The wife deciding to pop the heating on at any point in September has been revealed as the most common cause of divorce in Wales, a study has found.

According to the statistics, marriages in Wales are ten times more likely to run into problems following a central heating-related dispute than they are through lack of intimacy, violence and even infidelity.

Wayne Pearce, from Queensferry, separated from his wife on Monday after returning home from work to find a small storage heater on medium in the lounge. “It was like walking into a furnace”, he said, still seething with anger. “She might as well just call my boss and ask him to forward my entire salary to Npower, it’ll save us time”.

Professor Mike Jones from Cardiff University helped conduct the study, he said: “At first we thought this could be because Welsh people are deeply conscious about their individual carbon footprints, and would rather face the pain of divorce than contribute to the rapidly accelerating effects of global warming.

“On closer inspection we realised it was because Welsh blokes are just tight-arse bastards”.