Once I built a railroad, now it's done.

I'm certain you've all heard the cliche about how to cook a frog but I'll cover it quickly for that one person who hasn't: If you plop a live frog in a pot of boiling water it will jump right out again but if you put it in cool water and slowly heat it, the frog won't notice the gradual increase in temperature and will politely sit there and cook. First ... ew. Live frogs being boiled to death and then eaten? Someone having done this in order to think this up? It's like a Valu-Pak of disgusting images. Second, I have my doubts about the whole theory. Frogs, while rarely being on the receiving end of a law degree, have lived in one form or another for millions of years. They have to have developed some survival instincts. I've always suspected that at one point during this evolutionary experiment, a frog would think to itself, "Is it just me, or is it getting warm in here?"

Which leads us to last week. As I have noted before, it's generally understood things aren't going well, economically. I don't think anyone is feeling any better-off financially than they were a year ago this week, when only Bear Stearns had gone under and AIG was just two vowels and a consonant. But within the last ninety-six hours, the water temperature must have gone up again because no fewer than three couples I know have hit an inflection point. These aren't couples who have spent the last few years acting out their own private version of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf," where the inevitable decline is met with public sorrow and private relief. And these are good couples. Loving couples. Couples who, had there not been once-every-century-financial-ruination-of-us-all forces acting upon them, would be chugging along nicely. But a combination of unemployment, underemployment, monthly four-figure COBRA payments, children constantly outgrowing shoes and a relentless cascade of bared-teeth credit card debt will make adversaries out of allies.

I sense your worry. No, this isn't my way of gently leading into the "Consort and Quinn aren't going to live together any more, but we still love you readers very much and it's not your fault." We're fine and, candidly, I'm grateful. I assume our stability is because only one of us is insane and the other is Consort. But, I feel like getting a pulse-check of the nation and the world (Waving "Hi!" to my readers in Indonesia, Austria and the United Arab Emirate).

Within your sphere, are you seeing marriages and relationships fall apart over the recession?