Amicable separation? Divorce? Ha! Sort that paperwork out!

Many years ago my wife and I split up. After wasting my time for 9 months going to Relate it turned out that she had already made her mind up. I was appallingly down, so miserable and most likely depressed, and she walked all over me. She took 75% of everything - we sold the house, she moved into a 250,000 house, with no mortgage, and the salary that she had been siphoning away for over a year, and I walked away with about 90,000. I then had to get a mortgage of around 88,000 to get a small house. After three years of this I had had enough, and filed for divorce. What elese? She wants nothing to do with me, nor do any of her family - not a single person called me, dropped me a line...nothing. They just left me to drown. Having been trampled at the separation, I though I had put the paperwork in place so that no-one would be making claims later on - I have my pensions to take care of! She remarried, and then after a while I did, too (not to each other!) A word to the wise, for anyone who has separated or divorced, and left a joint life policy running. Cancel it. It may be that you lose out on quite a bit of money, but the alternative is that you let it run for the duration of the policy, and then find out that the ex-partner is still entitled to half of the payout! That ex-partner may very well have paid nothing into the policy for its time (never paid a penny in premiums) but they are on the policy, and therefore 'entitled' to half. It all depends on what your solicitor may (or may not) have done, should have tried to sort out the finances at the separation or divorce. Did they get the right phrasing in - no future claims, that sort of thing? How good at grabbing your money can your ex-partner be? Was it a 'civilised' separation, or did they take you for almost everything, and then still want more? It's very sad, the way some people behave. I have contacted my solicitor, but from what I can find on the web I am not optimistic.