Yes, as if it's not bad enough that you're losing the one person who will remember to inform the singing waiters at Olive Garden that it's your birthday, it turns out that ending a relationship can actually have other awful, long-lasting effects on your life.

In the days or weeks after breaking up with the love of your life, you probably thought things couldn't get much worse. And that's why we have science to let you know that, well, they actually can.

6 You Might Be Ruining Your Friends' Lives Too

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As we pointed out in this article, the people around you can influence your behavior in bizarre ways. The choices your friends and family make in their lives, good or bad, end up influencing the decisions you make as well. And it seems that this is even more true when it comes to the ends of relationships: There's an excellent chance that your breakup is going to somehow cause the breakup of someone else in your circle.

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"We need some time apart, now if you'll excuse me, I have to destroy my friends' relationships."

How Bad Can it Be?

When a couple breaks up or divorces, their immediate friends and family are 75 percent more likely to break up as well.

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Kind of like how the breakup of the Beatles eventually caused the breakup of Bachman-Turner Overdrive.

On one hand, that's sort of expected in that humans certainly like to imitate each other (for that is the stuff fads and fashions are made of). But not when it's something bad, right? After all, when your friend gets fired from his job you don't go get fired from yours. Unless you secretly hate your job.

So there's a fascinating dynamic here, because it almost implies that everybody around you is just waiting for an excuse to break up with their partner, and just need you to give them permission by breaking up with yours first. Especially if whatever conflicts broke up your relationship (money problems, personality) are present in theirs as well.