Peak to trough housing prices are probably going to go down 40%. Gas will soar over the next decade. I think you will lose a lot more than 50K if you stay. Maybe 200K, guessing at the magnitudes here but factoring in declines to this point.

Face it the easy money is gone. People will have to put 20% down for banks who are going to be fussy about their lending standards, because they won't be able to securitize the loans. Take a good look around: who is going to be able to afford your house from wages, not funny money teaser rate loans? If it doesn't look good, get out.

Then, rent. Save. Take trips to towns both of you like. When prices go down 40%, buy in a location that suits both of you.

"...suburban houses are basically huge garages with attached living quarters for servants -- meaning us... But our lives are not so good there."

Speak for yourself, Cary. I agree with the others who point out that suburbs can be very good for kids. I live in your basic suburban 4 bedroom -- no McMansion -- with my sidewalk and yard. Every house on the block has kids in it. Football games take place regularly out back, as the many boys who live here drift over after school and start tossing a ball around. We have woods down the street the kids can explore, and several of the schools are only two blocks away. Summer nights find a lot of neighbors sitting in each others' yards, having a beer, shooting the breeze, while kids play flashlight tag.

Sure, I wish it was more walkable. We used to live closer to the city, and when the kids are grown maybe we will again, but that would actually lengthen our job commute.

The suburbs are not for eveyone, and maybe the LW should move, especially if kids aren't in the picture. We may not be cool out here, but that doesn't mean we are miserable or enslaved. To each his own.

Your gut is smart. Your gut knows what kind of guy you are, even if your brain lost sight of it in the run-up to buying this house/life. Turn back now! It's not too late. If you wait too long, though, the wall-to-wall carpeting and remarkable surround sound entertainment system is going to seep inside your brain and make you think it's okay to live this way. Get out while you still have access to your most reliable instincts.

We can tell you all sorts of suburbia stories - both pro and con - but in the end, you have to make that decision. But wait for a few months, at least. The city won't go anywhere.

Personally, I empathize - I've spent 1.5 years living in the suburbs (taking care of my ill mother), and it was a horrible shock at first (I came from San Francisco, which I loved a lot, and still love). It felt like an imprisonment of sorts. Part of it was that I really couldn't go anywhere - I had no car, and my mother required a lot of attention - but part of it was the soullessness of it all.

But you know what? I came to kinda like the place, after a while. No, I still wouldn't choose to live in the suburbs voluntarily. I live in a big city now, and I'm happy here. But I enjoyed growing things in my parents' back yard. I liked walking around the neighborhood at night and watching the stars. I found neighborhood coffee shops and bookstores that relieved the monotony somewhat. It wasn't all bad.

But if it is making you very unhappy, just sell the house. It's only money. Psychiatrist bills would cost more.

Dear LW, my God how I sympathise.

I am 12 years down your road. My wife and I are in therapy for the third time, but finally separating. The house has been at the center of our difficulty all along the way, and English doesn't have words for the river of pain that I've been swimming in. I was sucked into depression within months after the move; it took many more months to recover... after which the house, of course, was still staring me in the face.

For years I thought: if the house were on fire and my daughter were inside, I'd walk through fire to get to her. Otherwise, I'd turn my back, and the rest would be a clerical inconvenience.

Then I discovered the scale of the clerical inconvenience. The house was destroyed by a broken heating pipe on the second floor. Now picture this:

1. The house is turned into a mold-ridden reminder of the decision you never made.

2. The "amelioration" people move in.

3. The insurance company gives you a 29-page document of line items, as their estimate for repair.

4. Then you have to rebuild the house you despised for 12 years. (Note: This introduces a contractor into your life.)

All this is only fair if you love, I mean you LOVE, where you live. Otherwise it is insult after laughing, wretching insult added to injury. In the end, it will probably destroy your marriage. And even then, everyone around you will force you to question whether it's the house, or you.

Trust me: it's the house.

P.S. You gonna have kids? You're gonna want sidewalks. My particular suburb has none. Imagine teaching your kids to ride their bikes -- how many teenage drivers are there in your neighborhood?

I spent 9 months in the McMansion-strip mall-wasn't here last year, fakeness of Chula Vista CA. Empty souls that have reached the pinnacle of cocooning inside their 5000 square foot testament to what someone else told them was supposed to be happiness.

No decent food, just chain chow halls. A complete absence of intellectual curiosity. Unless you have a kid your never going to meet any "friends". After a few months, I could feel myself wanting to fill the emptiness with stuff, replacing my desire for better with just more. Thank the gods of destiny I got recruited back to the San Francisco Bay Area.

Get out of Generica, it'll turn you into a drone. One does not have to live in a city, I've also been perfectly content in small mountain towns but plastic soul suburbia... never again.