About four years ago I was researching the working life of women MPs and asked if data was available about marriage breakdowns resulting from their incredible workload and long hours.

I wanted to know if these figures existed for both men and women MPs and was told it didn’t, though the view was that it would be fascinating to know. Indeed it could be influential in introducing modern working reforms in Parliament if large numbers of MPs suffered a broken family life as a result of carrying out their public duties.

While broken marriages happen for many reasons, the demands of parliamentary work are considerable and it can be a huge, and impossible adjustment for spouses to make. For example, I remember one MP telling me that when he married, he worked in insurance, and his wife was not interested in parliamentary life.

Sebastian Coe is the latest to confess how his duties as MP for Falmouth and Camborne led to his  marriage breakdown. Not so long ago, Labour MP Tom Watson declared he was getting divorced and blamed this on the hacking scandal enquiry. Tory MP Louise Mensch shocked the nation by resigning her seat to spend more time with her children and husband who are based in New York.

In Sebastian’s book, Running My Life, which is being serialised in The Times, an extract is published on why politics and marriage don’t mix.

“On the evening of 1 May 1997 I sat in Sunny Corner Cotttage (Coe’s constituency home in the village of Stithians) with a bottle of red wine, watching the minute-by-minute speculation that is standard TV fare before the results start to come in.

“Exit polls were cheerfully predicting Armageddon. It was worse than any of us had feared. It wasn’t a defeat, it was a rout. My career as an MP was over.

“One person who was not unhappy at the result was my wife Nicky.

“Although my last year in the whips officer (where I was junior government whip) had made day-to-day living easier, it was still no life for her. The logistics alone were a real struggle. I mean, what do you do when you have three children under 4? Drive them down to Cornwall every weekend? That’s six hours in a car – 12 hours in total there and back. Or do you stick them on an aeroplane, all throwing up with turbulence?

“The pattern of life imposed by Parliament is simply not one that works in a modern marriage – in the days of MPs with private incomes and stay-at-home wives, maybe. Things have improved a little, but during my term the easiest you could expect to be out was 10.15pm, and home at 11pm. That was a result. Your wife might actually be awake. You wonder how any MPs’ marriage survives at all.”

We know that Nadine Dorries divorced after becoming an MP, and Alan Johnson announced this too last year. How many other MPs have become single? It would be intriguing to be able to compare this figure to national average divorce statistics. Do more MPs divorce than doctors? Or airline pilots?

And let us not forget our MEPs who are only home weekends, complete with a pile of paperwork and constituency duties before packing their bags for Brussels again.