Deleting a referenced node is impossible, an error is thrown when trying it. We have to delete the referer node first, then we can safely delete the node.
It becomes problematic when two contents reference each other : as each one is at the same time the referer and the referred, we can delete none. The only solution to do that is to delete the reference property on one node, then delete the node which isn't referenced anymore, then delete the other node.
As it's a bit of a bother, it would be interesting to have a "cascade" option on the delete node operation, which would recursively delete the nodes referencing the node to delete, then the nodes referencing the referers, and so on.