When I sold the business I was a little surprised that the new owner had asked my wife to stay on and even more surprised that she accepted, because that was never part of our original plan. When my wife started having misgivings about the way events began unfolding I told her that if it was making her unhappy she could still resign with a weeks notice, which she was about to do anyway, so the job is no big loss.
You are quite right of course, it is the manner in which it was done more than anything else, although I must add that so far there has been no payment of any kind, which adds insult to injury.