Married men, you may want to step away from the Xbox.
In a recent online survey of 721 Japanese women, playing video games was the fourth most cited reason for splitting up with a spouse.
So what's worse than gaming? The women, who ranged in age from teens to 60 plus, said that adultery, alcoholism and overspending were greater grounds for divorcing their husbands. Gaming edged out less offensive options like sleeping in until noon on the weekends and differing "approaches to cleanliness."
This is hardly the first time that we've heard of video game addictions wreaking havoc on marriages. Last year, Divorce Online found that 15 percent of women who cited unreasonable behavior for ending their marriage said they felt that their partner put gaming before their relationship.
Divorcing your spouse over gaming may seem odd, but it's not the weirdest grounds for divorce that's ever been reported. Click through these seven strange-but-true divorce causes and vote on which one that you think is the strangest.
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Mama's Boy
A young Italian groom was so unready to leave his mother's side, he brought her on his honeymoon in January 2012. His unimpressed bride <a href="http://old.news.yahoo.com/s/ac/20110129/lf_ac/7728736_motherinlaw_destroys_italian_couples_marriage" target="_hplink">asked for a divorce three weeks later</a>.
A Clean Break
One German woman put up with her neatfreak husband's love of household chores for 15 years <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/2009/04/02/oukoe-uk-germany-divorce-idUKTRE53145M20090402" target="_hplink">until finally divorcing him</a> in April 2009. The last straw? His decision to knock down and rebuild a wall in their home because it was dirty.
Was It My Crow's Feet?
One woman got married at age 30, but told her husband she was just 24. Ten years into their marriage, in November 2007, <a href="http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2007-11/28/content_6284496.htm" target="_hplink">he found out about the lie</a> and asked for a divorce.
Tattle Tale
What would you do if your pet bird started to say things like "divorce" or "be patient"? In June 2001, <a href="http://archives.cnn.com/2001/WORLD/asiapcf/east/06/19/china.bird/index.html" target="_hplink">those phrases</a> proved to one woman that her husband had been unfaithful -- and that was grounds for divorce.
Phallic Faux Pas
Size mattered <em>too</em> much <a href="http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/241571-man-faces-divorce-after-penis-extension-breaks-during-sex" target="_hplink">for this man</a>. His wife split in 2008 after a prosthetic penis extension snapped off during sex.
Time Doesn't Heal All Wounds?
Would you divorce your spouse over a 60-year-old affair? In December 2011, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/29/worlds-oldest-divorcees_n_1174902.html" target="_hplink">a 99-year-old Italian man filed to do just </a>that after discovering a love letters his 96-year-old wife had written to her lover in the 1940s. The breakup made the couple the world's oldest divorcees.
Sad Sack
A Frenchwoman filed to divorce her husband after two decades together, citing their lack of sex as the cause. Adding insult to injury, in September 2011, a <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/8741895/Frenchman-ordered-to-pay-wife-damages-for-lack-of-sex.html" target="_hplink">judge ordered the man to pay his ex $14,000</a> as compensation for failing to make the grade in the sack.
Posted: 05/30/2012 4:35 pm Updated: 05/30/2012 5:53 pm