You’ve heard of backing up your hard drive or having a backup pair of sunglasses. Now, thanks to our friends at the Daily Mail and Jezebel, it’s time to be introduced to the concept of the “backup husband.”

According to a recent Mail survey of 1000 married ladies, half of all women have a backup husband in mind should their current one break during use. Or, you know, should the marriage not work out for whatever reason.

Some truly prepared wives may even have more than one backup in mind just in case. The survey also shows that a wife’s spousal-understudy is most likely to be either an ex or an old friend who has always had unrequited feelings for her. The most likely backup husband was a man the woman had known “for around seven years who will be ‘ready and waiting’ because of ‘unfinished business.’” Even more telling, around one in ten women said their backup was a man who had already “confessed his undying love,” while one in five women were confident the backup guy would “drop everything for her if she asked him too.”

Being prepared is one thing, but one in four women also reported having feelings for their backup man “as strong as they do for their other half.” That’s perhaps a step beyond prepared.

While living with a few necessary safeguards in place is always advisable, the concept of having a backup spouse in mind in case things don’t work out undermines your present relationship in more ways then one. The energy you spend keeping one eye on your plan b or obsessing over “what if” end of relationship scenarios is much better spent focusing on making your marriage work and keeping communication open and consistent. (The same goes for any guys with “backup wives,” too.) The concept of preparing for an imagined worst case takes you as far out of the present as possible. Living with a backup spouse in mind is like boarding a vacation cruise wearing a life jacket for the duration of the trip. It’s excessive behavior that grimly reminds you and those around you that there is a chance things may not go well.

If a breakup does happen, no amount of backup planning will be able to lessen the sadness of a split. I’ve yet to hear any divorcee say, “It wasn’t such a bad breakup. I had a backup spouse waiting in the wings.” In fact, I’d argue that the backup is more likely to be the cause of the split than the solution.