I’m in the middle of a divorce now… it’s definitely put a dent in my material standard of living, but that wasn’t really a factor in deciding whether to leave or not. The situation was intolerable, and if being out of it means I have to rent an apartment and drive a used car, well, that’s a small price to pay. Compared to everything that goes along with a family breaking up, the money part is not that big a deal. It reminds me of a character in a novel I read years ago who was an insurance adjuster. He rationalized denying claims from policyholders who had suffered some disaster by saying that if money could fix it then it wasn’t really a disaster. My bet is that your buddies who say they’d leave their wives if it weren’t for housing costs just aren’t ready to leave. If it wasn’t housing, it would be something else.