Yes, it’s true; this happens sometimes. But more broadly speaking, there are all kinds of situations in divorce where both husbands and wives, fathers and mothers make extortionate deals to protect themselves, to preserve or retain property they don’t want to lose, and/or to protect their children. For example:
To use the example you mentioned, a husband or wife may agree with his wife that he/she gets a disproportionate/unequal division of marital assets and/or pay more or receive less alimony than is fair so that he/she gets to keep the house (or some other property or combination of property).
By way of another example, a parent may agree to accept less child support or to pay child support he/she really shouldn’t be paying, if it means he/she gets to have the children in his/her custody more than he/she otherwise would.
Now, you may believe there should be legal checks and guardrails in place to prevent this kind of thing, and, in fact, there are such laws and principles in place, but they often (not always, but often) go unutilized because either the court never detects anything amiss in the divorcing parties’ settlement agreements or the court concludes, “Well, if that’s the way they want it, who am I to meddle?”
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