At least with mysql, and probably with postgres as well, you can temporarily turn off foreign key checks for a set of statements. So you can still get the benef

At least with mysql, and probably with postgres as well, you can temporarily turn off foreign key checks for a set of statements. So you can still get the benefits of foreign key constraints by default but when they do more harm than good you can turn them off. With the added benefit that turning off FK constraints screams "I am doing something unusual and dangerous - this requires extra caution."