I’m not sure if it qualifies as an actual finance-style bubble, but the sudden difficulty in attaining a clean-break divorce in the midst of a declining housing market sure feels like the bursting of something:

With nearly one in six homes worth less than the mortgage owed on it, according to Moody’s Economy.com, divorce lawyers and financial advisers around the country say the logistics of divorce have been turned around. “We used to fight about who gets to keep the house,” said Gary Nickelson, president of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. “Now we fight about who gets stuck with the dead cow.”

As a result, divorce has become more complicated and often more expensive, with lower prospects for money on the other side. Some divorce lawyers say that business has slowed or that clients are deciding to stay together because there are no assets left to help them start over.

So a broken marriage stays broken, but still intact. Which leads to awkward living arrangements:

Some clients have split up bedrooms and continue to live in the same house, [divorce lawyer Bonnie Booden] said. Some split child-care duties so they don’t have to deal with each other and live that way until they can figure out what to do. “And I’ve had people who just throw in the towel and get divorces anyway, creating financial ruin for themselves,” she said.

I’d guess that the more religious elements of society would look on this decline in divorce as the ends (somewhat) justifying the means. And I’d be right.