Billionaires battling it out in divorce court remain a familiar, if somewhat exaggerated, trope.
You know the sort of thing: she demands exclusive access to the Eagle’s Nest during his two weeks in Gstaad; he insists her name come off the plaque at the Fondation Louis Vuitton.
These days, however, HNW splits are being handled with far more discretion and less drama. Not quite Gwyneth Paltrow levels of ‘conscious uncoupling’, perhaps, but a marked departure from the scorched-earth proceedings of old.
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One consideration, as ever, is money. After all, why fight over the full-floor lateral at Grosvenor Square or the Grayson Perry tapestry commissioned for it, if you are going to spend more on lawyers’ fees than it would cost to replace both?
However, a surgeon with a long-standing practice on Cadogan Square, who is well acquainted with the concerns of his wealthy patients, insists the motivation behind the paradigm shift is often ‘more holistic than simply dodging the legal bill’. Wellbeing – the kind of vitality that they believe will keep them at the top of their game well into old age – is a priority for high-achievers.
‘Nothing ages you like bad divorce’, he says.
Divorce: from meditation retreats to plant medicine
It has become normal for multimillionaires to try a full circuit of interventions, from meditation retreats to plant medicine, before calling time on a marriage.
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A woman in her late thirties recalls a fraught Christmas last year, spent separated from her husband of many years: ‘We needed space or we were going to kill each other.’ When cooler heads prevailed, they attempted a reconciliation, aided by a team of professionals at a dedicated retreat. The experience, she says, saved her marriage, and she now recommends Boston-based couples therapist Terry Real to friends who find themselves in a similar bind.
Elsewhere, the Dubai-based owner of a franchise for members-only longevity clinics tells me about a 180-acre private reserve in the Peruvian Amazon that he calls ‘ground zero for troubled marriages’. There, a master shaman – credited with saving more than a few – offers healing through a proprietary blend of ayahuasca and ancient wisdom.
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Closer to home, somatic therapists help London couples who are looking to reignite the spark through supervised MDMA-assisted retreats in the privacy of their homes. At £10,000 per experience, what used to be niche is now (alarmingly) mainstream.
Yet, some marriages cannot be salvaged. For HNW couples, divorce is further complicated by wealth that has often grown beyond prenuptial estimates. Non-fungible assets – private equity, carried interest, yachts, art, wine, jewellery – now dominate settlements, making valuation and disclosure tricky. To prevent sensitive information from spilling into the public arena, many opt for private settlements, such as mediation or arbitration.
There is a similar appetite for practical arrangements for post-split family life. Nesting – whereby children stay in the family home while parents rotate in and out, avoiding the need for multiple large properties – is fast being adopted by the seriously wealthy.
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‘Property and parenting time are usually the flashpoints in any divorce and nesting is a neat solution to both,’ says a principal at a family office who was an early adopter of the idea. ‘Abandoning the family home can feel like a metaphor made real – especially for children or a spouse who didn’t want the split in the first place.’
Given that a stuccoed Notting Hill villa with gym, home cinema and pool – the HNW starter pack – costs £20 million, the idea is appealing even for spouses in the process of separating. Each adult may require a secondary property, but the arrangement offers the children much-needed stability, at least in theory.
When one teenager in Chelsea decided to have a party recently, the robustness of that idea was severely tested. While the nesting parent was busy with their own social engagement, which they documented dutifully on social media in real time, 50 unsupervised teenagers descended on the Victorian mansion that is the family home. The Filipino nannies who were ostensibly in charge promptly retreated to the attic flat. By the time the parent returned in the early hours, the damage – to both reputation and property – had already been done.
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Divorce – even when carefully managed – is by nature unwieldy. It can destabilise a family’s fortune and endanger an individual’s hard-won place in the social hierarchy. And of course there is the inevitable emotional upheaval, even with the most civil of proceedings.
So it is no surprise the ultra-wealthy approach it with strategic intent. What is truly striking, however, is that a group so accustomed to winning now finally appears prepared to redefine success – not as triumph over the other, but as a resolution that preserves the integrity of the whole.
This article first appeared in Spear’s Magazine Issue 96. Click here to subscribe
