According to Cochrane, contested divorces are becoming increasingly expensive, the unintentional result of a round of family law reform that swept Canada in the mid-'80s, which put the emphasis in a separation agreement on a couple's financial worth, spawning a still-developing industry of expensive consultants, such as forensic accountants and real-estate appraisers. Once lawyers get involved, Cochrane says, you can expect to pay $10,000 just to get a contested divorce into its beginning stages; it's not unheard of for long, drawn-out, complicated splits to skyrocket to $250,000. "With a moderate amount of conflict," Cochrane says, "most people will spend at least $15,000 to $20,000 per person to divorce."

Hence, the marriage trap. Once they've fallen out of love, married couples endure various messed-up living arrangements to avoid actual separation. Some live essentially parallel lives. Often, they'll split up parenting duties, parcelling out kids' music recitals or hockey games to avoid interacting. To maintain the facade of a happy family, they'll continue to sleep in the same bed, or wait until the kids have gone to sleep before one parent creeps downstairs to a mattress in the basement. Other spouses will move to a guest room.

Miriam came up with a different arrangement. Rather than separate outright, she and her husband attempted a less-costly alternative they hoped would be better for the kids: They rented an apartment near their house, and the two parents bounced between beds while the children stayed home in their own rooms. "That was my wacky idea," says Miriam. "And it failed. It meant I still had his presence all around me. It was a year that I didn't get on with my life. By the end of it, we still had our joint bank account."

Convinced divorce was the only option, but worried about the cost of lawyers, Miriam researched the alternatives. Places such as Staples sell do-it-yourself divorce kits. People who don't want to be bothered learning the minutiae of divorce law can also use a service like Untie The Knot (www.untietheknot.ca), whose owner, David Shelly of Nelson, B.C., will complete the necessary paperwork for a fee ranging from $195 to $325, depending on the province. Even with the provincial processing fee, some divorces can be completed for less than a thousand dollars. But the reality is that most soon-to-be-ex husbands and wives want more guidance, especially when dealing with custody issues and the separation of shared assets. Miriam settled on a third option: mediation, a process that falls somewhere between do-it-yourself kits and high-priced lawyers.