It's so easy to fall in love – and today, to get divorced.

Look at the casualties. Al and Tipper Gore. Elizabeth Hurley and Arun Nayar. Kim Kardashian and Kris Humphries. Your own good friends.

Americans no longer feel so ashamed about untying the knot. A Gallup Poll this year found that only 31 percent of citizens now morally oppose divorce. And no-fault laws make it simpler to split.

Among men who headed to the alter for the first time in the early 1970s, only 54 percent were still married on their 25^th anniversary, according to Census Bureau data. Other statistics indicate that 43 percent of U.S. couples will divorce over 40 years.

But couples may want to take a deep breath. Studies have shown that married people are mentally and physically healthier and even have more sex than single people. And, as University of Chicago sociologist Linda Waite wrote in The Case for Marriage: Why Married People are Happier, Healthier and Better off Financially, unhappy couples who divorce are no happier than those who stick it out.

Given the research, couples therapists today often try to get husbands and wives to try to work it out. One technique: so-called guided marital separation or controlled separation, which gets the man and woman to slow down and behave civilly. (Therapist Lee Raffel first wrote about the concept in her 1999 book, Should I Stay or Go?: How Controlled Separation Can Save Your Marriage.)

In this process, couples agree to guidelines, including a separation time limit (typically one to six months), says therapist Julienne Derichs. During that period, they vow not to file for divorce. They also plan for how they will tell their kids and handle finances, living arrangements, continued counseling, and dating (with each other or others).

"It's about helping a couple negotiate as teammates," says Derichs. "They can focus on something they can work toward together."

Sometimes circumstances – such as affairs, substance abuse, gambling, or physical or verbal abuse — may make couples feel they can't repair their marriages. But Derichs believes even then, controlled separation can help.

"Controlled separation really allows couples to ask the question, 'Am I unhappy with me, or is it my spouse?'" says Derichs. "Am I feeling better alone? Do I want to repair my marriage?"

If they do want to work on it, a couples' therapist can help husbands and wives to remember "what they fell in love with," says Derichs. "Controlled separation helps them look at and re-examine what they like about each other, and it helps them remember that there were peaks in the relationship. In any relationship, there's going to be harmony and disharmony. The key is the couple's ability to repair and restore that harmony." (Psychologist John Gottman famously said couples need a ratio of five positive interactions for every negative one.)

Many couples may want to stay together because of their kids. "You're going to have a relationship with each other for the rest of your life," says Derichs. "If I had a dollar for every time I had a couple say, 'If only I knew how much I'd have to work on a relationship with my ex-spouse I don't know if I would have divorced. I think I would have just tried to work on the relationship.' When you have children, you have a relationship forever."

Even if couples decide to split, controlled separation helps "cooler heads prevail," especially when it comes to kids, says Derichs. "You'll make sure there's no bad mouthing about each other. You'll make sure their needs are put first."

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For more about romance, read:

Top 10 Midlife Celebrity Breakups of 2011

Top 10 Midlife Marriages of 2011

Longest Celebrity Marriages

Shortest Celebrity Marriages

Famous Weddings from the Past

Once Was Not Enough: These Celebrities Married Multiple Times