The columnists address the question with a straight face (paraphrased: courts don’t want one party to bear all the risk, but in a case where natural fluctuations were foreseeable, you’ll have trouble getting a judge to accept one party demanding the agreement be reopened). For my part, though, I would have asked the guy a different question.
To wit: If your stupid crypto gamble were riding high, and your wallet was doubling your ex’s traditional accounts, would you be happy to share, or would you smugly tell her, sucks to be you?
I hope the ex tells him to pound sand, and I hope the court agrees.
Also, that marital vow of commitment, noble though its aspirations may be, has nothing to do with fairness. In fact, the whole point of it is to affirm the couple’s unity and mutual devotion as more important than whatever either of them as an individual may “fairly” deserve.
Life isn’t fair, by default. Marriage isn’t fair, by design. But divorce settlements are indeed supposed to be as fair a division of marital assets and responsibilities at the time of divorce as can be attained.
That doesn’t entitle either party several months post-divorce to call for a do-over applying a retroactively modified yardstick of “fairness”.
Had the same idea a couple times working in a casino. Some slot machines you have to ‘coin up’ – play with the maximum bet – to get the big jackpot. They’d drop three quarters in but the third one didn’t register before they pressed the play button or pulled the handle and the jackpot came up, but not for them. I’d point to the tiny sign right by the coin slot saying, Ensure all coins register before starting game and tell them, "If the jackpot hadn’t come up would you hand the quarter over, saying, “I meant to play this,'?”
