Marriage Contracts
“Had a guy whose wife cheated on him, took the kids and served him with papers. At court, the woman then said she needed the house (needed to come back to the house) so the kids would have a place to live and the guy willingly agreed. Yet instead of moving in, she puts some storage related stuff in the house and moves herself and the kids into a boyfriend’s house.
Guy starts really struggling financially so he asks the court if he can move back into the house while his wife lives with her boyfriend. Wife says no so court says no. He spends a cold (read northeastern US) winter ‘breaking’ into his own un-heated garage to sleep.
The house was bought solely by him before the marriage even started. He got half the proceeds of the sale after the post-nuptials and was finally able to get himself a place.
Marriage contracts are terrible for men to sign. Co-habitat if you must where there is no common law marriage.”
“Karma”
“My brother got a divorce from his wife after nearly 20 years and 2 kids. She was a sweet person and I can partly understand her resentment, but she took it to the next level. She deliberately stopped working to rack up the credit debt in his name. Bought new phones and let accounts get overdrawn and not pay them. She was in the house while the divorce was filing, completely destroyed it and took everything, even the wash tub, when she left. Once it got all fixed up, she broke in and stole/smashed things to oblivion. She tried to destroy any relationship my brother had with anyone. Went to his work and other surrounding areas to spread lies about him cheating and how he has crabs. Harassed everyone via text like a maniac. Walks into court, lies repeatedly about anything she can, cries, and the judge sides with her repeatedly. How did it all end you say? My brother sold the house, got rid of his debt, child support was short and is now over. Both kids ran to the military to escape the crazy. Now she lives in the middle of nowhere, hated by everyone. Kinda worked out I suppose. Karma. I do miss the boys though.”
This Is Beyond Cruel
“Bad separation, 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.”
“Into A Tizzy”
“A man I met had an abusive wife. She had tried to strangle him with a phone cord, stab him and had two children with other men out of wedlock. (Yes he knows he should have left sooner but didn’t).
When he decided to file the wife lost her mind. She started doing things like driving by his known whereabouts to see if he was actually there (even though they were separated). He had moved back into his parents. Keep in mind that this was before scheduled visitation so there wasn’t anything to keep her from doing it. Imagine that he had talked to her about a kid exchange at 10 am. She would get herself worked up into a tizzy over stuff and then drive them over to his parents house at like 6/7 am not even wait till they answered the door, knock and dive off and leave the kids literally standing on the doorstep. She also started calling his parents and asking where he was.
She also slashed his tires and keyed his car on several occasions. She stole his possessions. She emailed the lawyer in anger several times and it was like dealing with 32 year old 5 year old.
Keep in mind that he was actually doing her MANY solids. The fact that he ‘loved’ her at the time and told her that he would stay to raise the first baby from another man with her. Whatever, I think he was stupid and shoulda left, but hey not my life right? She didn’t get a lawyer through the whole affair. She was definitely the most insane woman I had never had the horrific experience of meeting.”
“Real Piece Of Work”
“My mom was a real piece of work. She is mentally unstable and was very abusive 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. It was sad since my college fund was not directly labeled for me so she technically had the right to 50% of it. It was just a savings account my parents had always told me and my sister it would be for our college.
It also sucked since my mother had a good lawyer, my father not so much. She won so many cases against my dad. We had the same judge in all of these cases and he was really sympathetic to my mother at first. But by the fourth time she was bringing a suit against my dad the judge realized she was not right in the head, and finally ruled against her. My dad probably could have taken her back to court and gotten some compensation, but he wanted to be done with her.
My dad was a real trooper. He never let any of her crud get him down. He remarried a few years after the divorce to a wonderful woman and lived out his twilight years happy and healthy. As for my mother, I haven’t talked to her since 1996, though I really don’t wish her any ill will. She is sick, and for the most part can’t control what she does. I’m just glad to have her out of my life.”
Lack Of Sympathy
“So the couple had been married for upwards of 20 years, and were quite elderly. The husband had been making just north of 100k for about half of the marriage until he got in an accident and became paralyzed. The wife ended up wanting a divorce (sadly this is not uncommon according to my dad), but this is where it gets malicious. She was his primary caregiver and they had been living off of his settlement. She was fully capable of working just did not want to work, so she wanted to fight for spousal support from him. My dad apparently was pretty appalled when she told him this, and told her she needed to get a new lawyer. My dad was convinced she wouldn’t win any support from him for obvious reasons. Turns out she did win spousal support and the guy will have to be paying her for the next 10 years when he might not have that much time left in his life and now has to use most of his money just to pay for nurses to help him daily.”
Mom Gets Her Way
“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 butt 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 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 square feet. 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 abusive, 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 killed 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…”
Talk About Messy Divorce(s)
“My step dad has been divorced twice before, both marriages had kids involved. First divorce was mutual, and had shared custody of the kids, second was because he was cheated on and also involved shared custody of kids.
Wife #1 lived out of state, and kept no-showing, forcing costly legal action every time he wanted to see his kid. Wife #2 was initially supportive of him through this, until they had kids themselves and the cost became too much. Wife #1 wanted him to give up legal rights to their kids, and after years and years of legal battles that nearly bankrupted them, Wife #2 basically gave him an ultimatum – give up the kids, or get divorced. He knew that getting divorced from wife #2 could result in him never seeing his other kids either so eventually he was forced into giving up kid #1.
A few years later Wife #2 cheats on him, they get divorced, wife #2 tells the kids it was him that cheated, but to never mention it to him in case he gets angry. Initially they were splitting custody very evenly, but eventually wife #2 figured out that she would get more money if she was technically sole custodian, and he would see them on that basis because he loves his children. So to arrange for this to happen she accused him of assaulting their youngest child, then used that accusation to gain full custody before the charge was dropped due to total lack of evidence. Then she tells the kids that he did assault them, again something he didn’t know she told them for years.
Upshot is that he was forced to give up first kids permanently by one wife, and then second wife had the rest of his kids think he was a cheater and predator, and thus be terrified of him and never truly love him, so she could save face and pick up a larger check.”
Best Revenge Of All
“My ex-wife and I did not have a nasty divorce. But I could tell she was always a little hurt about everything that went down. My lawyer said this was natural and it will pass. I didn’t she think she would plot revenge or anything because she was complying with everything we agreed on. She 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. I couldn’t help but laugh to myself, ‘great revenge.'”
Can I Borrow The Credit Card?
“I had a co-worker once where the wife racked up well over 150k in credit card debt right before she divorced him! He worked overtime for literally the rest of his life just to be able to survive. Unfortunately he died from a heart attack, probably due to all the stress that she left him with!”
Can’t Stop Won’t Stop
“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 get one over on my dad 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, it’s maybe 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 kid’s) Christmas and birthday presents from our childhood, like the violin they bought me when I was 13. It’s hers. Obviously. 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 things go 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, WHOSE WIFE HAD DIED 3 WEEKS EARLIER. Yeah, and that’s why I’m completely no contact with my awful excuse of a ‘mother.'”
I Want Your Baseball Bat Collection
“Husband and wife are extremely well off. Husband is a baseball fanatic who collected baseball bats from major MLB stars past and present. Wife would always deride him throughout the course of their relationship about his stupid bat collection which grew to be quite substantial during their relationship.
When they begin the divorce process the wife says she wants half of the bats. Husband counters with: ‘I’ll give her half the bats’ worth plus $50,000. Wife insists on half the bat collection and no money compensation for their assessed value. Since they couldn’t come to an agreement, the judge used their discretion to divide up half of the bats. Wife probably put her half into a wood chipper at the end of the day.”
She Tried Everything
“My mother and father had a messy break up. Although they got married in England the court case happened in Ireland. First and foremost it got bad when she said to my dad, after a bad argument, she was going home to see her mum for a bit. Turned out she secretly took me as well and went into hiding for 6 months to try and keep me without any legal proceeding etc. Luckily for my father he had got me a passport from day 1 as a friend of his had told him stories about mothers taking kids away to their home countries and the kids not able to return.
So anyway because of the passport the British Police were able to track my whereabouts and found my mother. This is when the court case happened. My mother was a nurse and actually quite well paid, but she could never keep a pound in her pocket. In the build up to the case she deliberately resigned her post so that she could get the court case paid for free. My dad had a minimum wage job and applied for the same legal help, but because he was earning and also was still living in the family house he was deemed to have too many assets to get legal aid.
Long story short, my dad had to sell the house to pay for the court case whilst my mother used legal aid lawyers as much as she wished. When it came to the court case my father was scared of losing me to my mother and her family, however my mother was more paranoid. As the court case was in Ireland she tried to plant hard core smut of other women into his luggage so that when he arrived in Ireland he would get arrested. Thankfully my mother is a blabber mouth and her sister’s husband (Vincent) who was actually a policeman told my dad. My father arrived in court with the testimony from Vincent and this dented her case from the start.
My mother then unleashed a bunch of lies about physical abuse from all members of my family, however, it was thrown out of court when there were no witnesses, evidence and one of the people accused was actually disabled. My mother has since then tried to pollute my mind so that whenever I visited her at a young age told me lies about my dad. It really messed with my head but I don’t see her anymore. She has tried to befriend us numerous times but it’s hard to forget. She may be reformed, she may be sorry but it’s hard to trust.”
“It Made Me Sick”
“The worst case of this is in a current matter, so, details changed of course.
The parties have reasonably significant assets. A freehold house in joint names, a few investment properties in his name (paid off), one in hers (still with a mortgage), etc. Couple of kids, and mum has been the main carer, getting them to school etc., whilst dad left for work super early. Not a particularly pleasant relationship by any account, but not abusive. Just… controlling.
They separate under one roof, and husband is waiting for her tenants to leave so he can move into his other property. He has three weeks left until they do. Bear in mind that they have been separated for nearly a year, under one roof.
On Thursday, he comes home to find that she has changed all the locks on the house, and won’t let him in, or to see the kids. No reasons, no warning, just suddenly her family is all there, and all his belongings are packed up into garbage bags and shoved into his car. He’s been living in a hotel for the last week, and can’t get into his rental for another two weeks. Worse, she knows this.
It made me sick.”
Left While He Was Visiting His Sick Grandma
“I worked for an attorney who mostly did military divorces. He was a Vietnam vet so he would prefer to work with military. He had this one client that was married to someone from Japan who did not speak English. They had two kids and she decided she was going to leave him while he was visiting his sick grandmother. She emptied his account while he was out of the state and took both children with her. She used to come over to his office and yell and scream in Japanese at the attorney who didn’t speak any Japanese. He was too nice of a guy to tell her to leave.”