Husband and wife married when they were in their late teens. He is smart and a looker, she is brilliant.

They move from London to Hong Kong due to his job but soon she finds one that is satisfying. The workload is heavy and both travel constantly. But they are both soon on $500,000+ packages. He starts ‘playing around’ and the number of girlfriends mount (I was always surprised that he could not cut anyone off). She notes this and he is ‘reformed’ several times. After 10 or 12 years he meets and falls hard for another professional. She is smart and a looker but not brilliant. She is not willing to be a mere mistress. The wife finds out and meets with his girlfriend. They agree that they will give him a choice - wife or girlfriend. He goes to Thailand (and into the arms of yet another lady for consolation - I know because I had to hide behind a pillar so I did not ‘bump’ into them) to decide. He informs his wife through his secretary he wants a divorce.

She, who has been in charge of the family finances, buys a massive house in London using all their savings plus a mortgage. She packs up the home in Hong Kong and ships everything (and I mean everything) to London. This includes his much prized carpet collection. She takes the children out of boarding school in the UK and re-registers them in a school close to the new home. On the day that she leaves (just 1 week after that call - yes all that in 1 week !!) she cancels all the credit cards (rendering his cards useless as they were on joint account) and writes to the Hong Kong tax authorities telling them that she is leaving. This triggers a tax bill for all unpaid taxes (3 years). In those days, the husband is responsible for his wife’s taxable income. He returns to empty house, empty bank account (he had to borrow money from me - sigh), no usable credit card and a massive tax bill.

When he sued to try to get his carpet collection and some money back, he discovered that all he could get was an interest in the mansion of a house in London. This is because it was the family home and thus could not be sold. As for the carpet collection, it had been auctioned off to pay down the mortgage.

24 years have passed. To be fair to him, he is still married to the ‘girlfriend’ (he has stopped playing around or become very much more discrete). He has still not gotten any money as she still lives in that home with a new husband.

Revenge is best served cold ?