History Main / DivorceAssetsConflict

[[folder:Live Action TV]]

* In ''Series/{{Degrassi}}'', Claire's parents take up her suggestion that ''she'' live in the family home full-time while ''the parents'' commute between it and an apartment elsewhere based on who's turn it is to have custody.

* In ''Series/{{Revenge}}'' Conrad and Victoria's divorce battle becomes very nasty, with each of them trying to get an edge on the other by any means, and before long things from their past that could ruin both of them start to surface as, among other things, each of them starts to reveal past wrongdoings of the other to try to get their children on their side.
** It is later revealed that Conrad went through a similar thing with his first wife Stevie but since she was and OffTheWagon alcoholic at the time, he managed to keep most of his fortune. Conrad then uses the fact that he screwed her in the divorce proceeding as a weapon against Victoria. Stevie was supposed to get a plot of land that Conrad kept for himself and he later built his summer home on the land. Victoria is supposed to get the house in the divorce but it technically belongs to Stevie. He informs Stevie of the 'oversight' rightfully betting on the fact that Stevie hates Victoria more than she hates him.

** One BodyOfTheWeek on ''Series/{{CSI}}'' 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.
** Another ''Series/{{CSI}}'' episode has both sides killed by this. The couple decided to [[LetHimChoose let the dog decide]] whether the man or woman would get him, but the wife (solely to upset her husband) cheated by smearing her hands with bacon grease. This culminated in a KarmicDeath when the husband tried to switch out his dog with another. She caught him in the act, became angry when he admitted to caring more about the dog than he cared about her, and shot him dead. Unfortunately, the replacement dog had suffered some sort of trauma, became violent on hearing the gunshot, and mauled her to death.
** A ''Series/CSIMiami'' episode had a couple engaged in a highly publicized ''Film/TheWarOfTheRoses''-esque conflict become the suspects in not one murder, but two (the husband's mistress and the new owner of the husband's car, which the wife sold for a really cheap price out of spite). To show how messy it got, the episode was introduced with the wife taking a chainsaw to the husband's boat. 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 CSI 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.]]

* Inverted in ''Film/WhatsLoveGotToDoWithIt'': When Tina finally left Ike, the only thing she kept was her name, because keeping the "Tina Turner" artist name would have allowed her to make money from her songs (comparatively) easier than if she used her real name. As a result, and because of Ike being a general bastard, she had to fight in court for it.

* ''Film/TheWarOfTheRoses'' is about an escalating war over marital assets between Kathleen Turner and Michael Douglas that is taken to [[BlackComedy a ridiculous and tragic extreme]]. The story is told by their lawyer as a cautionary tale to a client considering a divorce in the hopes that he would think twice about going through with it.

* 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 counselor 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.]]

[[caption-width-right:330: [[LiteralMinded Sure, we can split the house]].]]

* Jerry Reed bemoaned being literally cleaned out of everything he owns in his 1982 satire on divorce, the No. 1 country hit "She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft)" ... she got the color television set, the house, the kids and both of the cars." After musing further that he has to pay child support, alimony and court costs to his ex-wife and noting that he's left with nothing while she lives like a queen, he moans that "''Everything I ever had worth takin' they've already took''." With the impression that all he has left are the clothes on his back, one wonders that if he mentioned that, the court would take that too!

Too often this becomes TruthInTelevision. In RealLife, at least, this sort of thing is why prenuptial agreements were developed, 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, time-consuming 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 often involves such extremes as hiring the sleaziest AmoralAttorney in town, getting a sketchy PrivateInvestigator to dig ip dirt, or even hiring [[DivorceRequiresDeath the occasional assassin]]), the court will do its best to punish you and your attorney (who absolutely should have known better).

The problem is, they each have very different views on precisely what they think is coming to them. Because of all the built up animosity, Alice wants to punish Bob, so she demands the house, the car, the kids, the boat, the CD and DVD collection, the prize rose bushes, the carpet, the dishes, Bob's socks, and most especially his prized mint-condition copy of ''CaptainErsatz #1'' left to him by Bob's grandfather. Bob, feeling a need to retaliate, demands all of those things '''plus''' Alice's prized collection of autographed photographs of her favorite SoapOpera stars!

Too often this becomes TruthInTelevision. In RealLife, at least, this sort of thing is why prenuptial agreements were developed, 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, time-consuming 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 often involves such extremes as hiring the sleaziest AmoralAttorney in town or sketchy operatives or even [[DivorceRequiresDeath the occasional assassin]]), the court will do its best to punish you and your attorney (who absolutely should have known better).

The problem is, they each have very different views on precisely what they think is coming to them. Because of all the built up bad feelings, Alice wants to punish Bob for being Bob, so she demands the house, the car, the kids, the boat, the CD and DVD collection, the prize rose bushes, the carpet, the dishes, Bob's socks, and most especially his prized mint-condition copy of ''CaptainErsatz #1'' left to him by Bob's grandfather. Bob, feeling a need to retaliate, demands all of those things '''plus''' Alice's prized collection of autographed photographs of her favorite SoapOpera stars!

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--''especially'' if one of them is a GoldDigger. 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.

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 often 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.

[[caption-width-right:330: [[ExactWords Sure, we can]] [[VisualPun split the house]].]]

* In an episode of ''Series/AdamTwelve'', Reed and Malloy answer a call to find a husband smashing up his living room. The man says his wife is leaving him and he wants to make sure that whatever she gets in the divorce settlement is worthless. He's dismayed when the cops tell him California is a community property state and half of what he's wrecked is his.

* ''Series/DivorceCourt'': What would a good courtroom TV show — either the reality show of 2020, featuring real couples, or (especially) the original scripted shows — be ''without'' this trope? The original Creator/VoltairePerkins versions (1957–1962, 1967–1969) and the 1984–1993 version each had episodes where the majority of the plot focused on the rights to a certain asset (such as a business).

* In ''Literature/TheBabysittersClub'' book where Stacey's parents get divorced, there are an endless string of fights of this nature about everything from appliances to wedding presents. Since they'd been fighting about everything from his work hours to her shopping from the beginning of the book before deciding to divorce, it's not really a surprise.

* In ''Literature/TheBabysittersClub'' book where Stacey's parents get divorced, there are an endless string of fights of this nature about everything from appliances to wedding presents.

** One BodyOfTheWeek on ''Series/{{CSI}} 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.

* ''Divorce Court'': What would a good courtroom TV show — either the current reality show featuring real couples or (especially) the original scripted shows — be ''without'' this trope? The original 1957-1969 and 1980s versions each had episodes where the majority of the plot focused on the rights to a certain asset (such as a business).
* ''Gary Unmarried'' does this with a pool table he "gave" his ex-wife ("It was one of those joke gifts that I say is for you but is really for me!"). The terms of their divorce says that all gifts stay with the recipient, so the pool table is hers. But he has an ace up his sleeve: a lewd photo album she gave him as an early Valentine's Day gift one year.

* The Scandinavian commercials for the store chain Elgiganten starring Creator/JohnCleese (Who as of 2020 has had 3 of 4 marriages end in divorce, some of them expensive) have him standing in an unfurnished house, declaring he's getting divorced ''again'' and once again his wife's getting everything. Cue a blurb for the affordable appliances available at Elgiganten, followed by John declaring "Thank God for Elgiganten!"

* The Scandinavian commercials for the store chain Elgiganten starring Creator/JohnCleese have him standing in an unfurnished house, declaring he's getting divorced ''again'' and once again his wife's getting everything. Cue a blurb for the affordable appliances available at Elgiganten, followed by John declaring "Thank God for Elgiganten!"

* It doesn't even have to be people. Brexit is basically this for the United Kingdom on a country scale, and is an even messier one since it involves more people, assets, and moving parts in general.

* In ''DearJohn'', John's ghastly ex-wife Wendy has taken everything.

* In Music/MarkChesnutt's "Going Through the Big D," he's bitter that the judge awarded his ex-wife the house while he got their Jeep.