Money can’t buy you love but it often makes a relationship go sour.

Couple.net, a matchmaking agency, said Tuesday that the number of divorces caused by financial problems has sharply increased in the past decade. In its survey of 4,405 couples divorced between 1990 and 2009, the number of people divorcing because of money problems marked 7.1 percent between 1990 and 1999, but jumped to 12.7 percent for the 2000-2009 period.

“While unity and structure among family members formed the bonds in the past, money has become the main reason for keeping families together after the Asian financial crisis in 1997,” an official at couple.net said.

The average age of divorce has risen to 38.4 from 35.6 for men and to 33.9 years from 31.2 for women. The couples surveyed had lived together for an average of 7.8 years before filing for divorce.

Apart from financial issues, family conflict accounted for 11.2 percent of divorces between 2000 and 2009 and infidelity also caused 15.5 percent of the divorces in the same period.

Physical or mental abuse as well as spouse’s illnesses declined a little as reasons for divorce.

“As more so-called nuclear families with two generations under the same roof become conventional, more people will have conflicts among themselves, which could easily tear up the traditional family tree,” the couple.net official said.

By Bae Ji-sook (baejisook@heraldcorp.com)