A New York woman spent 9.5 years in divorce proceedings screwing over her ex husband. Nothing new about that. What made the news was that having realised how easy it is for a determined woman to destroy an ex husband it dawned on her that some other woman could do the same thing to her son. Therefore she turned her spitefulness on her son’s fiancé because they got married without a Pre-nuptial agreement.

” A Manhattan monster-in-law was so convinced her son’s fiancée was a no-good gold digger that she did everything she could to break the couple up, even harassing the fiancée’s ailing father in Ohio and getting her fired from her job in Midtown.

Lia Joseph, 61, was enraged when her real-estate-developer son Denis, 34, and his betrothed, Diana David, 28, tied the knot last October anyway — without the prenuptial agreement Lia had demanded.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/mom_in_law_from_hell_VbUDRmQRkAjSRSdyTxcr9I#ixzz0lVByaaQE
“

This is just one more of the countless examples of women abusing a man with the tacit support of the system and getting away with it as far as I can see. The harm she was doing to her own son doesn’t occur to her. Nothing unusual about that – except that her son was an adult. Hence I’ll focus on the issue of Pre-nups.

IN the USA pre-nups are enforceable. In some other countries – notably the UK they are not.

In the UK pre-nups have not be recognised. This suddenly changed for the first time because a woman stood to loose. So hey presto the pre-nup was recognised. Thus when it is to a woman’s advantage the courts make a fundamentally unfair ruling. It has been pointed out that “A prenuptial agreement which became the first to be recognised in English law is “fundamentally unfair” and would not have won approval if a woman rather than a man was challenging it, a court has heard. ”

Of course men tend to be hopelessly optimistic. We all know about Paul McCartney – but of course he would have got shafted by the UK laws anyway. Seven time husband Larry King estimated to be worth $144 apparently didn’t have a pre-nup.
“Sources told TMZ that Larry did not demand one.
Why?
‘She is a tall, good-looking blonde and that pretty much explains it,’ said the source.”

This is going to cost him big time.

In NZ pre-nups have officially been recognised since 1976. In practice the family courts “set aside” pre-nups as a matter of course. In other words you could have a pre-nup in NZ but it wouldn’t be worth anything in court. Personally I find this as deceitful as most NZ family law. We’d be better off having honesty in NZ Family Law along with coin tossing.

This situation began to affect gays and potentially have a negative impact on women. Hence the Labour government changed the law in 2001 so that it would be harder to “set aside” pre-nups in NZ. I am no expert but I am not aware that the situation has improved much. I am aware of an increasing number of men setting up family trusts over the last 10 years – which tends to support the view that pre-nups are ineffective here.

Sandra Bullock is reportedly about to use a pre-nup to prevent paying out Jessie James as their marriage brakes down due to his infidelity. Could you imagine this would be enforced if the genders were reversed?

In NZ if a woman cheats the courts reward her. The husband’s pre-nup is not going to make any difference. In fact he will be daemonsed for “being controlling”.

If you have some personal experience or expertise in this matter we’d love to hear from you.