When a person is on his or her second, third or fourth, marriage to a much younger individual (who often is younger with each subsequent marriage), there's less and less likelihood that the two parties share similar experiences and heart-felt world views. The unsettled issues and complications from these pairings are ofttimes magnified when the older party in the marriage is fabulously wealthy.
There's nothing wrong with relationships where the spouses are separated by years and considerable wealth. I can point to more than a few such marriages that are notable for the quality and intensity of the relationship, as well as the caring and love the two spouses have for each other. On the other hand, I happen to be more familiar with couples that came together due to physicality. After the lust receded, all they had left to do was fight over the gold dust.
Into these confrontations, marked by recriminations, fear, anger and anxiety, came a slew of professionals, eager to help each spouse walk away unscathed or with minimal injuries-and shaft the other side. I've met some of these talented professionals and can attest that they tend to be well-armed and prepared for all-out war-or at the very least, high brinkmanship.
One of the most fascinating professionals I've met in this environment is someone I'll call "Anna." From a distance, Anna is impeccably dressed in Chittleborough & Morgan or Henry Poole & Co. suits replete with bright paisley waistcoats-quite impressive in a dapper, refined sort of way. However, as you get closer-I mean really close-you realize something startling: Anna is actually two women.
To be clear, they are two women, but you usually can't tell where one stops and the other starts. They dress alike. They talk alike. They think alike, to the point where if one starts a sentence, the other will usually finish it. They take the proverb that two minds are better than one to another level, almost melding into one powerful mind.
Each of the women was a solicitor in a previous professional life. After getting together, they transformed their business approach to principally serve women who are tossed aside and exploited by testosterone-driven Neanderthals with a deeply embedded misanthropic streak who happen to have expansive fortunes.
They're not attorneys. They're more like divorce consultants. They charge incredibly high fees for their services and have been involved in some of the most high profile marriage breakups you can imagine. Yet, unlike some of Hollywood's famous divorce lawyers, they're not well known-at least by the public. In the smaller circles of high wealth, they're viewed as tigers with a talent for conjuring up divorce settlements weighted heavily towards the interests of their clients.
Think of them as a beautiful Tudor rose, replete with an array of well-placed and finely sharpened thorns, each tipped with a variety of neurotoxins. Their success is predicated on taking a proactive and sometimes forceful approach to defending the rights of her clients. The way they see it, all they're doing is ensuring a fair and just accounting for their clients within the parameters of civil society and the rule of law. Because of the people involved, her job is so much more than just a job. It's a calling. It's a quixotic goal.
One of their most distinguishing and eye-catching characteristics is that each of the women who compose Anna is heterochromatic. Side-by-side, properly arranged, their eye colors are amber, navy, navy, amber.
Anna will readily work for either gender. While not always the case, Anna most often sides with the underdogs-the parties whose only claim to substantial riches is a function of the marriage. The idea that a person with great wealth can steamroll those with more limited resources is abhorrent to her. Nevertheless, Anna is quite selective when it comes to taking on new clients, which, for some time now, translates into her infrequently doing so. Such selectivity is possible when each half of the duo in this near-mirror image is independently wealthy.