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“Don’t Be Dumb”: 57 Divorce Lawyers Share The Messiest Cases Of Their Careers
Nothing combines high economic stakes and emotional turmoil quite like a divorce. After all, it’s like needing to negotiate a lease with your ex right after a messy breakup. So the professionals who have to help both parties tread these waters generally have seen it all.
So we’ve gathered some of the messiest and most dramatic divorce cases lawyers have seen and shared online. Get comfortable as you scroll through, prepare for some secondhand pain, upvote your favorites and be sure to share your own thoughts and stories in the comments section down below.
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#1
I'm a child who dealt with parents getting divorced. When I was 7, I was forced to go to therapists to play 'games' with them (my mother was trying to get custody and insisted it). It was a board game. It seemed innocent enough. I roll the dice, and the therapist picks up a card from his deck, and asks me a question. When he rolled, I picked a card and asked him a question.
My questions were simple for a 7 year old. 'What's your favorite colour.' and whatnot.
His questions were smart/tricky. 'How do you feel when mommy does this.' and 'What do you think of daddy when this happens.'
So I sat there for an hour, 7 years old, playing this game. At the end, we left the room and met with my parents and he said I would do better living with my mother. I specifically remember looking at the man and saying 'but I don't want to just live with mom. I want to live with dad too. Like I'm doing now.' (1 week at moms, 1 week at dads)
I'll never forget the way that the therapist basically ignored me, and said that 'the game/discussions showed that I'm happier with my mom.' The look on my fathers face was heartbreaking and he started to tear up.
I remember as we were walking out of the place my parents stopped in the parking lot to discuss things, and I stood there waiting for them to finish arguing. I remember getting so frustrated because they were talking about me, in front of me. I stopped them and said:
'Why didn't you just ASK me what I wanted?' My mother looked quite stunned, and my dad seemed so relieved. I wound up doing 1 week at moms and 1 week at dads until I was 17 and went into college. Monday's I got on the bus at one house, and off the bus at the other.
Parents, don't be dumb. Just ask your kid. We might actually have something to say.
RELATED:
#2
IANAL, but I have worked for a lawyer who worked divorces. This was his favorite case.
Guy was making $150K a year, gets a Thai mail order bride, has 3 kids. Dude has an affair, and now decides that he doesn't want a FOB wife and mixed race kids and initiates a divorce. The woman's only priority is to have custody of the kids, so against her attorney's advice, she's willing to take a deal where she takes a car and gets $1200 in child support, no spousal support, and $3000 lump sum from their joint account so she can rent an apartment. (There's ZERO chance that he actually wants custody of the children because he's already shacked up with the girl he's having an affair with)
She wanted full custody so bad that she was willing to live with 3 kids in a modest 2bd apartment and pull the kids out of expensive extra curricular activities they were doing to economize, as well as getting a crappy survival type o job after being nothing but a housewife since coming to US. (One of the kids has some talent in an olympics event, to the level where she was getting professional coaching lessons)
The husband takes it to the front of the judge against the advice of his own attorney, who tells him that he's nuts to turn this down, because he doesn't want to give her $3K, and figures that the judge will decide between what she wants and what he wants, not realizing that there's a formula based on income judges use to determine child support payments.
At the court, the judge awards the wife the $3K lump sum and $1700 child support...FOR EACH KID. So because he didn't want to give his ex wife $3K so his kids could have a place to live, about 50% of his take home pay is going to his ex for the next 10+ years.
The attorney I worked with was a jerk about money who never did anything for free but this was the one case where he represented the woman for just a nominal fee because he had a taste for justice.
#3
Not a divorce lawyer, or a lawyer, or a divorcee, or married, or engaged, or have a girlfriend, but I saw a squirrel on my way to class yesterday.
#4
When I got divorced -- my alcoholic wife of 18 years had started another affair, this time with her addictions counselor -- my lawyer and I laid a trap for them. Just in case you don't know, intimate relations between a counselor and patient are very frowned upon by the regulatory bodies. And I was more than pissed after putting her through rehab ($25k which I didn't have to do) only to have her fall back into her old behavior.
Shortly before the divorce was finalized I filed a complaint with the State body licensing health professions. Knowing they were in some peril because of their unprofessional relationship ( I had already gotten him fired), she had backed off her exhorbitant demands. I paid her a very modest settlement, kept the house, got custody of the three tweenage kids, plus got child support. Her lawyer naturally included a clause in the divorce where I had to agree to not say anything negative about her lover and their relationship. But the lawyer messed up and never asked if I had already filed charges and thus didn't didn't require me to rescind them. The lawyer had assumed I was just bad mouthing them to neighbors and friends, and it never occurred to the lawyer that we were doing much more.
When the Board of Health Professions responded to my complaint shortly after the divorce was finalized I told them that it would take a subpoena to get me to testify (a subpoena trumps a divorce settlement). They were happy to oblige.
They stripped his license, and placed him on a register of sanctioned health professionals. He never worked again. They were broke in a handful of years and she divorced him when the money ran out (in the interim his mother had died leaving fair sized estate, so it took longer than I expected). Oh, and the frosting on the cake was that his wife and I traded notes (notably hotel receipts from the time of their affair) that helped each of us in our respective divorces.
Justice was served.
#5
Not a lawyer but...
Husband has a very nice job. Company exec, 6 figures type of job. Wife is upset that her lifestyle will have to change after they get a divorce. Her lawyer sets up a settlement where the wife is entitled to 25% of the husbands income. Kicker is that the lawyer did not specify which job or any specific amount, just a percentage. Husband knew he had enough in savings and assets that his income wouldn’t be a huge deal. So now he happily works minimum wage at sports goods store and she gets a fourth of that
#6
A wife negotiated like a bee-yatch possessed for custody of the couple's dog, which the husband (my client) adored. We negotiated the husband's visitation rights for the life of the dog. So she had a vet put the dog down a week after the divorce was final.
#7
Not a lawyer but this is the history of my house and property.
The house used to be owned by a very successful business man. The property is gorgeous. It overlooks a river and marsh, backed up by thousands of acres of forest and untouched beauty in Wisconsin. Back about 20 years ago the wife and husband got into a bitter divorce. The wife loved the property. It’s beautiful, she loved the river and birds and all the nature around it. So what did the husband do? He (as the owner of the property) deeded it all to nature preserve and the state. Something like 5000 acres of new public land were created. We the people won, but she lost big time. My house is the only one on the river in that area but there is now tons of public access points and we all enjoy sharing the land with our community.
#8
Obligatory: Not a lawyer but:
I used to work for the security company. The big one.
I had a customer call in and request to have her current deactivation code set as her panic code.
A panic code gives the appearence of deactivating the system, but sends a super high priority alarm signal to the monitoring company. This feature exists in case someone puts a gun to your head and demands that you disarm your system.
So, if he husband did come by while she was away (violating a court order by my understanding) the cops were gonna show up REAL fast.
#9
I'm a lawyer but not a divorce lawyer.
My sister in law is mid-divorcing my brother after 30+ years of marriage. She's met someone else, so far so normal. It happens, right?
The thing that's destroyed him is her emptying their son's savings account which my parents (very far from well off) have paid into once a month for years. That's his uni fund wiped out. I don't know about messing over your spouse but it's the one betrayal my brother can't come to terms with.
Edit to answer a few questions: so my parents had set up an ordinary child savings account with my sister in law as sole trustee. They absolutely trusted her but unfortunately this gave her complete control over the funds in the account.
Legally there's not much we could do. She claims she thought it was "spending money" for my nephew for items of clothing, days out etc. Bollocks to that. My parents already spend a fortune on that kind of stuff, and she's clearly spent it all on her new relationship with the unemployed guy who also left his wife and three kids for her.
My parents have always had savings accounts for ALL their grandchildren, including my own children, and we ALL knew the money was for the kids to pay uni fees or put towards a deposit on a home or similar. So while she's morally disgusting I think legally my parents are screwed.
One glimmer. She didn't get what she wanted financially in the divorce settlement because my brother's solicitor asked for a provision in the order relating to her repaying the money taken from the account. Faced with having to explain to a judge why there was a dispute over it, she backed down on some other stuff. So my nephew has a new account which my parents have started paying into, and me and my husband are doing what we can too. Meanwhile her life is circling the drain in all sorts of other ways which I personally couldn't give a darn about except to the extent that my poor nephew is trapped in the middle of it.
Sorry for those of you who've been through similar. It's disgusting.
#10
Not a lawyer, but get to deal with the outcome all the time.
Client and her ex husband owned a successful renovation company. Marital issues happen, they decide to divorce. Look at money that is in the banks, value of the company based on it's past, value of the house... Make an agreement that she gets the company and house, he walks away with the ready cash. He takes off for a sunny place to start his life agian
Turns out husband had been planning to leave her for a while. He stopped paying the vendors and the payroll taxes, which is where the money in the bank accounts originally came from. Company has been existing on credit for over 6 months while he emptied the bank accounts. Employee's paychecks start bouncing within weeks of him leaving so they quit. Jobs are not getting finished so customers demand refunds. Within 12 months she is looking for someone to buy the home in a short sale just to get enough cash to close out the payroll accounts before declaring bankruptcy.
KatSaidThat 8 hours ago
It's one thing to fuq your spouse over, but s****y to do that to your employees. May karma find him.
#11
Not a divorce attorney but I clerked for a judge that handled divorce cases. We had a couple that were both lieutenant colonels in the Air Force. They had one daughter that was about 11 or 12. Both had graduate degrees and were generally intelligent people. Well the husband had an affair and things went sour with the relationship. The daughter was at that age when her relationship with the mother was starting to get a little strained and she mentioned how she wanted to stick with her dad because he was about to be stationed elsewhere and the parents would be going their separate ways.
The mother absolutely freaked. The first thing she did was go to the local police department and claim the father had been inappropriate with the daughter. They investigated and couldn't find any evidence so they dropped the case. The mother still furious then goes to the Air Force Office of Special Investigations and reports the same thing. The Air Force then suspends the husband from duty and conducts their own investigation, same result no evidence of wrong doing and the case is dropped. The mother then goes to the next state over where the husband is about to be transferred and contacts the local police there with the same story about the inappropriate behavior. They of course do their own investigation but same result, case is dropped.
Of course this whole time the daughter has been interviewed a dozen times by psychologists, various therapists, the police, the Air Force, and who knows else. The daughter is straight up traumatized by this. People constantly asking her if her dad had been touching her and so forth. Not to mention the harm it did to her father's career. He was basically screwed from any possible promotion just because of the allegations. As well as the fact that infidelity in the military is a big no no. But that was his own doing.
Well once word of all this gets back to the judge he is furious. He's a former Air Force Jag and still has contacts in the ranks. Well anyway the couple comes in front of him one day for a hearing and he outright tells her she better stop this behavior or he's going to hold her in contempt of court for the maximum amount of time he can lawfully hold her in a cell, contact the DA and recommend the filing of charges, contact her Air Force superiors and recommend reprimand to the fullest extent possible, and basically anything and everything he can do within his power.
It was one of the most messed up things I've seen during my relatively short experience in the legal world.
Edit: For those of you freaking out because she received no consequences: She lost any hope for a relationship with her daughter, possibly for the rest of her life. Her Air Force career was over. And last I heard the DA's office was looking into possible charges. I don't know what happened with that because I left soon after all of this happened. The judge in this situation didn't have much authority outside the divorce itself. He can make recommendations and suggestions to the DA and Air Force, but has no power to bring charges. The most he can do is put her in contempt of court.
#12
My mom showed up to the final meeting for my parents divorce and her last request was to “trade cars”. My dad had a car about a year newer, she had never driven it and my dad drove 30 miles for work while she drove 3. It was such an odd request, especially since he had given up on most of it. Her lawyer acted off during the conversation and my dad’s lawyer said hell no. A few days later my dad gets home to a message from his lawyer, he found out that mom’s car had died, needed a new transmission and she failed to mention that when she offered up the trade.
Not the worst, but really shady.
#13
Not a divorce lawyer, but this happened in NYC a number of years ago, and is just too sweet not to include here.
Some dentist or doctor on the Upper East Side and his wife were having a nasty divorce, and she got their gorgeous Upper East Side brownstone, worth several million dollars, which pissed him off royally. So the jerk went into the brownstone, turned on all the gas, let place fill with gas and blew it up, totally destroying the building and ending himself in the process.
Turned out the joke was on him, because the now empty lot was worth a ton of more money than the house was– how often is a buyer going to get a prime building lot for a new house on the Upper East Side of Manhattan?! The lot was worth about double what the house was IIRC, and the wife got it all.
#14
I had a few.
One guy had his wife served with the divorce papers while she was in the hospital undergoing cancer treatment. She had no idea he wanted a divorce.
One guy wanted a provision in his divorce that said his sons couldn't watch NASCAR because the wife's new boyfriend was into NASCAR.
In the same case, the property division was so contentious that the judge had the parties list every piece of furniture in the house and try to work through who would get what. The guy made sure that he wanted everything she did, down to things like lace doilies her grandma made and some trophy she won in a women's shooting competition ("I bought her the gun so its pretty much my trophy").
Another guy wanted no custody and no visitation with his four sons until he learned how much child support would be. Then he wanted full custody with no visitation for the wife in the hope that she'd have to pay him child support.
I only did divorces for about a year before I moved on to mortgage foreclosures. Those are far less depressing.
#15
IANAL, but my mom's best friend is a family lawyer.
A husband and a wife were having a very acrimonious separation. If I remember correctly, he was very successful, and she was going after him for an immense amount of money.
She happened to be a multi-prize winning gardener. We're talking about an absolutely exceptional collection of rare and gorgeous flowers, shrubs, the works.
After an unsatisfactory development in their divorce proceedings, she came home to find that her husband had ridden their lawn mower over her entire garden, shredding every last stem and leaf into bits.
#16
My dad has been married to my Mom for 37 years. He had a five 5 year marriage before her which ended from an affair. This is how it went.
My dad's wife at the time was having emotional problems or anxiety and started seeing a shrink. Weeks go by and she tells my dad she isn't happy and needs time to think and will be staying with her parents.
Dad says ok I love you we can work thru this bla bla. Anyways finds out from friends she is staying with her pharmasist. Also note my dad is still sorta fresh from Vietnam and was a ranger in the army.
Old man goes phsyco. Goes to the dudes house early in the morning, knocks on the door, the pill giver answers and my dad physically ruins him.
Driving away from the scene and passes the cops, small town so my dad knows where they are going. Dad's like well s**t I better go back or I'll just get leaving the scene too.
Goes back and meets the cops and they go who are you
I'm the dude who beat the guy up
Sir he's really messed up we are calling an ambulance for him (starts cuffing my dad), why did you do that?
My wife's in there
Uncuffs my dad and let's him go.
At the time in Minnesota, you can sue somebody for having an affair with your spouse through the Loss Of Love clause.
So my dad did. Won big time and with the winnings bought a brand new float plane. Named it Justice.
#17
Here's a story of a potential thwarted divorce case, told to me by our closing attorney.
Man and his fiancé are buying a house together. They get to the paper where you sign off on all your aliases. The woman has a full page of former names. The guy asks, "what is this?"
The woman non-chalantley says, "oh, I've been married five times before." The guy gets up and walks out. Needless to say they did not buy the house or stay together.
#18
My first divorce case was the most memorable. My client was a nice looking, fiftyish waitress who was breaking hearts at the local small-town cafe. She was on divorce number 5.
I had a little lawyer kit of things she should do - clean out the joint accounts, change the car title, etc. She had done all of 'em, plus a few things neither I nor the professional list-maker had thought of.
Husband No. 5 came into my office to cry and concede everything. Now that was a guy who needed a lawyer with a list. No such luck, she messed him over gently, professionally (I thought) - didn't overreach too much, but got everything she was or might have been entitled to, plus a little more.
Was easy peasy for me. Helps if your first time is with an experienced woman. I learned a lot.
#19
Not strictly divorces, but my family law professor had some good stories:
Story 1: Client calls: "Hi, can I kick my pregnant girlfriend out of the house?"
"You really shouldn't do that."
"But can I? Legally speaking?"
"Since you never married, and the home is in your name, yes, you can legally exclude her but you really shouldn't."
"Thanks - I need you to explain that to someone."
Client opens door, where police are getting ready with a ram, hands cellphone to police officer.
Story 2: Unmarried mum comes in and asks: "So, what do I have to do to get his house?"
"Um, you really shouldn't be getting married if you're already planning to end the relationship."
"Yeah, but what do I have to do?"
"Well, if you're married and live in the home, it become a matrimonial home and you have an equal right to possession upon divorce."
Thanks" [...]
Client calls again: "He wants me to sign a prenup"
"Well, this would limit what you would be able to get in a divorce, and it doesn't really give you anything. Why are you getting married if both you and he know that you're only in it to get his house?"
"Okay so I shouldn't sign it?" [...]
Client calls again: "Okay, we're married now, but he won't let me move in."
Family law is crazy. A guest speaker in that course was beaten up by thugs for a ruling he made in a high profile arbitration case.
#20
Obligatory "not a lawyer but...",
Basically what was done to my wife's sister by her (now ex) husband. He pretty much just dragged his feet on everything to make the divorce take as long as possible. He had a good job making $60k/year and she had a home day care making about $20k/ year.
He bled her dry in lawyers' fees.
Lila Allen 39 minutes ago
Divorce generally causes a sharp decline in the standard of living for both, but women experience significantly worse outcomes. Studies indicate women's household income often drops by 40-50%, roughly double the 20-30% decline experienced by men. Women, particularly mothers, face higher poverty risks, while men may see their standard of living stabilize or rise. Disproportionate custody (80% are mothers) leads to higher expenses, the gender pay gap means lower income, and reduced career-focused hours during marriage limit earning potential.Women, especially single mothers and those over 50, are far more likely to fall into poverty, with a nearly 27% poverty rate for divorced women over 50, compared to 14% for men. ( source National Institute for Health - Divorce)
#21
IANAL, but there was a wife who was pretty sure her husband was cheating on her. She needed proof, so she hid a tape recorder under the bed in the bedroom the next time she left the house. She came back and right there on tape was him raping/molesting her daughter. She divorced him. I sat on the jury at his trial. He went to jail.
#22
Getting my counseling license and taking legal/ethics classes.
One crazy story is while a lady is in her counseling session, her husband comes in and says to the receptionist that he's her husband and he won't be able to pick up the kids because he has to go into work right then and could the receptionist let the client know when she gets out of the appointment. The receptionist says yes. When the client comes out of her appointment the receptionist passes along he message and the client says "Are you serious? He isn't supposed to know I'm here..We're in the middle of a divorce and he's crazy."
TL;DR Train receptionists to say "I can neither confirm or deny that person is a client.".
#23
I'm sitting in Family Court right now. I'm a public defender handling some contempt issues but I have to sit through all the divorce and custody stuff before my cases get called. I just want to say thank you to all of the Family Lawyers who deal with this stuff. I can't even handle watching it. I'll take the horrible crime all day to avoid divorce and custody stuff.
#24
My mom works in a Trustee's office in KS. She once saw a divorce case between a soldier and a dependa. The soldier elected not to get a lawyer and handled it on his own. He specified that he would pay alimony but did not specify that it would stop when she remarried (to another soldier). Moral: Lawyer up if you divorce.
#25
Didn't hear it from a lawyer, but heard it from a guy who buys storage lockers...
There was this lady who was going through a nasty divorce. Her husband had all of her possessions moved into a storage locker. He quit paying for the storage locker and conveniently failed to tell his ex-wife that it wasn't being paid for any longer. My buddy who buys storage lockers said that he saw the lady showing up with police officers in tears at the auction sale after someone else had already purchased the locker with the police telling her there was nothing they could do, that this is a civil case and she would have to pursue it through the courts. In other words, someone else had just purchased all of her life's belongings and memories for pennies on the dollar.
#26
Also not a divorce lawyer but my coworker hit the mess over your soon to be ex spouse jackpot.
I have a coworker who rented a pretty nice sized house for his wife and 4 children. He always talked about wishing he could own a house that big for his family but would need to settle on renting for now.
He talked about how unbelievable the price was to rent a house that size and how nice the couple was that owned it.
Well that couple who owned the house eventually started going through a messy divorce.
The house was in the wife’s name and she didn’t want the husband to have it.
She told my coworker about the divorce and he thought she was going to say that he had to move because they needed to sell the house.
Instead she asked if he wanted it. He said he was already getting it for a steal for what they charged for rent and couldn’t possibly afford to buy it.
She replied with I will take whatever you think you can offer and it’s yours.
The wife also knew that the husband wouldn’t be cold hearted enough to fight it either since it wouldn’t look good having a story about him kicking a family out of their home.
TLDR - Wife basically gave house to tenants so husband couldn’t get it in the divorce. Husband didn’t want to look bad by fighting it and kicking a family to the curb.
#27
Less messing over the spouse than the kids, but...
My mom used to work as a family lawyer. She's discussing custody with her client, who's the husband. Because of many factors, he's not getting primary custody. She's trying to explain this to him but also that he'll still be able to see his kids and have a place in their life, that his role as a father is still important. She's talking about ways they can challenge the decision and what his recourse is. He's clearly not listening and apathetic.
"Alright," he says, "but do I get the motorcycle?"
She quit family law shortly after.
#28
My aunt lived in a state where community property rules were triggered after ten years. She was by far the more successful of the two (like engineering director of a computer company starting in the early 80s successful). Her ex served her with divorce papers without any warning, at a huge family dinner (like my grandparents here there) on their 10th anniversary. She had to pay him an enormous amount of money, even though she ended up with custody of their kids.
#29
IANAL but my uncle and aunt are divorcing at the moment. I would say these things just happen sometimes but given that she started spending a lot of time with (and introducing my cousins to) another man within weeks of giving notice and all this happened within a couple of months of his mum dying...yeah, she's not held in high regard in our family at the moment.
Anyway, she's going after his money. This includes everything from trying to claim some of his inheritance (not claimable in the UK, as it's awarded solely to those named on the will), trying to claim assets that he had before they married like his tools (again, not claimable as the predate the marriage and aren't a shared asset) and trying to value everything he'd like to keep as much higher than its actual value (so he has to pay her more in order to keep it).
The thing is my uncle isn't an unfair man. He actually offered her a very generous settlement which was more than she was entitled to but less than she asked for...which she rejected. A couple of months later (and armed with more news on her post-seperation activities) he makes another offer which is lower than the first but still more than fair...which she rejected as well.
Now my uncle is annoyed. His final offer is exactly what she's entitled to splitting assets down the middle and not a penny more. It's still a very comfortable sum...which she very rudely rejected (I didn't realise you could cram that many swear words into three sentences. I'm almost impressed). So he's taking her to court. The revenge is that at the moment she's not earning a penny because she doesn't work and is persona non-grata in both our family and hers by her own actions so lawyer fees are going to be very hard on her wallet and she might have to take a lower offer quickly before her own savings run out. By contrast my uncle has a decent job and the full support of siblings on both sides of the family so he can comfortably wait this out until she crumbles under the legal bills. She should've taken the first offer...
#30
My SO parents were divorced. He told her she could stay at the house and he moved to another state. Both moved on with their lives. Years later, the IRS comes and puts a lien on the house because the ex-husband never paid over $100k in back taxes. His name was still attached to the property. They took the house. She’s been paying the mortgage on it for over 15 years and just had less than a year left to finish paying. She hired a lawyer and tried to fight it but she had no proof that her ex-husband transferred ownership. She flew across the country to get her ex-husband to sign some papers that will stop them from taking the house but he refused to sign anything. She lost the house and a lot of money.
#31
I was a secretary for an attorney.
I think the most entertaining one was when a guy had to divorce his wife via newspaper because she wouldn't leave the house or answer the door for the process server.
Lila Allen 32 minutes ago
If you're a Bruce Campbell fan there is a hilarious comedy called Serving Sara which I highly recommend. It's pretty much the OP's post as the process server grows increasingly desperate trying to serve papers.
#32
A former co-worker and his wife had split up. Among other things, she took all of his belts from the house. He showed up for work with an ethernet cable tied around his waist because he didn't have any belts. We worked an early shift so there weren't any stores open before he had to get to work.
#33
Used to be a secretary for a family law Solicitor.
Had this one divorce case where the wife was a teacher of 30+ years and had a very nice pension. In the divorce settlement it was decided somehow that the pension would be considered as a marital asset and the husband was entitled to 40%. He wanted the money right away and so she had to cash in her pension so to speak and had to have a reduced amount. The husband ended up getting around £20,000.00.
He was an alcoholic, wasted the money and drank himself to death within 2 years of receiving the money.
#34
IANAL. I heard this story secondhand from my mother, but after growing up knowing this woman, I totally believe it.
My mom's friend (we'll call her Wifey) suspected her husband was cheating on her with his ex-wife (yes, his ex-wife. The one he'd divorced prior to marrying Wifey). She hid a tape recorder (it was the 80s) under the couch and caught him talking to his ex on the phone, making plans to meet up and bone. She played it cool, real cool. Wifey didn't let on that she knew. She waited till the husband went out of town for a business trip.
She changed the locks on the house, took his prized saddle and threw it into the fireplace. She emptied their bank accounts so every check he'd written on that trip bounced. The house was in her name. The husband came back, couldn't get in the house, and found he didn't have a dollar left to his name. All she'd left him was the truck.
When they went to court, Wifey told the judge that since her husband was cheating with his ex-wife that she was afraid that she had AIDS. So the judge made the husband keep Wifey on his health insurance for the next few years so she could get regular AIDS tests!
My mother told me that it took the husband something like 8 years to recover financially. All over his ex-wife that he'd already married and divorced once!
#35
IANAL but a law student. Worked for a firm over the summer and one of the lawyers worked a divorce case that he knows as the "Praying hands" case. Divorce is all but finalized but by the hand of God, there a couple more issues to deal with. One of them was a picture of praying hands with like a rosary around it. Apparently the divorce was pretty messy and it all just culminated over this picture. Each client paid their lawyers' hourly (hundreds of dollars) rates to try to figure out who got this one, essentially worthless picture. Like you could get this thing at any christian bookstore or whatever. But this apparently went on for over a day. Just two lawyers arguing and negotiating over a worthless picture where they both know it is purely out of spite and a waste of their time. I guess you dont bite the hand that feeds though...
#36
I just had lunch with a lawyer friend of mine and he told me this crazy story:
When he was an intern there was this divorce case where the woman was demanding her husband for child support. It was in a small city in Bolivia's highlands and both the husband and wife were shepherds.
Anyways, the husband asked the judge for a medical examination of his genitalia, turns out the "husband" was actually a woman. She was raised by her grandparents and they respected her preferences, for the rest of the community she was a boy. After her grandparents died she inherited the land and after sometime the neighbor offered her to marry his daughter (without knowing the guy was actually a girl).
She accepted and once she was married she came to an agreement with her wife: they will be married but they won't have intimacy.
After a while the wife got a lover and had three kids; the husband took them as his/her own. Some years passed and the relationship got really deteriorated so the husband asked for a divorce, things got ugly and she ended up telling the true in order to avoid paying child support.
#37
A girl and her mother hired a PI who obtained pictures of her husband and his boss cheating on their spouses in the home of a government official who had been accepting their bids for contract work with the state for years. The photographs also showed them drinking and driving in the company vehicles.
By agreeing not to receive alimony, she was able to raid the hell out of savings, retirement, and got debt paid off as well as a general lump sum of cash up front. But then, after the settlement the pictures of their highly illegal activities were sent to the company owners who promptly fired his manager for wild impropriety and drinking on the job and had the ex-husband submit his resignation for the same thing. The government official also lost her job which meant her employee who the husband was sleeping with also lost a job.
So the dude got ruined and she made bank. She also got out of a very unhappy marriage, guilt free whereas beforehand she felt obligated to remain in a very bad relationship due to religious hangups. The thing is, she has to be one of the sweetest girls I know. But man, does she know how to revenge.
EDIT: Let me clarify, she did not use the pictures to obtain any more money than normal. She did not take the cash as any kind of payoff to be quiet about it afterwards. He just decided to pay her more money up front rather than having the loose end of alimony last years after the fact and potentially being a lot more money in the end. He just didn't know that his illegal activities would also cost him the job that would have reduced the alimony payments to significantly less. Either way, she didn't commit any crime, rather she uncovered one and rightfully reported it.
#38
Not a lawyer either. My parents are going through a divorce currently and my dad put his hands on my mom which resulted in me calling the police and him going to jail because she wouldn't pay him for the word he had done on the house, stuff like putting in a wood stove tiles floors etc, mind you she had paid all of his expenses for 10 years because he's an alcoholic and refused to get a job. When he got out of jail he texted me saying that he was going to take my college fund and get a divorce lawyer so they'd get their assets split 50/50 since they're still considered "Married" regardless of if she has paid for everything or not. So yea, he screwed his spouse and his kid over.
#39
Don't do this kind of work anymore, but honestly? Using the kids as weapons during the case. The kids are the only ones who have absolutely no responsibility for the situation. Both adults, to some degree and at some time, made the decisions that brought them to where they are.
Also see plenty of incompetence on property settlements... Ask questions and demand inventories, people of Reddit. Might justifiably end up with a lot of money for your simple efforts on that front.
PS this is not legal advice and you should consult a family lawyer in your jurisdiction if you have additional questions.
#40
My wife's first husband screwed her out of her share of his military retirement. She was naive and just wanted it to be over so she agreed to use the same attorney, his. They agreed that she would get half of his retirement as part of the divorce proceedings. Agreed mutually. He then went through military channels and had his retirement pay reclassified as a different source of compensation. When they went to court, the judge told her that he clearly violated the intent of the agreement, but that legally since there was no retirement listed in his payment structure, she got nothing. A woman he was dating during the divorce proceedings told my wife what was going on when they were fighting. By then it was too late.
Six months after the divorce, he bought a house with a built in hot-tub and a brand new pick-up. To this day he still take subtle digs at her about it.
#41
Dad and Mom are getting divorced. Dad has a great job and is personally wealthy. Mom is presumed to take the children ( Age 15 and 17).
Offered to split everything 50/50. She comes back and demands a ridiculous amount of Dad's personal assets. So, to counter Dad asks for custody of the kids (though he has no desire to have custody of the kids). Mom freaks out and agrees to settle for nothing in return for custody of the kids.
Lawyer cooked this up at a firm I used to work for. I once heard the lawyer on the other side brag about he "beat" my guy because was able to get full custody.
Lila Allen 24 minutes ago
So man weaponizes his wife love for her children to cheat her and his kids out of money they need for survival and dad stays wealthy.
#42
My Co worker's wife left him in one of the worst ways possible.
He was trying for a while to take her with him on a trip to Europe. Germany, England, Sweden, etc. She ultimately told him she didn't want to go because she missed her family on the east coast, so he goes without her.
He's gone for about two weeks, and when he flew back his wife didn't pick him up from the airport. He had to call another friend, and when he finally got home his apartment was a wreck. His wife had taken over half their belongings, drained their joint bank account, taken his stash of tips, and driven the car back to the east coast. This was easily $10,000, more if you count the car. To make matters worse she wouldn't talk to him at all for a few months after this, only responding after being threatened by a judge with separation because she wouldn't take his name off the car.
On top of that he found out later she had been texting an ex of hers and this guy actually flew out to drive with her back to the east coast. She was using a Google phone and since my friend was paying for it he could go online to see the activity.
Luckily he's very resilient, and after about a year things are going better than ever for him. Possibly the worst part though is that his now ex wife moved back and is trying to talk to him again. None of us are letting him talk to her unless she pays for a counselor, which she should be able to afford...
#43
Well, I'm no lawyer, but a child of divorce. My mom, during her divorce, for some reason agree to move to Florida with her mother under pushing from my Father. She did so and it turns out that the alimony laws in Florida (at least at the time)favored men compared to the law in CT. If my mom had stayed in CT duty the divorce she'd have had lifetime child support and alimony, but instead is poor now, when my dad lives his life in upper middle class comfort.
My mom got played pretty hard beyond this but live and learn, I guess. Just pains me to see the lifestyle difference between them, when my mom deserves a better existence then what she got after raising 4 children and 25+ yrs of marriage (or relationship).
Lila Allen 23 minutes ago
Women, especially single mothers and those over 50, are far more likely to fall into poverty, with a nearly 27% poverty rate for divorced women over 50, compared to 14% for men
#44
Not a lawyer, but recently divorced:
My ex-husband got his dad to serve me my papers one hour before I was going on vacation for 3 weeks. That left me with 1 week to find a lawyer and do my formal response.
After finding out the minimum retainer for a divorce lawyer here is $10k, I realised as a female in a low paying job with no savings I couldn't afford one. I also started a new job that week, and couldn't get off orientation to go to the courthouse self help till the Wednesday, when I had 2 days left to reply. I also had to move out that week and find my own apartment.
By Tuesday night, I had a threatening email from his lawyer saying he would put in default paperwork so I got nothing. He also stated if I tried to fight it (divorce in any way), my ex-husband would counter sue me for my retirement savings and 2 'loans' he gave me over the last couple years. Ex-husband had already transferred all his savings prior to giving me the papers and since I didn't have access to a lawyer I couldn't have that investigated.
At that point, I was so stressed and intimidated, I agreed to accepting the 13 year old car and $4k lump sum, basically a no contest divorce at that point.
It took 14 months for the divorce to finalise due to the backlog in California. After such a dysfunctional 3 years with him and the way I was treated during the divorce, even with the stress I've dealt with I'm so glad to be away from him.
#45
IANAL but my step dad screwed over my mom pretty bad.
He owned 2 companies and was easily pulling in like 300k. He traveled a lot and when I moved out after college they fricken sold their house and lived in a camper (not kidding) because they were in the camper anyway 90% of the time. My mom traveled with him and did the books for the companies. They planned to retire after 5 years and were gonna buy a newer house. Well, they ended up splitting up.
Long story short, he managed to get a lawyer that said the first company he owned "didn't count" since it was contracted labor and the second company, he pretty much just destroyed any evidence they he owned it and gave it to a friend. They divorced my mom was supposed to get like 50k but didn't even get that because he filed for bankruptcy right after. She is supposed to get like $600 monthly payments for a few years but that didn't even start yet because my ex step dad has to pay off the attorney first.
So my mom went from living a life albeit in a camper but still with a man making over 300k to working as a PCA making minimum wage living at my grandmas house in a beat up truck.
#46
Not a lawyer but I'm sure the divorce lawyers for my parents could write a lot. Both my parents are stubborn and often irrational. For example, my dad accused my mom of being a negligent parent for giving me chocolate chip cookies. My mom accused my dad of breaking into her house to replace my anti depressants with sugar pills. I had a weird childhood.
#47
This kinda fits here:
My friends parents were getting divorced and it was super ugly.
It went to court due to the accusations being made, her basis of the divorce was him cheating with the neighbour who was this stunning 20 something married woman and the mum wanting half of everything even though she had never worked and lived off the dad.
The lawyers deal was if he admitted he was cheating with woman things would be split equally and a small sum of money to be exchanged, she had signed this paperwork and it was handed to the court ready for him to sign, he signed it in court but then had a confession to make...
Turned out the dad was sleeping with the neighbours husband.
The deal was the woman not the man.
The mum lost everything in the divorce... as did the female neighbour.
Dad and male neighbour then moved in together and have been together since.
Edit - mum did not get with the female neighbour. She moved into friends house a few doors down and moved to a different place altogether a few months later.
Dad and male neighbour moved in together, next door to ex wife who then moved her now husband in.
They get on really well now, better than ever and even go for family meals together.
Con O Cuinn 6 hours ago
Very doubtful about this one. Female neighbour lost everything in the divorce but is now great friends with ex husband and his affair partner? Colour me suspicious
#48
Not a lawyer, but there was this guy in the UK about a decade ago whose wife was divorcing him. They owned a business together that she was trying to take in the divorce so he ran up crazy amounts of debt in the business's name and canceled his life insurance. He then tied a 90 foot cord around his neck and a tree then proceeded to drive out into the road decapitating himself in the process. Wife then inherited a bunch of debt instead of his business and life insurance.
#49
The wife picked a Friday night when the alcoholic husband was good and sloppy, and went a couple counties away to a crazy redneck bar where nobody knew her. She picked the biggest, drunkest cowgirl she could find, called her a b word and poured a beer over her head. The cowgirl beat the hell out of her... black eyes, swollen face, the whole nine yards. She then drove straight to the police station near her house and told the cops that she had been beaten and escaped from the husband. The cops went to the house, he drunkenly mouthed off not knowing why the hell they were there, and they kicked the hell out of him. He did a year in jail for domestic battery and “resisting arrest.”
#50
I had a coworker during a divorce constantly say funny stuff on the phone in the shared workspace.
My favorites being “she wants half the dog?” Apparently they just bought an expensive dog a year earlier for about 1k and wanted 500 dollars. Not a breeding dog. She wasn’t interested in custody of the dog.
Also over the course of a few months i heard him on the phone getting his cable, water, electricity, and gas turned back on because he’s an idiot and the wife removed autopay and he never realized he had those bills even though she didn’t work. She paid all the bills with his money and he never checked the bank accounts. You’d think he’d learn after the first one shut off.
Also apparently for years she was paying her moms mortgage too so he thought he had money but they had nothing. He didn’t even know the password to his online bank account. He got nothing from the judge because he should have been monitoring his bills. She basically bled him dry before the divorce secretly until they had nothing.
Finally, after all that she wanted to get back her stuff from her house while he was at work because they didn’t get along so he left her the keys. Guess what, she of course took everything of value and trashed the place.
Basically he guy was an idiot. He got custody of the kids because she didn’t want them but since she didn’t work here basically was no child support worth anything.
#51
Not a lawyer. The father of a kid I knew growing up owned his own trucking business with a net worth of $2.5 million for the fiscal year of 1999. He also owned 3 mobile home parks, I'm not sure what the net worth of these properties combined are but with all the units generated a total of $30,000 a month in rent. That number doesn't include taxes or fees of any kind, just pure rent numbers at the time.
So his wife was a stay at home mom and they file for divorce in 2000. The divorce was finalized in 2004. The husband signed over his trucking company and all equity other then the mobile home parks to his mother and instructed his mom on how to sell it all off. She put all the money from sales into a savings account in her name, she ended up getting about 1.5 million after selling it all. The judge couldn't touch any of this and at the end of the divorce the wife was given $250,000 and custody of the son. $200/week child support, no spousal support. After the divorce and the sale of all the husbands assets, he walked away with just under 2.5 million after paying the $250,000 because of interest on the savings account.
#52
I work in civil litigation, so not divorce, but I had a case where part of the issue was the previous dangerous behavior of Plaintiff's dogs. My client believed that part of Plaintiff's divorce involved not allowing the dogs around Plaintiff's kids so we filed to unseal the divorce settlement agreement. The divorce was between two lawyers and it was a doozy of a settlement. They had two single spaced pages dedicated to splitting up family stuffed animals. It was pretty heartbreaking to read who would be getting things like Boots the Bear.
LakotaWolf (she/her) 10 hours ago
I still have my childhood German Shepherd, Chace, that I got when I was 5. He's 39 years old now. I think, even in my most spiteful mood, I wouldn't want to try and take a spouse's beloved stuffed animals away from them XD
#53
What's the one where the ex wife puts the shrimp bits in the curtain rods and then ends up getting the house when the move due to the smell?
#54
I don't know if it is true or if it's an urban legend, but I was told the reason "2 Buck Chuck" wine sells for so little is because the owner of the winery and his wife got divorced and she is entitled to half of the profit so he sells it at cost just to spite her out of any money.
#55
This is gonna be a sad post to read (the lawyer comments, not mine).
My $.02: I'd say that broken engagements are psychologically the most destructive, partly because no one listens to you unless you use the big D word. Try my years-long experiment: regularly tried telling strangers the same story using interchangeably the words "breakup" and "divorce" and monitored reaction differences. Not "hard science" scientific, but you'll see a DEFINITE difference. Point being, when you're engaged, usually at least one person is already mentally married.
#56
Friends parents bought a condo in Mexico with another couple. This couple divorced the battle was bad and they started to miss payments on the condo strata fees. So my friends parents would pay them but in their contract it states that ownership of the condo would be transferred like a 1% at a time every time one party didn’t make the payments. Friends parents hey we can just sell the place free up the cash for you guys. They don’t want to start paying the fees again. Now condo should be owned 60/40 but they didn’t take advantage of the situation so still 50/50 Ownership. Then things get worse for the couple they start fighting over everything in the divorce including who pays the fees on the Mexico condo. So a year later my friends parents own the whole thing. They even offered to sell. The divorcees spent all their money on lawyers they had to sell their penthouse apartment.
#57
My sister is a divorce lawyer and I remember she once told me about a case she handled where the wife kept cheating on the husband with younger dudes and one day the husband had enough and decided to beat her repeatedly and sent her to the hospital.
What do you think ?
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