Money can’t buy love, nor save a marriage

David Metcalf, 42 , was led by his father’s belief that what women want is a high-earning husband to look after them. '' 'The little lady would be happy so long as I was earning well,’ was his credo.’’

But that is a piece of folksy wisdom that appears hollow as we regard the recent run of divorce cases involving mega-rich husbands going to great lengths to prevent their wives winning the payouts they consider their due.

Last Monday film producer Lisa Tchenguiz was awarded a £15 million settlement following a four-year-divorce battle with husband Vivian Imerman, dubbed “The Man from Del Monte” after he sold the fruit juice firm for £380 million. Tchenguiz had reportedly sought £100 million which, if she had succeeded, would have been the largest divorce settlement in legal history. In January we saw David Thursfield, former head of Ford motor company, sent to prison for two years for failing to disclose his alleged hidden wealth to his ex-wife. Scot Young, a property tycoon, was that same month sentenced to six months for his “deliberate and flagrant” refusal to convince that he had lost a £400 million fortune. On Wednesday, Young did not contest a “quickie divorce” from his wife Michelle, who will continue to seek a settlement from him.

And this week oil baron Michael Prest is scheduled to appear before the Supreme Court in a landmark case, to learn whether three companies owned by him can be ordered to transfer millions of pounds in property to his ex-wife Yasmin as part of her divorce settlement.

In these acrimonious manoeuvres, the notion of money as the source of happiness is thoroughly trashed. Money becomes the stuff of punishment and humiliation, and the irony is that the amassing of this money may well have played a substantial part in the emotional dereliction couples face at the end.

-The  telegraph