DID I dream this, or did I really hear a story on the radio about how house prices are now so high that people can't afford to split up?

I listened with increasing astonishment as a couple, as if in some sort of self-help class, confessed how they had been together for years and years but were struggling to get along.

This couple never revealed the sources of their differences. But they were united in saying that they could not possibly split up, because neither could afford to buy the other out, and that without one another they could never afford to get themselves a home.

More and more couples live like this, said the radio. They are trapped without the wherewithal to break free; invisible casualties of the housing boom, apparently.

Some people - this couple included - were even choosing to live separate lives under the same roof rather than lose out financially. They were building in annexes or granny flats to accommodate their new arrangements.

Now, I've no reason to suppose that those people who carve their home up do not do so perfectly amicably, with a song in their heart, most likely, and in the absence of all recrimination.

I have no doubt that most of them will at last go on to live happy ever after, looking the other way rather than deploring their ex's taste in dcor and taking an understanding line if loud music should percolate through the new partition walls.

We are all adults, after all, and when the time comes, it should be easy to welcome one another's new partners into the old love nest with a happy heart, rather than lurking behind the curtains with binoculars and a well-stropped knife.

Likewise, new partners should be mature enough to see the economic sense of what you are doing, without wondering whether you are both a) bonkers, b) secretly still in love, or c) a sinister pair of Fred West-style creeps who may pounce at any moment.

Why do I keep on thinking about that classic episode of Steptoe & Son, in which Harold and the Dirty Old Man divide their yard down the middle rather than speak, then spend hours monopolising the outside toilet to spite one another?

I've no wish to sound hard-hearted to people in emotional distress. I must say I like my home as much as the next person might like theirs. I still feel the sense of pride I felt when I first got on to the housing ladder - and the relief that I managed to do so before the market all went pear-shaped.

I'll go further. Generally speaking, we get on pretty well round at our house, but I've got to admit there are times when the granny flat might seem like a good idea.

As far as I'm concerned, it would be somewhere to chuck all the surfboards/wetsuits/guitars/sports bags that clutter up the house.

And I dare say some people might occasionally long to see the back of my 18 (subtly different) pairs of black shoes, my bags of unfinished knitting and my apparently lightweight taste in popular music.

But I've got to say that if we ever got to the point where we were sick to the back teeth of each other, we'd hardly be looking to live next door.

Sell the lot up and move to Goa if you're too broke to break up in Britain, I reckon. Preferably one of you to each end of the place, then you need never set eyes on one another again.

Updated: 09:13 Wednesday, November 24, 2004