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Rich, Miserable Jerks and Their Rich, Miserable Wives Wealthy couples splitting up now that the money's gone

By  SARA K. SMITH

Updated 4:51 AM PDT, Tue, Jan 13, 2009

If your marriage is just a financial arrangement, don't be surprised if the arrangement dissolves along with your finances.
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If your marriage is just a financial arrangement, don't be surprised if the arrangement dissolves along with your finances.

 

Our new national recession ushered out all sorts of things we'll actually miss: easy credit, nice houses, jobs of some sort, maybe some retirement savings. But one thing nobody will miss is a particular breed of shallow, rapacious quasi-human who only stayed married while there were buckets of money involved.

Witness this charming woman quoted in the New York Times over the weekend -- a woman who at least had the good sense to maintain her anonymity:

One mother in TriBeCa, who is married, at least for now, to a Wall Street executive, put it rather bluntly: “My job was to run the household and the children’s lives,” she said. “His job is to provide us with a nice lifestyle.” But his bonus has disappeared, and his annual pay has dropped to $150,000 from $800,000 a year. “Let me just say this,” she said, “I’m still doing my job.”
This is particularly hilarious when you consider that "her job" of "running the household" probably involved the hiring of people to actually run the household, while "running the children's lives" involved the hiring of a $25,000-a-year nanny from Poland. So her husband shouldn't despair -- even if she leaves him, he'll be able to replace her for just a fraction of the original cost. Recouping the pedicure bill alone would probably save him a small fortune.

Of course, the husbands are to blame here as well. If the health of your marriage is predicated on your being able to take home a million a year in perpetuity, you should not be surprised if and when your money runs out and your concubine walks. Take for example this poor sap mentioned in the Times Online:

One New York divorce lawyer said one client was worried that his wife would leave him if she found out that his net worth had fallen from $20 million (£10 million) to $8 million after he suffered huge losses on property and other investments. To keep his wife he was trying to mask his declining fortune by borrowing to pay for her clothes and holidays.
Who is worse, the terrible pampered spendthrift wives, or the husbands who decided to marry a woman whose affection he could purchase rather than somebody he actually, you know, liked? The answer is that each is more terrible than the other, and all of these people should be herded, fish-like, into a net by a Portuguese water dog and airlifted to the middle of the Gobi. In the meantime, the rest of us can go back to feeling very superior that our marriages will fail due to adultery or boredom or actual bankruptcy, and nothing so petty as a simple salary cut.

Sara K. Smith writes for Wonkette, and she still believes in love.

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Comments (18)

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  • john hard Saturday, May 23 at 12:42 AM FLAG COMMENT THIS SITE IS REALLY NICE. Divorce Lawyer
  • shrink4men Wednesday, Jan 28 at 3:05 PM FLAG COMMENT It's hard to have sympathy for either spouse in this scenario. I read the original NYT article, "It's the Economy, Girlfriend" and blogged about it this morning, "I Ain't Saying She's a Gold Digger: Wall Street Wives Bail on Their Husbands" (http://shrink4men.wordpress.com/2009/01/28/gold-digger-entitled-wall-street-wives-bailing-on-their-husbands/). The craziest thing about this gaggle of entitled, shallow women is that they ... MORE >
  • Anonymous Thursday, Jan 15 at 2:01 AM FLAG COMMENT horrible when they're up, horrible when they're down. just a matter of where it's directed. it was more fun back in the 80s when the rich would just poison each other for inheritance. i don't think this generation knows how to handle their money and family affairs.
  • iar Wednesday, Jan 14 at 4:04 PM FLAG COMMENT It just goes to show that even the so called rich are getting their share of this economic downfall. People who are so shallow are sad. The snobs of society. They wouldn't know how to handle a crisis. They're the first ones to commit suicide over their loss of income.
  • Anonymous Tuesday, Jan 13 at 1:26 PM FLAG COMMENT So what

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