Couldn’t he have consulted a financial advisor, down-sized his life-style, declared a personal bankruptcy, and kept the wife? It seems that would have been a wiser plan.
“It seems that would have been a wiser plan.”
Over the years I’ve known a few people who were disassociated from reality. This doesn’t mean they can’t go to work, make dinner, raise the kids, etc. What it means is they have some quirk where what they see or think they know is manifestly not true. I worked with a guy who thought that because other people were making money trading penny stocks that he could...this despite losing thousands of dollars on every transaction. I knew a grotesquely fat man who thought he was God’s gift to women. Then there was the guy, who, despite having everything going for him just gave up because he knew he wasn’t worth the job, the pay, the beautiful wife. (Don’t know what happened to him because he quit.)