Chances are you’ve read about people trapped in unhappy marriages because they couldn’t sell their home, or couples whose lifestyles took a nosedive when they divorced.

Well, this weekend The New York Times ran an interesting story about real estate facilitating divorce!

For a number of years, Michele Kleier, a realtor on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, had a client who called her regularly to check on the price she could list her 9-room co-op for.

When the market was at its peak, the woman planned to divorce her husband, sell the apartment and live on her share of the profits.

This client went through with her plan, and now lives in a California condo, where she raves about the weather and revels in the distance she put between herself and her ex. “The real estate market allowed her to buy her freedom,” says Kleier.

Brokers and attorneys alike agree that the red-hot New York City real estate market has opened up a world of possibilities for unhappy couples. Up until 2006, it wasn’t that unusual to see home prices rise 20 or 30 percent a year, and though appreciation has slowed down, sales and market value haven’t. The price of the average Manhattan apartment this summer was $1.3 million. And the $3 million apartment is now the $7 million apartment. Half of that is a lot.

Gary Becker, an economist at the University of Chicago, has studied survey data and concludes that any couple who see a drastic rise (or drop) in net worth is at risk of divorce.

How often have you thought that you’re doing more than your fair share? If you’re a woman with children and a job, plus a golf-playing, TV-watching spouse, probably a lot. It can make you feel so resentful that there are many days when you’d really rather not be married anymore.

Well, you aren’t alone. “Chore wars” are now one of the major factors in divorce, according to sociologist Lynne Prince Cooke at the University of Kent in Cambridge, England.

In a paper she presented to the Council of Contemporary Families, she stated: “I found that couples where the wife earns about 40 percent of the income while the husband does about 40 percent of the housework have the lowest risk of divorce,” she wrote. In contrast, the risk of divorce rises if the husband is the sole earner and the wife is the sole cleaner, or if the opposite is true — the wife brings in more than 80 percent of income and the husband is “Mr. Mom.”

While many husbands agree in theory to the concept of equitably sharing chores and child care, it’s been my experience that they’re long on rhetoric and short on action.

Were “chore wars” a factor in your marriage or divorce? See also Katherine McKee’s take on this topic.

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