Six simple questions which let you know if your relationship is doomed to fail

No matter how many times you've been around the block, it's not always easy to know if the relationship you're in is actually a sinking ship .

To this end, there's a dazzling amount of advice, all aimed at telling us if we're compatible with someone - anyone! - or if we're doomed to die alone and unloved.

There's such a huge wealth of advice and insight that it can get a little contradictory and confusing.

So when we heard a website promised to reveal whether a relationship was the real deal or a sham with zero mileage, we had to check it out.

It claims it can tell if your relationship will last in just six questions.

As for the questions themselves, they really weren't what we were expecting i.e. they were in no way probing or convoluted.

Even better, there were no awkward ones relating to sex, or arguments, past misdeeds or ugly behaviour.

Here they are.

1. What is your relationship status?
2. How many years have you and your partner been together?
3. How old are you? How old is your partner?
4. What is the highest level of education you both completed?
5. How many children between the ages of 2 and 5 live with you?
6. On average, how many different relatives do you see each month?

See? Pretty straightforward.

So much so, you almost wonder how it can possibly deduce the success of your relationship.

As you'd hope, however, the US tech firm who generated the website did their research.

Assisted by Stanford University, they tracked the relationships of 4000 people over several years, eventually finding 150 clues as to whether a couple have a long-term future or not.

What the quiz seems to indicate is that:

- Married couples are dramatically more likely to stay together.

- The longer you've been dating your partner, the more likely you are to stay together.

- Couples with a bigger age gap are more likely to break up than couples with similar ages.

- Completing either high school or college are both associated with longer lasting relationships.

- Couples that interact with more relatives tend to stay together longer.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, it also asked about children.

But don't worry if this means you, the test said it was mainly children of a pre-school age which caused relationship stress.

The older they get, though, apparently the easier it is to stay connected to your partner.