History Main / DivorceAssetsConflict

* In Creator/RobertAltman's movie ''Film/ShortCuts'', a husband facing an impending messy divorce demands his mother's grandfather clock from his soon-to-be ex-wife; she slams the door in his face. He shows up at her (formerly their) house the next day while she is away with her new boyfriend (or, rather, one of her new boyfriends) and saws every piece of furniture in half with a chainsaw ''except'' the clock (and his son's TV).

-->'''Harry''': Right now everything is great, everyone is happy, everyone is in love, and that's wonderful, but you gotta ''know'', that sooner or later, you're gonna be screaming at each other over about who's gonna get this dish; this $8 dish will cost you a ''thousand dollars'' in phone calls to the legal firm of ''that's mine, this is yours''! [...] put your name in your books right now, before they get mixed up and you don't know whose is whose, because some day, believe it or not, you'll go fifteen rounds over who's going to get this coffee table! This ''stupid'', '''wagon-wheel''', '''ROY-ROGERS GARAGE-SALE COFFEE TABLE'''!

Every time there's a divorce in media, the individuals involved never decide to handle it in a sane, rational manner. They're always as petty, vindictive and spiteful as possible, in a "Who Can Hurt The Other The Most?"-style contest. It's even worse when there are children in the picture, where even then, the custody battle might have more to do with hurting the ex than deciding what's best for the kids.

* On ''Series/{{CSI}}'', one BodyOfTheWeek died from this trope: he decided to take the fact that he got "half of everything" in the divorce literally and attempted to chainsaw his wife's favorite furniture. Unfortunately for him, he was a left-handed man using a right-handed chainsaw, and killed both himself and the friend who came along to help him.

** An episode of ''Series/{{CSINY}}'' featured a married couple that was planning to divorce being attacked and robbed in their home, with the husband being killed (by the wife after the fact). Interviews with the husband's business partner revealed that he was deliberately costing his business ridiculous amounts of money just so that his wife wouldn't get it. Oh, and the home invaders? Their daughter and her boyfriend, motivated by the fact that she would have lost her college fund and other finances in the war between her parents, who, like the Miami example below, didn't seem to be taking the impact on her into consideration.

--> '''Anne/Marge''': *looks at the map* Aww, I get ''Ireland?!''
--> '''Henry/Homer''': HAHA!

* ''Literature/TheCatWhoSeries'': Arch Riker, Qwill's lifelong best friend, is mentioned to be fond of antique tin, and at one time had a sizable collection. Book 23 (''The Cat Who Smelled a Rat'') reveals that his first wife managed to get it in their divorce settlement and promptly opened her own shop -- "Tin 'n Stuff" -- to sell it.

* ''Literature/TheCatWhoSeries'': Arch Riker, Qwill's lifelong best friend, is mentioned to be fond of antique tin, and at one time had a sizable collection, which his first wife managed to get hold of in their divorce settlement. [[KickTheDog She promptly opened her own shop - "Tin 'n Stuff" - to sell it.]]

** A ''Series/CSIMiami'' episode had a couple engaged in a highly publicized ''Film/TheWarOfTheRoses''-esque conflict become the suspects in a murder. Though they had nothing to do with it, eventually they did momentarily set aside their differences to murder a divorce attorney scamming them both. The team busts them for the latter thanks to the help of their son: when asked why he decided to turn in his own parents, he replies that they fought tooth and nail over their material possessions...[[LonelyRichKid but not once over him.]]

* The "literally dividing all the assets by cutting them in half " thing actually happened between a Cambodian couple in 2004 when they cut their house in half rather than let the other one have the whole thing. As you can see in the image above. It happened again in Germany in 2007.

** While there's never really any detail given to how the divorce between the Van Houtens went down, it presumably didn't go well for Kirk, as he spends the seasons between the divorce and eventual remarriage living in a men's shelter and working ridiculously low level jobs. Milhouse also mentions that his parents fought over custody of him, but it was ''[[ButtMonkey because neither of them wanted custody]]''.

* This is the conflict of the court case in ''Film/LiarLiar''; Fletcher Reede's client signed a prenuptial agreement stating that if she had an affair she would be entitled to nothing when divorced by her (very wealthy) husband. Fletcher Reede is the AmoralAttorney who's trying to get her out of it. The entire case is a joke as the woman is not only clearly guilty but shows absolutely no remorse for her wrong-doing, and Fletcher only encourages her to take as much as she possibly can. After finding a way to invalidate her pre-nup though, the client also demands total custody of their children (purely to milk more child-support payments out of her ex), which is enough to give Fletcher a HeelRealization.

* DoubleSubverted in ''Film/MarriageStory'': A divorcing couple are willing to make the procedure civil, especially because they want to become AmicableExes for the sake of their child, but unfortunately the divorce attorneys they hire [[AmoralAttorney are a couple of amoral scumbags]] willing to swindle them into going for the jugular because they don't want ''[[ItsAllAboutMe the other attorney]]'' to win. [[CouldHaveAvoidedThisPlot In the epilogue, they both lament that they didn't heard the advice given to them at the begginning and just did it all themselves.]]

* 'Discussed' (read:shouted about) in ''Series/WhenHarryMetSally'': Harry had his own divorce fiasco with his ex-wife Helen, and reacts to his recently-married neighbors' StepfordSmiler attitude with one long piece of advice: pre-nuptial ''everything''.
-->'''Harry''': Right now everything is great, everyone is happy, everyone is in love, and that's wonderful, but you gotta ''know'', that sooner or later, you're gonna be screaming at each other over about who's gonna get this dish; this $8 dish will cost you a ''thousand dollars'' in phone calls to the legal firm of ''that's mine, this is yours''! [...] put your name in your books right now, before they get mixed up and you don't know whose is whose, because some day, believe it or not, you'll go fifteen rounds over who's going to get this coffee table! This ''stupid'', '''wagon-wheel''', [[SuddenlyShouting '''ROY-ROGERS GARAGE-SALE COFFEE TABLE''']]!
-->'''Jess''': I thought you liked it!
-->'''Harry''': '''I WAS BEING NICE'''!

* A DaveBerg ''Magazine/{{Mad}}'' cartoon from the 70's uses this as a topic, with a couple bitterly, and physically, fighting in court over every single asset, EXCEPT the Mercedes, which both are fine giving to the other person. This is because this was right in the middle of the gas crisis of the 70's during the oil embargo, and fuel for a luxury car like that was like having to buy gallons of liquid gold.

* A DaveBerg ''Magazine/{{Mad}}'' cartoon from the 70's uses this as a topic, with a couple bitterly, and physically, fighting in court over every single asset, EXCEPT the Mercedes, which both are fine giving to the other person. This is because this was right in the middle of the gas crisis of the 70's during the oil embargo, and fuel for a muscle car like that was like having to buy gallons of liquid gold.

* Inverted in ''Film/WhatsLoveGotToDoWithIt'': When Tina finally left Ike, the only thing she kept was her name.

--->'''Homer:''' Hey, I ''invented'' divorce! How did you get half of everything?\\

* This is the conflict of the court case in ''Film/LiarLiar''; Creator/JimCarrey's client signed a prenuptial agreement stating that if she had an affair she would be entitled to nothing when divorced by her (very wealthy) husband. Carrey plays the AmoralAttorney who's trying to get her out of it. The entire case is a joke as the woman is not only clearly guilty but shows absolutely no remorse for her wrong-doing, and Carrey only encourages her to take as much as she possibly can. After finding a way to invalidate her pre-nup though, the client also demands total custody of their children (purely to milk more child-support payments out of her ex), which is enough to give Carrey a HeelRealization.

* ''Literature/DeadEndJobMysteries'': Protagonist Helen Hawthorne is avoiding one of these with her current lifestyle for the first nine books. Thanks to the courts siding with her deadbeat and cheating husband Robbie during their divorce proceedings, she legally owes him half of every paycheck she gets from then on, and has been forced to effectively live off the grid - no bank account, no phone, no permanent address - and work a string of dead-end jobs, paid only in cash with no benefits, in order to avoid him getting so much as a penny from her - and even then, her best efforts aren't enough to keep him from eventually finding her and demanding money. [[spoiler:This ceases to be a problem after Rob dies in book 9.]]

Too often this becomes TruthInTelevision. In RealLife, at least, this sort of thing is why prenuptial agreements came into being, and courts will also allow for sanctions to be pursued against offending parties and their attorneys (and may also deny monetary awards to filers of sanctions whose own behavior left them with no room to talk as per the "unclean hands" doctrine). After all, courts hate divorces just as much as you do, and they ''really'' hate messy ones. If you and your ex run up massive legal bills because you just couldn't act like mature adults and had to fight it out to the bitter end (which in fiction-land occasionally involves such extremes as hiring the sleaziest AmoralAttorney in town or even [[DivorceRequiresDeath the occasional assassin]]), the court will do its best to punish you and your attorney (who absolutely should have known better) for it.

* An add for H&R Block involves a man getting a huge tax return-but since his accountant is also his ex, he only gets to keep $17 because of alimony. She lets her new boytoy watch too.

* The ''Series/LawAndOrder'' episode appropriately titled ''Divorce'' focuses around a particularly ugly divorce proceeding. The husband is attempting to have the marriage annulled with the church so he can remarry, while the wife is fighting it to prevent the illegitimacy of her children. As bad as they are, their [[AmoralAttorney lawyers]] are even worse, scrapping over every penny. It comes to a head at the beginning of the episode, when a counselor for the church is murdered. The wife’s lawyer eventually confesses that her client committed the crime, but between her distressed state of mind and blackouts from her prescription abuse, she’s not responsible for the death. [[spoiler: The reality is that the wife’s lawyer framed her for the murder after killing the councelor herself while trying to ransack her computer for the counselor’s findings that she was in favor of the annulment due to the wife’s drug abuse. She figured her client’s incapacity would leave her unable to fight the frameup, and when her client beat the murder charge on diminished capacity, she could soak up sympathy to gouge the husband out of even more money.]]