No one goes into a marriage thinking that one day it’s all going to be over, but if it does come to that, it certainly helps to have a soft landing of a few million dollars.
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That’s what happened to a Dutch woman while she was in the process of getting divorced from her husband of 30 years. She won €2.1 million ($3.1 million) in the Post Code Lottery on New Year’s Day 2015, the Toronto Sun reports.
But it took a while before she could actually enjoy it, as her soon-to-be ex-husband was not going to allow his newly minted former partner to enjoy all that cash alone, and he argued that she had played the lotto using their shared funds during their marriage and that he was entitled to a sum of the money as part of the divorce settlement.
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But on Tuesday, the Amsterdam District Court ruled that the unnamed woman was able to keep it all. The judge found that the woman used money from her own bank account to purchase the winning ticket and that she and her former spouse had separated their finances four years earlier when he moved in with his girlfriend.
“The above means that the prize won did not belong to their joint assets and that the court will hold the prize apart in its division of goods,” the court’s written decision said, Reuters reports. The ruling was made on Dec. 23 and published Tuesday.
More: I’m thankful for my divorce even though it tore me apart
We hope the woman is now able to enjoy her freedom — and her new wad of cash — in peace.
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