Lisa and Larry had the proverbial American Dream in their palms: married for over 30 years, they had two lovely teenage children. However, one day they grew tired of it all – at least Larry did.
Larry was having an affair with a girl at one of the three companies he owned (which his wife owned as well - as you will soon see). The girl Larry was seeing got pregnant. His girl on the side convinced Larry that he could have everything in his life if only he would divorce his wife and marry her instead!
It must be noted that Lisa had tolerated his dalliances passively over the years but she was outright shocked when Larry served her papers! He wanted to trade her in on a newer model, much younger and better looking! Humiliated, she would have none of it. And so the battle began…
Enraged, Lisa fought Larry on every ground imaginable. She eventually won ownership of several of the businesses they both owned, though she knew nothing about running them. It got worse.
Larry, extremely vengeful, decided to sabotage his own companies rather than let them fall into the hands of his spouse. He called up everyone he knew in his business and sandbagged her rep to the vendors. He deliberately lost information that was critical to running their operations, and worse, he deliberately screwed up the books and damaged equipment. Lisa, for spite, ran what was left of the company into the ground.
For years, the divorce raged on – costing them, literally, millions of dollars and the evaporation in a year of all they had worked their whole lives to build. Unfortunately, such tactics affect even more then each other.
They unwittingly affected the lives of most of the people around them too: their kids as well as about 30 employees who counted on the business as a source of income.
It was as if nothing in the world mattered at all, except how much harm they could do to each other. His ex-wife reported Larry for accounting violations, which triggered an IRS probe, resulting in seizure of one of their homes. What can be gained out of such a scorched earth approach to divorce?
The answer is not much at all.
Larry and Lisa lost millions and destroyed their family while impacting other peoples’ lives in profoundly negative ways. The truth of the matter is they hurt more people around them that they used to care about deeply.
What should you do if you want to play nice while the other spouse resorts to such a suicide-bombing of your life’s work? How do you prevent yourself from being sucked into the same self-destructive battle?
Your best bet is to take the higher road, but unfortunately you will still lose quite a bit. Sadly, if one spouse is bent on destroying everything you created together, it will be more difficult for you to stop them than for them to carry it out. But, you can fight back.
What you need to do is somehow convince your spouse of what is really at stake – pain for everyone – not just themselves but for everybody. No matter whose fault the divorce is, when you pursue a scorched-earth policy you burn everyone in your life including your children and mutual friends as well as yourself. This may be the one motivation that could lead to a way out.
If you disengage, you will save what you can and you just might have the sanity to carry on and build a new life when the unpleasantness passes and it is time to start anew.
