The halchachic issues notwithstanding, we are actually observing a war of bad midos, in which the warring spouses are looking to inflict as much pain and anguish on the other. Divorce is ugly. Recognize it. It has become the exception that a couple enters the divorce process looking to resolve the issues amicably. There are only two professions that benefit – the lawyers and the toanim. Dayanim would rather spend their dayanus time doing Choshen Mishpat cases – they’re less ugly, and yield considerably more income. Everyone else, including the soon to be divorced couple, lose everything. Many friends abandon them, many family, and their social positions tend to diminish. All for the few moments of sweet revenge against the other.
Men have the options of withholding the get. Child support can be litigated, and sooner or later wrestled from the father through legal channels. Women have other resources to fight their wars. They include the accusations of domestic violence, child abuse, and other shenanigans to deny the father access to the children while dragging them through expensive court battles. Men find their reputations tarnished, even destroyed by these false allegations. But those are women’s weapons.
So either side can be washed down for exposing and implementing rather despicable midos, ones which we spent our yeshiva/school days learning about in mussar lectures, and the same ones we need to address as part of our Elul/teshuvah avodah. Which spouse is on the offense or defense varies per situation. I have trouble recognizing the generalizations about evil men or evil women. There are no reliable statistics. Numbers would not help anyway. If a case involves a nasty man, the majority figure of offensive women would not matter. And vice versa.
It becomes the obligation of those authority figures who get involved, whether askanim, professionals, rabbonim, etc. to address the couple at this level. “If you want to spend inordinate amounts of time and money fighting to the finish, you may. We will profit from it. The alternative is to participate in good faith efforts to negotiate. You’ll win some things and lose some things. All that you are guaranteed to experience is the absence of revenge. That is an issue to address, and some therapy may help for that. You will gain considerable savings in the short and long term, and the children will be granted a reprieve from the turmoil of ongoing battles between the parents. This alternative sounds like WIN-WIN.”