Why Do Celebrity Couples Split Up? Experts Weigh In On Divorce Rates

Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux. Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan Tatum. Kendra Wilkinson and Hank Baskett. John Cena and Nikki Bella. Countless other celebrity splits. 2018 hasn't even reached a halfway point, yet it seems like a large number of celebrity couples have announced plans to end their marriages and relationships.

However, while it's been a traumatic start to the year in terms of celebrity relationships, what fans may not realize is that these announcements, no matter how painful, all follow a normal cycle that generally occurs every year. In interviews with International Business Times, Dr. Venus Nicolino (Dr. V) and Dr. Ish Major (Dr. Ish), who currently star as the resident therapists on WE's "Marriage Boot Camp: Reality Stars," revealed that for both celebrity couples and those that aren't in the spotlight, announcing a split is very common in the earlier parts of the year.

"People make commitments for themselves of new beginnings at the New Year. So by March or April, people are able to vocalize them publicly," Dr. V told IBT. "So there is an actual cycle to why you're seeing a lot of, dare I say, 'uncoupling.'"

"There is an actual cycle to it that a lot of people really don't recognize," she added.

Dr. Ish elaborated on the cycle, explaining that in the case of divorce, both celebrity and community couples who have children often wait until the New Year to make those announcements and plans because of the holidays at the end of the previous year, telling IBT that they usually don't want to give kids a bad memory. However, he also cautioned that a similar spike usually hits at another point of the year--August.

"There's a spike in August, same issue. Those are the traditional summer months, and you don't want the kids to have a bad summer, and you usually wait until things kind of swing back into Fall," he said. "It's to be as minimally disruptive as possible. That's why we see those spikes."

It's notable that of the biggest splits of 2018 so far, the only ones who did not fall within the March/April spike were Jennifer Aniston and Justin Theroux, who announced their split on February 15. Naturally, news that Aniston was single again, just over a year following her other famous ex, Brad Pitt's, divorce announcement from Angelina Jolie, sent fans into a frenzy over the potential of a Brad and Jen reunion.

Of course, while any reports the former pair was considering a reunion were refuted, that doesn't mean fans should give up hope of the possibility they'd reunite, because former spouses getting back together is a surprisingly common thing as well.

"You know, you would be amazed, I have two clients who I am seeing privately right now, one lady who has remarried her ex-husband three times, the other, four times. So it happens a lot," Dr. Ish said. "And the reason why is because there's a familiarity there."

As for just how often it happens, Dr. V reveals that approximately 50 percent of couples get back together again after breaking up.

"The reason they get back together is because they were ambivalent about the breakup, which isn't necessarily a bad thing," she said. "I mean, people get dependent on the intimacy that was in their relationship, so they get back together to give it another go to make sure that what they were experiencing the first time was really real."

Regardless of the possibility of a Brad and Jen reunion someday, fans are still potentially feeling the trauma from some of the splits that have already been announced this year, and with another potential spike for announcements just around the corner, it's sure to trigger some of those feelings of anxiety and heartbreak over their favorite couples calling it quits. But, even though it may seem at times like 2018 is the year that love "died," Dr. V notes that no one should feel that discouraged.

"Here's the thing, love is not dead," she said. "Love is inside of us, and we are meant to love. We are meant to love and be loved. It is the most primal part of our brains, and you have no control over that love because It's operating on a chemical level. It's like breathing or sleeping or blinking your eyes. It's involuntary."

"So, when I hear people say love is dead, love will never die," she continued. "Because biologically, and scientifically, and biochemically, we are made to love."