Many people understand wealth and divorce to be intertwined greatly in numerous ways. Some people even believe that the greater a person’s assets are, the more the couple will fight during the divorce.
Which of these rumors about assets and divorce holds true under scrutiny, if any at all?
Wealthy couples and amiable divorce
Business Insider discusses the impact of assets on divorce. Perhaps surprisingly, while wealth does have an impact on arguments in divorce situations, it actually does not affect the most wealthy of couples as much as many may suspect.
In fact, many of the couples in the wealth bracket of $5 million in net worth or more actually have amiable divorces. They are the wealth bracket with the highest rate of relatively peaceable divorces, with many of their arguments focused on immaterial things like social status when said arguments do happen.
Upper-middle class and arguments
However, this does not mean that wealth has no impact on arguments at all. In fact, couples with a net worth of between $1 and $5 million actually fight so much that they gained the moniker “the fighting class”.
So why does this happen? Speculation indicates that arguments may occur due to financial insecurity, which is exacerbated in upper-middle class families and couples due to the level of comfort they are used to living at.
In short, they have enough money to live well, but not enough to protect them from devastating financial impacts if the divorce goes poorly. This incentivizes them to fight more over assets from the start.
