After sleeping on it – i’m thinking that a lot of whether people can start out from a ‘fair’ position, or whether they start negotiations with an ‘extreme’ position, has to do with trust. If you really feel that the person on the other side of the table is vengeful, or out to hurt you – of course you have to take the most extreme position possible, to protect yourself.
The funny/puzzling thing about this couple, is that she was the one who had the affair, and yet she is behaving as if he is out to hurt her.
Of course that is puzzling to me, undoubtedly, because i don’t know all the circumstances. They know their own lives; if she feels he’s out to screw her (not in a good way) – then he probably is. Or at least that’s her reality with/of him.