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47 Divorce Stories That Show Just How Cruel People Can Get When A Marriage Ends
Marriage can be a beautiful thing. When it’s founded on love, mutual respect, and understanding, a couple can stay together for decades. But no matter how excited a bride and groom were when they tied the knot, if they decide that it’s time to separate, that’s when the claws really come out.
Attorneys on Reddit have been recalling the most toxic things they’ve ever seen spouses do during a divorce, so we’ve compiled a list of their worst stories below. If you’re single, these tales might remind you to be very particular about who you choose to marry. And if you are happily married, we hope this list reminds you to count your blessings!
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
She took the cats. He wanted the cats. Looked like courts would give him the cats. She had the cats put down.
RELATED:
#2
I did some consulting work for two divorce attorneys when I was in grad school.
Their client was a career airline pilot. His wife worked part time so there was a huge income disparity. It was an ugly divorce.
During the process but before the final decree, tax time rolled around. The wife's attorney calls my guys and says, "Her accountant just called. If they can just share their W-2's and file jointly, they each stand to save about $8000 over married filing separately."
My guys took that info to the husband. He says, "F**k her. Losing $8000 is going to be way worse for her than it will be for me." Cold as ice, man.
StarCrossedFriday 21 minutes ago
Unless she was the same woman who had their cats put down out of spite, this is just cruel.
#3
Bad seperation, wife filed a restraining order on the husband (very common, wasn't a terrible guy but not great either). A year into the divorce his mother was dying, he asked his sister to speak with his ex-wife and ask to bring the kids to see her in the hospital before she died. The wife never did, instead she went to the court and said he violated the restraining order by trying to contact her (you can't contact someone through another party).
He admitted it and explained the situation, but was found in breach of the order. His mother died while he was locked up and the wife never brought the kids to see her.
#4
Story from my parents who are lawyers. So throughout the divorce proceedings, there was a car that was a huge point of contention between the husband and wife. After months and months of saying he would never let the wife have the car, the husband concedes in exchange for something great, like one of their summer houses. It turns out he had been driving the car for 3 hours everyday in a big loop around the city, putting thousands and thousands of miles on it basically making it worthless. The amount of planning and spite that went into that was amazing.
StarCrossedFriday 19 minutes ago
I'm assuming this happened when petrol was more affordable...?
#5
Dad was a real a*****e and mom tried to save him a lot of money during the divorce. They have 3 kids who were 16, 13, and 8. Dad wouldn't sign ANY agreement my moms lawyer produced. It had to be his idea and from his lawyer or it wasn't getting signed. Dads lawyer was incompetent and sends an agreement that states he will pay $2,000 a month in child support until all kids are 18. Mom tried to explain to dad that it needed to be revised to lower every time a child turned 18. Dad called mom a c**t during that negotiation so mom said f**k it and signed the agreement and dad paid the $2,000/month for 10 years when he should've been paying around $1,400/month for 5 years and $700/month for the last 5 years.
TLDR: Dad f****d himself out of thousands each year by calling my mom a c**t.
StarCrossedFriday 17 minutes ago
Part of me is hoping the lawyer realised his client was a doüchebag, and this was intentional.
#6
Not a lawyer, but when I was a kid my parents got divorced. My mom met a guy on the internet and left my dad for him. My sisters and I were all teenagers and being that my mom had never really been around decided that we all wanted to live with him. We all had to write a letter stating our wishes and it was understood that we would stay with him - my mom didn't even seem to care.
Additionally, my dad had this retirement account from his old job - he wasn't rich at all and had worked his a*s off for everything he'd ever had. When he got hurt on the job he could have sued, but was promised that in exchange for him not suing, they'd keep him around. Instead they canned him and he left with about $100k (I think) in a 401-k type account that he'd been saving for nearly 30 years.
Lastly, my dad had his house. It was a 3 bedroom, 1 bath brick house that was all of about 800 SF. It wasn't much at all, but my dad loved the place. My mom couldn't stand that house and wanted to move for as long as I could remember - that was another contentious subject that led to the divorce. He'd been paying on it forever and when he left his old job, he took out a small chunk and paid it off.
Anyway, their separation is progressing and it's understood we're living with him. She was so in love with this internet guy that she didn't care. He was in school halfway around the country and she was going to move there to be with him; we knew we'd get by just fine. They seemed amicable and it was understood how this would all play out.
The day in court finally comes and instead of what we all assumed, even my dad's lawyer - she goes to the court with all these crazy claims. He was an a*****e alcoholic, he beat us and my mom nightly, he was crazy and no one would be safe in his care. My mom got full custody, she got 50% of his house and 50% of his retirement account. My dad was stunned - that judgement would basically bankrupt him - in order for him to keep the house, he'd essentially have to clean out his retirement account and give her everything.
The night of their divorce I went over to see him. He was almost catatonic - he just stared off in space the entire time and would mumble whenever I asked him a question. I've never seen anyone like that ever. My birthday was 2 days away and I asked if he wanted to do something for my birthday and he just answered with "your mom has full custody. I will if she allows me to see you." I asked if I could drive his old truck to school, since I didn't yet have a car and he just said no, that I needed to call my mom and have her pick me up. So that's what I did.
And the next day in school, the day before my birthday, I'm sitting in our lunchroom when I hear "hey, isn't that your grandpa?" From a buddy of mine. I look over and see my grandpa and a cop making their way across the lunchroom toward me. They told me to grab my stuff and in the office I found my sister there as well. We rode home with them, where we were also met by my little sister and that's where they told us that our dad had k****d himself, shortly after I left the previous night.
To make matters worse, it all happened so quickly that nothing had been finalized. My mom dropped all her paperwork and legally became a widow and got everything - house, retirement and his insurance policy. She also got social security benefits for us, a fact we didn't find out until much later. She basically took all the money and moved across the country with her new man, leaving us to care for ourselves for the most part.
And to this day, when asked about raising us, she'll spin this story of a young widow, doing her best to raise three kids on her own..
#7
Banker here; had heaps of situations where joint overdraft/credit card comes up just before divorce to the absolute surprise of one of the parties. Drained down to zero, of course. Especially sad when it's students/ young kids who find themselves heartbroken after the break up AND with a debt they can't afford.
#8
My uncle represented this guy getting a divorce from his wife of 15 years. Super toxic breakup and they split everything 50/50, even the land that the house they lived in sat upon. Well she decides to build a house right behind the other house, mind you this was a lot of land probably 200 yards separating both home sites, so that the back of the houses faced each other. The house gets built and my uncle gets a call from his client asking about the legality of a situation he had gotten himself into. Apparently his ex wife would spend a lot of time in her backyard, so he saw her all the time. What he did was buy a female dog and name it the same name as his ex-wife. Anytime he would let his dog back in from letting her out he would yell "Susan you b***h! Get in here!" He would also yell if she was peeing on the flowers,"Susan you b***h! Quit pissing on the flowers!" or "Susan you b***h! Quit digging in the dirt!" The ex-wife called the cops on him a couple of times, but there was nothing they could do because the dog was registered under the name of Susan, and it was in fact a b***h so there you go.
Edit: Thanks for the gold!
#9
Over here in the Netherlands most legal costs are paid for by the government if your income is below a certain treshold. In practice this means that if one of the spouses in a divorce has little to no income and the other one has a normal income, the one with the normal income will have to pay a lot of the process drags on.
Concidering there are plenty of ways to drag it on I've seen cases approach rediculous amounts of billable hours.
There is a catch to this however. Your lawyer is paid a set amount if he/she is paid by the government. However, should the money you recieve after a divorce or w/e exceed a certain number, you are expected to pay your own lawyer (which is the reason we still keep track of the hours in these cases). So this one woman who thought she was screwing over her ex husband by dragging the divorce over multiple years got a payout of ~€40k by the end of it. Unfortunately for her she had to surrender most of that straight back in lawyer costs. There was a certain sense of justice in there.
Also proves time and again that when there is conflict the only true winners are usually the lawyers.
#10
My ex and I separated before the divorce. She agreed to watch the dog while I found a new place.
She had the dog put down instead.
#11
My dad basically appealed custody over and over, bringing in new friends to back his character. This forced my mum to seek a barrister/lawyer to defend herself.
My dad is/was a massive problem gambler - had no permanent home and was pretty s**t at practical life stuff (nutrition, education, etc.)
This forced my mum to dig into all her savings to pay legal fees to keep a child anybody with a sound mind would know is much more capable than my dad.
So in the end my dad basically made my mother bankrupt trying to get custody over a child he wouldn't have been able to raise.
10/10.
#12
My ex-wife gave me all my Blu-Rays back, which was nice. A year later I realized she had removed one disc from each of the Trilogy box sets.
Edit: Man you guys are young. When someone refers to The Trilogies, it's obviously Star Wars or Indiana Jones.
Edit#2: I wasn't even that mad. I shook my head, smiled, and then remembered who I was dealing with. It was so clever, I had to respect it.
#13
My dad actually got f****d by his divorce lawyer during my parents' divorce last year.
My dad and my sister have never gotten along, and over the years it got more and more strained. They eventually got into a physical fight which led to a CPS report and him getting slapped with a child a***e record (they labeled it as 'confirmed but isolated', so he's not on the registry and you can only see it with certain background checks).
In this case, my mom was OBVIOUSLY going to get full custody of my sister. My mom also wanted to give my dad the house, and his cars, and his money pit of a boat.
Lawyer decided, because my dad is stubborn as f**k, that he would string ol' dad along. Lawyer spent HOURS with my dad trying to convince him that Dad could get more money and custody from my mom.
They did a divorce mediation (so they wouldn't have to go to court), and lawyer dragged it out for 4 hours. The whole time he was riling my dad up, thinking he could get things like the original down payment on the house, half custody of my sister, my mom's car, etc. At the end of the 4 hours of mediation, Lawyer told my dad he should take the deal that my mom and her lawyer had originally offered in the first place, and Dad signed that.
So he paid about $12,000 in completely unnecessary legal fees.
#14
I'm am accountant not a divorce lawyer. Had a client hide Ziploc bags of ground meat throughout the house (in air vents, the attic, behind water heater etc.) I think it was at least 20-30 bags that took months to find all of them.
#15
Not a lawyer, but I met with a scummy one when I was looking to get a divorce. The first lawyer I met with, who had been recommended by a coworker as an amazing divorce attorney, suggested that, if I wanted full custody, I should make sure people knew the relationship was a*****e. Tell my friends/family, make sure the neighbors heard me screaming/begging him not to hit me, document every bruise even if I wasn't sure it came from him. Thing is, my relationship wasn't a*****e and I'd already told her that multiple times. She never outright said I should fabricate evidence or anything, but she ignored my repeated statements that there was no a***e and kept on with her detailed instructions of how to document any a***e that might happen. I got the distinct impression that she was letting me know how to create an a*****e relationship out of thin-air in order to get custody of my kids.
I ended up not using her as an attorney, for obvious reasons, and in the end my ex and I shared 50/50 physical and legal custody of our children and raised them together despite whatever issues we had with each other. I can't help but wonder, though, how many dads lost a relationship with their kids because of her zealous coaching.
#16
My in-laws are mega into food and wine, as in they literally travel the world on food and wine tours, are part of clubs, etc. They told me about a nasty divorce where the husband was the wine aficionado, not the wife, but the wife was pissed off about getting divorced. The husband got all the wines in their extensive cellar, but before he was able to correct them, the wife soaked every bottle to remove ALL of the labels. So technically the wine was not damaged, but the husband had no way to know what he was drinking for aging and pairing purposes (which is a huge deal to wine drinkers).
#17
Worked at a law firm that was subpoenaed as part of a divorce between a partner at the firm and a partner at another major law firm.
The woman issued more than 70 subpoenas to banks, firms, investment companies -- you name it -- because she **was convinced he had squirreled away $20+ million overseas** behind her back. It got so bad that she dug up receipts from 25 years ago to try to put together this grand conspiracy puzzle.
In the end, after she racked up **$1.5 million in legal fees, and 7 different lawyers**, the judge said this s**t is ridiculous -- there was no conspiracy, and you are not entitled to a portion of this phantom $20 million.
Mind you: this was a major law firm partner who was acting this way. She made millions per year in her career. But she apparently lost her mind.
#18
Obligatory-not-a-lawyer but my parents are currently going through a divorce. Luckily kids are all in late 20s/30s so no custody battle, but basically my mum is a nutter and is desperately trying to s***w my dad over as much as humanly possible. She told her lawyer that he has SO MANY hidden assets, when in fact he has none. She lied and told the mediator that he has a record collection worth hundreds of thousands, when in fact it's probably worth like £8. She said his guitar collection was worth tens of thousands, whereas second hand value, like maybe £2k. She wants all of his businesses assets. All of them. She wants both houses. Her lawyer repeatedly reminds her that at most she'd get half of everything, but she clearly doesn't listen. Then she demanded back all of our (the kids) Christmas and birthday presents from our childhood, like the violin they bought me when I was 13. It's hers. Obviously. /s. Her lawyer laughed at her and reminded her that's not how divorce works.
They're still in the very early mediation process, so it'll be interesting to see how s**t goes once they actually get started properly. Interestingly, despite her hollering that it's all my dad's fault, she was the one that walked out, and subsequently shacked up with my Dad's brother, WHO'S WIFE HAD DIED 3 WEEKS EARLIER. Yeah, and that's why I'm completely no contact with my d******d of a "mother".
#19
Also not a divorce lawyer, but my friend's husband really f****d her over. He kept telling her he believed she had postpartum depression after having their kid. Finally, she agreed to go seek help since he kept putting it in her head. After like 3 months of therapy/doctor's appointments, he took her records to his divorce lawyer and is currently fighting for full custody because she is unfit.
tori Ohno 12 minutes ago
Not in America he didn't. HIPPA law wouldn't allow it, and without CPS being involved, the judge wouldn't allow it either. He may have stolen the records, but they can't be used. In fact, he may get himself into legal trouble for giving them to the lawyer without her consent.
#20
No lawyer, but at the time I worked on bank equipment, my favorite was opening safety deposit boxes for the bank. Do I was asked to get there before the bank opened which was odd. I show up and greet the bank employee along with a lawyer and a very angry looking woman. I get the lock open and swing the door open as the angry woman shouts "let me in there!" And I step outside the vault. "That MOTHER F****R!" And storms off, but she threw down a piece of paper that said "F**k you b***h". It had been a nasty divorce and the ex husband got there before she did.
#21
*Not a lawyer*. Wife cheats on her husband during his frequent travels for work. She files for divorce and gets to keep the house. Months elapse and the husband is still rightfully pissed but has no recourse. Then he has an epiphany: "I wonder if she changed the password to the Nest Thermostat?" She did not.
For the next year he continues to mess with the thermostat. In the middle of summer when they're sleeping in HIS bed, he turns the heat on to 90 degrees at 3 a.m. Middle of winter? Time to shut off the heat and hope the pipes freeze. Away on vacation? Turn the air conditioning down to 55 and let it run 24/7 for a nice surprise bill when they get home.
#22
Not a lawyer but my two bosses were married and opened a bike shop together. He was the brains and the backbone since he was a former Olympic mechanic, she just sort of balanced the checkbook and worked a couple days a week. Unfortunately, he had no credit and she did, so when they opened everything was in her name.
All he wanted in the divorce was the bike shop and was willing to buy her half. She wanted the bike shop too, but didn't want to buy him out for his half. Mind you, her father passed away and she was sitting on like $300k in the bank (and also had the audacity to take out student loans for her daughter to go to college).
He lost the bike shop and I think he got a little bit of money for his share. What she didn't expect was that all of the high-paying customers would stop going there. They were all his friends or they only wanted him to work on their bikes (so I don't know why she would have had that notion). So he opened up his own bike shop and all of the "regulars" have become regulars at the new bike shop.
EDIT: I've been seeing a lot of comments asking how he gained the credit to open a new shop. Ever since he moved out of the house he shared with his ex wife, he started putting money away and got a credit card. So over the course of a year+ some months he built credit and was able to open a shop on his own. People have tried to "buy-in" to the business as an investment but he doesn't want anyone else involved since that screwed him over the first time.
EDIT 2: I appreciate everyone's upvotes. If anyone is ever having any bike-related issues, head on over to r/bikewrench. I spend a lot of time there diagnosing and offering fixes for people's bikes. I don't work in a bike shop anymore, I just work on my friends' bikes for fun, and dabble in some frame building for myself. But remember to support your local bike shop. Don't buy bikes from department stores because they're typically dangerous as they aren't built by actual bike mechanics.
#23
Handled a divorce between a teacher (wife) and a CVS cashier (husband.) I represented the wife.
For all intents and purposes, the wife was the breadwinner of the family and she supported herself, her husband, and their two children. I should note: one of the children was severely autistic and required intensive (and expensive) rehab and education.
During the process of the divorce, the husband (living alone) sued the wife (caring for both children) for temporary spousal support. He met all the statutory guidelines to receive it. But, it just came off as slimy.
At the day of the hearing, the judge reviewed all of the facts and spent 20 minutes lambasting the husband. He called him a "vile creature" that was everything wrong with society.
The judge then told us that his "hands were tied" and that he was forced to grant the spousal support. But he let everyone know how little he thought of the husband.
As we were leaving the court, the husband just kept saying to my crying client "Just like Goodfellas - *F**k you, pay me.*"
It was literally humanity at its worst.
#24
I am not a divorce lawyer, but being a banker I get to delve into the personal lives of people and this is what a customer had told me. Well basically, the divorce was cut and dry but as a professional that's not my business why, but I'm worried about his financials though. My guy was the breadwinner in the house. He was a construction foreman I believe so he was the guy planning, paying and watching his employees, he was great. Apparently his wife wanted f*****g everything, but the thing that pissed him off the most was the fact that she took the boat, (his boat that he had purchased *before* ever meeting her!). The funny thing is though, she can not afford anything to move the boat with (I.e, truck). So he had to legitimately move his boat, with his truck, to some place she was staying at, and just leave it. He lost his boat. He asked me at the end how old I was, I tell him 21. He told me never to get married, I'll get to keep my stuff at the end.
#25
My mom was a real piece of work in this department. My mother is mentally unstable and was very a*****e to me as a child. When my father finally moved out and asked for a Divorce I was luckily old enough (13) to legally decide who I wanted to live with. I, of course, chose my dad and that enraged my mother. By court order, she was allowed to live in our 4 bedroom house while me and my dad had to move in with my aunt into a two bedroom house. We lived there for 4 years while my mom did everything she could to slow down the divorce proceedings. During this period my father was court ordered to pay the mortgage and utilities on the house my mother was living in. She would leave all the lights on and crank the heat with the widows open just to drive the utility bills up. She once left the garden hose on for a week into a drain to even make the Water bill outrageous. When it was finally all over and she had taken my dad for as much as she could she decided to sue him for my college fund. I called her and told her if she went through with it I would never speak to her again, she told me if I wanted it I needed to move in with her before I turned 18 so she could get child support from my dad. I refused, she won the case for the money and my dad had to use most of what was left of the fund to pay for her lawyers costs.
#26
Not a lawyer.
Ex-Brother in law got a girlfriend pregnant. Had a falling out half way into her pregnancy. So as a result, she moved across the country, fought him from the state she lived in giving him no chance to mount any decent custody arguments without spending thousands in fees to travel. As a result she ends up with full custody and getting the maximum amount for child support. He has paid said support monthly via direct deposit from day one and has never missed a single payment.
For the first 5 years of his daughters life, his baby's momma would file yearly with the state she lived in that he hadn't paid (up to a maximum claim of 3 months no payment) and was in hardship because of. The state she was in would cut her a check, bill it to our state, who'd garnish his wages under threat of jailing him. Each time she did that it took him 6 months to rectify and get his garnished wages reimbursed. But there was no provision for our state to get money back from hers, so she never so much as got a slap on the wrist for doing this.
Finally record keeping in her state caught up to the point that his bank could easily verify to said state that she had indeed been paid which finally put a stop to her "hardship claims".
Edited to add context: IDK why she was able to get away with it, afaik, our state never considered themselves being defrauded because she never filed anything here. The child is now 12 so all this was prior to 2010. AFAIK they will go back for a custodial hearing in the next year for her to have a "choice" in who she lives with. I divorced amicably from his sister 5 years ago, no kids, no BS, just people change and we grew apart.
#27
A friend of mine in high school worked at a pizza place. One of the delivery drivers was just ridiculously smart when I talked to him. Later I found out that he use to be a nuclear physicist. His wife was also a nuclear physicist, but left him for her lawyer.
He got screwed out of his kids, most of the assets, and had to pay a lot towards alimony/child support. He did the math, and figured out the tips he didn't get taxed on plus his minimum wage delivering pizza was more than keeping his job as a nuclear physicist. Plus he got a little satisfaction not having to pay her as much. The guy was really nice. I always felt bad for him.
#28
Can someone point me to the link where some company's shareholder knew the company would go down, and cheated on his wife on purpose so that the Family Court judge would force the company to release those shares/money to the man and his ex-wife?
#29
I'm a newly admitted lawyer but this wasn't a client, it was a couple I used to babysit for.
He invested in property on the side of marketing, she was in business.
Things went south and she went after the house they lived in and some of the properties he "owned".
Turns out he didn't even own the house they lived in, nor the investment properties, everything was done through his brothers and through some sort of discretionary trust. I'm not too sure of the set up but she only ended up coming out of it with some money and a car.
It completely blindsided her. I thought it was pretty d**n clever.
I still remember the kid though. And how her manner changed so much during the fighting. Really sad seeing the effects on kids.
#30
I'm not a divorce lawyer, but my father built the house I grew up in with minimal help. He spent two years working on it and did the hardwood floors, staircase, bathrooms, and hung every cabinet by himself. Every piece of trim in the house was run through a lathe with his own two hands. He even did the spackling for all the ceilings and all of the paint work.
Then my mom cheated on him for a year and bought him out of the house. Now my mom and step-dad have a pretty sweet place to live, and I can tell it hurts my dad whenever he has to go by to pick up my sister and stand in the entryway of the house that he built and watch their fat dog scratch up the hardwood that he was so proud of.
#31
Obligatory not a divorce lawyer, but here you go.
My parents got divorced about 9 years ago, I was 9. After the economy got fucky, my dad, who owned his own business, could no longer afford my mom's extravagant shopping bills. Instead of having a talk like a normal person, he decided to stop paying the mortgage. The house was foreclosed upon years later without my mother's knowledge. Her credit was destroyed because her name was on the lease.
It was about this time that my dad removed all the money from their shared bank account, leaving $135. He said, "That should be enough for the two of you for a couple months."
My mom sold her wedding ring at a pawn shop so we could have Christmas and I wouldn't know anything was wrong. My parents got divorced, my dad took her to court for everything but in the end it ended up being a pretty fair divorce agreement. We were allowed to live in the house for two years before we had to leave.
My mom overstayed that by about a year, in an attempt to get me to finish middle school. That was when my dad broke into the house, stole stuff from us, changed the locks on the doors, and shut us out. We spent most of the night in the police station before they kicked my dad back out of the house and we walked in to find most of our things missing.
We went back to court and the judge told us we had until August 30th to move out (about a month). On the 20th, while I was sitting home alone (my mom was at work), my dad broke into the house and I hid under the bed as he ransacked the place. He found things that were rightfully ours, that we were planning to sell to afford a new place, and took them.
So, yeah. Not great.
#32
A woman in my town is a Principal at a local elementary school. She is in her mid 70s (at least). I asked someone why she doesn't retire and they explained that she and her spouse went through a very contentious divorce about 15 years ago and she has to give him a portion of her retirement so she has decided to NEVER retire so he gets nothing ever! Hahahahaha.
#33
Not a lawyer, but in the army you see some things.
- story 1: Friend went home to find his house empty. Had to get a hotel and stay with friends on leave. Soon he learns his wife got with some dude, moved to Vegas, and has his son staying with her in a flop house. Dude she left him for apparently sold d***s so there's that as well. And after she gave this dude my friends truck, and got his house taken, she still demanded child support l. All he wanted was his kid.
- Story 2. A closer friends wife emptied his bank account. As in, he went from 30k to negative a couple hundred. He had to fight the banks to get his money back and charge her for fraud since to them she was an authorized user. He had to do all this while in Iraq.
That's all I got. I mean, I know a few more but I don't think they are as bad as these two.
#34
Not a lawyer, but a banker. Was told to transfer 2 million danish crowns to a swiss bank.
We couldnt allow that tho.
#35
I'm not a divorce lawyer but I overheard a conversation with one. While I was waiting in the lobby for my child support case to be called (ex wasn't paying) a woman walked in and sat down. Five minutes later her lawyer comes in and asks why she isn't dressed better. She was wearing what looked like a night gown and bright white flip flops. She explained to him that her husband took everything except that outfit and all of her left shoes. She didn't have money to buy anything else so the neighbor loaned her flip flops because they were the only thing that fit. At first I felt bad for her but then she was whining that she wanted more alimony because the money he was paying weekly barely covered her car payment for her brand new Mercedes.
#36
I know a guy who was very successful in real estate. He contracted type 2 diabetes and while trying to get it under control passed out and wound up in the hospital. While in the hospital, his wife convinced him to give her power of attorney (POA). She sold everything, took all assets, raided retirement accounts and then filed for divorce. He now lives in a 12x8 room at the nursing home trying to sell real estate between dialysis sessions. So sad. Dunno what happened to the ex.
#37
How my soon to be ex wife f****d me over:
My wife and I started having problems when my step son started getting to the age of rebellion. I would try and discipline him and she would step on my toes and let him do whatever he wanted. One day I end up punching the door and scarring everyone because my step son told me he didn't love me and that I'm not his real father. I raised him since he was 2. He's ten now. So my wife leaves me. I have a legitimate daughter with her. It's been over a year and my wife tells me she can't focus on her job and school because my daughter is too young for school yet. She let her son live with his biological father. I convince her that my daughter should live with me while we go through a divorce. So after 3 months she wanted our daughter back. I told her no that she had just moved in with me. Meanwhile she's stubborn on making a shared custody plan and she's stubborn on how to split our material things. She asks me if our daughter can go down and visit for the 4th of July holiday. I agree and she takes her to the state she resides at and bought her health insurance and enrolled her in school and a bunch of other things that I immediately did when she came to move with me. Then she filed for divorce in that state. Now I can't legally go get my daughter back after this 4th of July holiday because the child can not leave the state until the end of the divorce.
She is going to take everything from me.
Edit: I have spoken to a divorce lawyer and I'm kinda just sitting on my hands. I need to prove that it's in my daughters best interest to live with me. Should I fail, I won't do anything that will harm my image to my daughter. I always think back to a question I've been asked before, if you can trade places for a day with anyone, who would it be?
I would choose my daughter to trade places with. So she can see with my own eyes and heart how much she means to me. I love her with all my might.
#38
Omg finally one I can answer!
There's the typical cleaning out the accounts and running, claiming the children first on taxes so the other party can't, claiming the other party as a dependent so they can't file separately, stuff like that.
Then there was this one case.
My client fled the home with her baby after an incident of domestic violence. In my state, both parents have full rights to the children unless a custody order in place. In other words, whoever has the kid, gets the kid. Police will not intervene where one spouse is withholding a child from the other spouse if there are no orders in place.
Well my client had the child for two weeks at her new place when H showed up demanding the child. She refused. He called the police. The responding officer was a family friend of both, but originally a friend of H. This PO shows up and decides to try to mediate the conflict. The PO tells my client something along the lines of "let him hug his son goodbye and he will leave peacefully." My client was hesitant, but agreed. H took the kid and exclaimed "he's mine now!" And ran to his car with the baby. No supplies, no clothes, nothing. The PO claimed he had no idea what was happening (yeah right). And since no orders were in place, there was nothing my client could do.
While we were trying to track him down, we got an order returning the child to my client's possession. He suddenly contacted my client saying he was at a hotel in the area and if she wanted her son back, she could if she came over and slept with him. We sent the police.
#39
Child of divorce here.
My father was a plastic surgeon. Worked his way up from a janitor at a hospital that didn't graduate high school to getting through med school mid 30s. Married my mom in his 40s (she was 20 years younger). They always had a strained relationship. He was a workaholic and also had a drinking issue. My mother on the other hand was controlling and manipulative. I could see both of their issues at a young age.
I always knew they needed to be separated but it didn't happen until my early 20s which couldn't have been a worse time. My dad had lost a considerable amount of money after the recession and had also gotten 2 types of cancer (prostate and colon) and almost died and pretty much stopped practicing medicine. My mother decided this was the perfect time to divorce him and in the process take every little thing could from him including my younger siblings. He fell into a deep depression and still to this day thinks he loves this woman while she continues to take advantage of him.
I managed to help him win back his house in court but he lost every other bit of cash and property.
A real s**t storm. Still dealing with it 3 years later
Edit: before any backlash about taking sides in the divorce start flooding in...i know it's my mother and I shouldn't take sides but she did some horrible things to my family. It's taken years to recover from and while it wasn't all her fault she was the primary catalyst in the situation and didn't have to be spiteful and take every little thing from a man who gave her everything.
#40
The couple separated 10 years ago but didn't officially divorce until a couple years ago. She was going to get his house so he burnt it down then faxed her the transfer of ownership forms. He might be going to jail for arson though.
#41
My d**n mother is an alcoholic. We (me and my brother) have lived week in week off with her and my dad who is great. For 10 years we lived in ankle deep garbage and had to wade through the living room. Cue around a year ago. Dad gets a full time university job 500km away, making double anything he ever made in his whole life, and I decide I want to go with him. I set a date, pack my bags, and say goodbye to everyone. I'm set to leave in the winter school holidays. My brother was gonna stay in our home city for a while longer living between our mum and our stepmum (dads SO of 10 years thy we lie and trust). Life seems to be presenting me with a huge opportunity. So, the week that I'm supposed to be leaving comes around and on the morning before I'm scheduled to get on a train, we hear a knock on the door. My dad answers to my mum, accompanied by a man in a suit, with a folder of legal documents. We take them inside and Suprise Suprise they're court orders. Cue a 2-month 50,000 dollar legal battle that makes everyone involved unhappy. Finally, it is decided after hours of forensic psychological evaluation that I should go to this new city with my Dad. The legal battle has destroyed my relationship with my mother, and the money spent on lawyers and barristers and whatnot makes my new lifestyle considerably less luxurious than was planned, and makes it hard to assimilate into my new public school, since it's nearly the end of term and everyone is already over school.
TL;DR my dad gets great new job and I plan to go. Mum ultimately just drags out the process and makes life tough.
#42
Am getting divorced. Basically my lawyer said if I ever want to marry someone again just make sure she makes more money than me. I'm out about $65k so far.
#43
Is this making you sad? Me too. Happy story time!
My parents divorced when I was around toddler age. My dad hit my mom during a fight and she separated from him. During that time when they were supposed to be working stuff out Dad decides to start dating some lady so my mom goes for the divorce.
So, where's the happy? There were no lawyers involved, my mom didn't ask for a dime of mandatory alimony/palimony, and she had full custody. My dad was a hardworking man and still made time for us kids, coached us, took us out and on small trips. While not wealthy or even always comfortable he provided for us. My parents never bad-mouthed each other, told us they loved each other and us kids. We were very much a family, just one where the parents didn't live together.
They've been friends, spouses and parents for the majority of their lives, when they're hanging out it's like close friends. Sometimes I wish/wonder what life would have been like if they'd stayed together. But I'm glad I grew up with role models who showed me that not every divorce is bad, and you don't have to turn into a vindictive s**t-bag just because it didn't work out.
Thanks mom and dad!
#44
Guy was married to a woman who f****d another guy, had that other guy's baby, and never told the husband, then for other reasons they start divorce proceedings, a paternity test is done, the husband finds out the kid isnt his, and the courts rule that he still has to pay child support, because it is in the best interests of the kid.
#45
Not a lawyer but got divorced. During divorce proceedings, when we didn't live together anymore, my wife filed a frivolous police report saying that I 'threatened' her. In the police report, she wrote my apartment's address as her place of residence. A court immediately issued a restraining order against me, prohibiting me from being in my apartment (that I rented).
While the restraining order was active (several months) I had to live in hotels and Airbnbs, which of course is 2x-3x of normal rent, without having access to my clothes and other stuff. I also was paying the rent for the apartment that was empty all that time (she never actually went there during that restraining order, even though she claimed it as her residence).
The restraining order was lifted as the case was dismissed after she never provided any evidence or even testimony to DA.
I didn't sign lease extension in time during this process because I had no information how long the restraining order will be for; even though it was lifted right before my lease expired, I ended up having to move (and pay a broker fee).
Of course this also delayed divorce proceedings because we couldn't communicate while the restraining order was active.
Besides that, she refused to sign tax form for "married filing jointly". I ended up filing as "married filing separately", which meant quite a few thousand dollars extra in payment to IRS.
This was the biggest case of 'f**k you over without any gain for me' that I have seen.
#46
Not a lawyer.
Parents divorce seemed simple dad cheated on mom, mom gets custody of me. Dad didn't like paying alimony and child support to the tune of $2k a month after he gave up rights. Dad had great idea, pay a hitman $15k to k**l soon to be ex-wife. Dad goes through with it, idiot actually pays undercover cop the money. Dad then flys back to Canada (home) and wait for results. International task force is formed to try and detain him. Geraldo Rivera covers story, idiot dad gets arrested in Toronto and flown back to California. In this process I was 3 in care of family back down south, mother in protection by police. Dad's family apparently wealthy gets good lawyer is charged with 17 felonies can't remember how many he was convicted of. He gets 18 months. After all of this mom still had to sue for divorce it took 2 years.
Edit: Mother is ok, is bi polar now and had to move out of state. I moved back after military. Father is out just not allowed in country, never met him. Have talked 4 times.
Found out when I was 18, after issue in military.
#47
IANAL, but I knew this dude who initiated a divorce from his wife (crazy as all hell). Problem was that she came from a very wealthy family. They basically kept dragging him into court for all sorts of nonsense until they bankrupted him. He eventually had to leave the country (he was a foreign national) to escape the situation.
Edit: I should note that his ex-wife died during all of this and her parents continued taking him to court.
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