There are always three sides to a divorce. Her story. His story. And more importantly the bitter truth.

Have seen my more than fair share of divorces. Innocent guys completely cleaned up by scheming women, and the reverse. There is no gender to cheating or preparing for a divorce. The most important thing in a relationship is to keep ones ear to the ground and realising that ‘hope’ is NOT ‘strategy’.

Divorce does not happen overnight. There are very strong signals..If you are not sure, keep the following in mind:

1. Have a joint account for EXPENSES, but not for salaries and Investments: If you are at the starting point of your marriage, do not rush to make all your accounts ‘Either or Survivor’. It is perfectly all right to continue to keep your accounts as E or S with your mother or father – as you were doing BEFORE the wedding.

2. Nominating your spouse is all right, unless you are worried that he/she is even capable of murdering you.

3. Normally when you get married it makes sense to change the nomination of all your life insurance policies. However if the policies are not too big, and there is no big loan commitment jointly made with your wife, let the old policies remain with the old nominees – say your parents.

4. Not wanting to sound parochial, but the anti-dowry act, and other acts are LOADED against the man. So it is necessary to collect evidence that you are happily married – and involving HER brother/ parents, friends in parties, picnics, – and clicking happy snaps etc. may be very very useful as evidence. Sad, but I have seen simplicity being exploited. Being prepared is not so bad after all.

5. If there are any signs of trouble, talk to a lawyer and find out what you should do. No point in trying to do things from inside a jail when even your cell phone has been taken away.

6. Men exploit as much as women do, if not more. So women please read all the she as he …and he as she. Remember Kamal Hasan, Azharuddin, Dharmendra, Aamir Khan, Saif……..do I need to go on? Being happily married is fine, but look for signals.

7. Avoid a litigated divorce: it is not easy emotionally. However quickly it turns to be financial. The other lawyer will rip open all your bank accounts, mutual funds, Income tax returns, benami properties. It can be very very expensive. It your wife is asking for a fair share, shut up and pay.  Especially if there are kids.

8. The person asking for the divorce is likely to be far better prepared. So suddenly if you find your spouse asking for financial details, hey let that also be a kinda signal….

9. Get a lawyer soon – he will keep the whole thing practical instead of emotional..

10. Review you IT returns and your spouse’s IT returns too: keep checking whether it will stand public scrutiny.

Many more perhaps…..these were my 10….may be will write more…