second marriages. The implications behind age being a factor are of course that we are ‘older and wiser’ and that perhaps after a certain age we know our minds better in terms of finding a partner, rather than making decisions in the flush of a first love. Issues such as a lack of experience in successful cohabitation, the pressure to produce children, and the reality of married life can also make first marriages falter.

Alongside the age issue (and also connected to it), success factors such as an increased affluence of second time brides and grooms and the fact that there is often much less pressure to have a family or to conform to certain social pressures, are thought to play a big part in second marriages having a better survival rate than first marriages.

The usual issues of whether a couple is compatible in terms of education and intelligence, ethnicity, occupation and earnings are also thought to have an effect on the success or failure of a relationship, but at an older age they tend to have less impact than on younger newlyweds.

Relate counsellor Paula Hall said: “People in second marriages seem to have more insight and self-awareness. Having gone through divorce and separation, there can be more motivation to work through problems and save the marriage.”

Whatever the reasons for the lower divorce rates for second marriages, these encouraging figures indicate that the UK might not be the marriage graveyard that the EU statistics made it out to be after all – at least second time around.