And really angry at the thought of her getting a big settlement! She did a little bit of admin half heartedly at the start of my business, but she plays that up into her being some Richard Branson figure!
In a similar boat and, being self-employed, trying to rationalize some of the same things. Below is pasted a post I made elsewhere recently. Maybe something in there will help you. Being in business you already know -- find yourself a lawyer that understand business. It's amazing how many don't:
Maybe I can provide you a few angles I have thought up that have made this portion of things easier for me to swallow. I'm pretty number conscious and also in the beginning stages of trying to calculate myself out of my own mess.
If you take what it will cost and divide it out over your remaining life expectancy (for me that's about 40 years, but hopefully more) it looks like a bargain. If my uBPDw were to stay those remaining 40 years, she would cost me a good bit more per annum than I'll have to pay her up front right now. Not to mention that at the end of those 40 years, what it divides out to won't look like nearly as much as it does today because our money simply won't go as far.
I also have kids and I know my uBPDw would put part of what she gets into a house or the IRA that I set up for her. If there's anything left at the end of her days, it will go to our kids, so I rationalize part of it as my kids getting their inheritance in an alternate way.
If you needed a lifesaving operation, you would likely find it much easier to part with the money -- I look at what I'm pursuing in that light. If I don't do it and stay, I'm not going to make it another 40 years. I can feel the weight of everything physically taking a toll on me. What good will having all that money in the bank do me then? She's going to wind up with it anyway.
Lastly, a favorite quote from an old timer: "Anything that can be fixed with $100 bills isn't really a problem!".
