🤯 INCRÍVEL: 41 Divorce Lawyers Share Stories So Messed Up They Still Haunt Them Today 😲
Mine seem trivial after reading the other stories here, but they sure felt cruel to me, so here you go.
My ex and I used to do custody exchanges in a parking lot halfway between our homes. One day early in the divorce proceedings, my 3 year old accidentally locked my van doors before getting in her dad’s car, and I got locked out. My ex had a spare key on him, but instead of unlocking my car, he said “you reap what you sow, I guess,” and drove off with the kids, leaving me stranded. It was 96 degrees, and the nearest store was closed. If I hadn’t had my phone in my pocket, I would have been screwed. I had to call the police to come unlock my car, and they almost refused because the title was in my ex’s name. Thankfully, I had a copy of the court order on my phone saying that I had use of the vehicle. My poor kids spent the whole day with their dad worried that I was still sitting in the hot parking lot, because he told them I had no way to get home.
Later in the divorce, when he was trying to “prove” that I was unstable and an unfit mother, he found one of my old journals (I had left with only what I could fit in my van, so most of my things were still in our house) and entered it as evidence in court. So I had to listen to them read all my depressed 17 year old thoughts and feelings in court, in front of both my family and his family. Ultimately the judge and other court officials agreed that a 20 year old journal had absolutely no bearing on my parenting abilities or current mental state, but the whole point was cruelty, and in that he succeeded. The guardian ad litem, who had to go through the whole thing because it was entered as evidence, said she felt dirty reading it because it was such an unnecessary violation.
I’m so glad I’m not his wife anymore.
Neighbor caught her husband cheating. After she moved out and filed for divorce, she placed an add in the paper. “Will take your old tires and anything too large to take to the dump. Free. Drop off on Saturday in front of garage” (listed his address). He returned from weekend away with the new girlfriend to a lawn full of tires and garbage.
With all the darkness in this thread, something a little lighter. Back in the 80’s you paid a lot for long distance and could call a number for the correct time. A woman sharing an apartment in the US with her boyfriend got a call from him when he was on a trip. He told her move out because he had a new girlfriend.
He gets home a week later and the phone is off the hook. He picks it up and it’s the number for time, in London.
I’m not a divorce lawyer, but this happened to a friend of mine.
A guy I knew was married to this girl that got cancer, and they went through h**l to make sure she got better. They kind of disappeared, but after a while, she reappeared and started mentioning that they got divorced because my friend wasn’t supportive of her treatment. He said that he didn’t want to pay for treatment and take her to the doctors and whatnot. From it all, my buddy seemed like a real piece of work and wanted her to die. Our friend group ostracized him quietly, removing him from invites and whatnot because of what she said.
I then got a message from my buddy asking what’s up and why I or other members of the group haven’t talked to him or whatever. I asked how his relationship with his partner was going (playing dumb), and he said that they divorced because she **faked having cancer**. She was eliciting sympathy and getting off the people feeling bad for her, and then disappearing for “cancer treatment” while she went off to go shopping and whatnot. She even shaved her head for the bit, and then painted my bud like a huge jerk when he discovered and divorced her.
I then explained to him what happened from our end, and then we tried to get my other friends to believe his side. He said he didn’t think he’d need to explain himself, and didn’t realize she was going around gaslighting everyone into believing he’s a liar.
The ex called her job and said she was on substances (she was absolutely not, she voluntarily let them test her and cleared her), called her landlord and said she had 7 animals (she had 2, which she had paid pet deposits for), called CPS on her and said she was driving drunk with the kids (she doesn’t drink). Divorce makes some people go insane. He admitted the reason he did all this was he thought she would come back if she was homeless and jobless.
My brother moved his wife and 3 kids out of Province to a place neither of them knew anyone. Within 8 months, he left his wife of 21 years with 3 kids, 2 disabled (they will need to be taken care of for life) for his coworker. Announced this at his youngest daughter’s 13th Bday party…. 4 months later sold their house from undef his wife without telling her, leaving her and 3 kids homeless. My parents stepped in and bought her a house in her family’s hometown… my brother then put everything in his new GF’s name, quit his job to be “self-employed”, claimed he was losing money, so never had to assist with a penny for child support… he’s a piece of 💩.
Not a divorce attorney, but when I was a kid, one of my mom’s friends was going through a very messy divorce. The lawyer spoke to my mom because she was a witness to the husband’s horrible behavior and she may have to testify so her friend can have custody of her kids.
She never had to testify as her friend was granted full custody with visitations. The following month, the father picked up the kids for their weekend visit, and flew to Brazil. She never heard from her kids until nearly 25 years later when they returned to the US looking for her.
Worst i ever heard was a reddit post like 10 years ago. Guy and his wife are fighting over custody of his beloved German Shepherd that he brought to the marriage. She fought and fought in court to get the dog. They ultimately had to split custody but she got the dog first since he was still settling in his new place. When it was his turn he went to get the dog and she handed him a box. She had the dog put to sleep and cremated. That has stayed with me for over a decade.
When I was in med school, I was admitting this one patient to the hospital and asking if his code status was current. He was listed as DNR which he didn’t know about, because the last time he was in the hospital he was unconscious and his wife, now ex, was acting as his medical proxy. Guess they were having issues at that time.
Edit: I want to make it very clear that medically “Do Not Resuscitate” does not equate do not treat. We will still treat patients to our best ability. Your code status is only in relation to what we do if you die, and often times, especially for really sick people, despite our best efforts, most people don’t come back and those that do often have deficits. Was it bad the ex-wife made a decision obviously against what the patient wanted? Yes. But she was not preventing anyone from providing him medical care while alive.
I was working for a guy going through a contentious divorce (she cheated). He was still paying for all the bills at the house he wasn’t living in because one of his kids was still living there too.
One day the water department came to the office kinda panicked looking for him, they used property records to try to find him (very nice of them, [to be honest]) because the meter reader detected the house was using so many water they feared a massive leak and potential for a sinkhole if it was the main outside. They had a crew ready. He ran over there. She had every water fixture running, every light on, etc. She apparently had been doing this for at least a month, just running up the bills to be a real jerk.
My mom told me this, a family on our street growing up (Dublin, 80s) the man was having an affair, the only choice then was separating, but he wanted the kids he was doctor and got her committed to an asylum to get her out of the way. My mom told me it was absolutely the cruelest thing she could ever imagine.
Not a divorce lawyer, but used to be a legal secretary in a law firm that handled a LOT of divorces.
We had one client whose STBX had filled out joint tax returns, had her sign them, then submitted a married filing separately form instead so per the IRS, she hadn’t filed taxes for the 10 years of their marriage. Mind you, he’d done this since the first year of the marriage! Meanwhile, he’d made a big deal out of them enjoying “their” return with day trips, etc. so she never suspected anything.
It was only during their divorce proceedings, as she attempted to go back to college (he hadn’t allowed her to during their marriage), that this was discovered due to her applying for financial aid. Fwiw, the IRS wasn’t even surprised as apparently this happens more often than anyone realizes. They ended up going after him, as she had kept copies of their joint returns.
The whole thing was so petty and mean, we were all floored by it.
They owned a restaurant together for years, and paid themselves a salary to run it so taxes would get taken out and all that. He did the books and did not pay SS for her once. When they got divorced at retirement age she found out she didn’t pay for SS. Thank God she had some proof of what he did and she got half his SS payments until they both died 25 years later within 6 months of each other.
Not a lawyer but the worst thing was what my aunt did to punish my uncle even though he was d**d.
Their marriage was his second and longest of his nine marriages (or more, we only know of the nine) and the one that lasted the longest, about ten years.
In his final days when he was slowly d**ng from advanced COPD he lived in a trailer park in the desert, and a kindly neighbor lady looked after him. She did his shopping, made him meals, etc. She was in her 80’s and essentially destitute herself so there was no romantic involvement, she was just a good person.
My father was executor and only beneficiary of his will and when all was said and done my uncle d**d with about $300 to his name. My father called my aunt to tell her of his d**th (she had had zero contact with my uncle for years) and he told her he was going to give the neighbor lady the $300. She literally *lost her mind* over it and threatened to sue my father over this piddling amount of money, because her ex-husband “owed her” an ounce of flesh apparently, even after d**th. To be clear my uncle was no peach, he gave as much as he took in the bad spouse department, but the behavior of my aunt appalled my father.
My father gave her the money to make her go away and also gave the neighbor lady $1,000 and told her my uncle had bequeathed it to her because (unlike my uncle and my aunt) he was a fair and compassionate person.
I remember reading one of these where the dad fought tooth and nail for the kids scrapbook of pictures, etc that mom created. He won them and then walked out of the courthouse and burned them right on the steps/outside of the courthouse.
Was a legal assistant. The couple was planning to divorce, so they put their 3 kids in therapy. Dad fell in love with the therapist and they hook up. Therapist proceeds to spend the next several months convincing the kids that their mom actually hates them and doesn’t want them. Divorce proceeds and the 3 kids want nothing to do with mom, so dad gets custody. Years later, the oldest kid wises up to the therapist plot and gets in touch with mom. Mom reconnects with all 3 kids and starts custody battle to get them back. After exposing the therapist, she loses her license and mom wins custody. While mom and kids were out to dinner, dad and therapist torch mom’s house.
It was still ongoing, but I quit and never heard anything else about it. I hope mom and kids are healing and doing well.
A friend who was a DA of Compton, CA had a case where a person threw acid in the face of the other person. I am not sure if they ever were legally married but this signified the ending of the relationship. The person was horriblely disfigured for life. My friend was upset having to see what was done to the victim and disgusted with humanity with that case.
NAL but someone with a very cruel ex.
We had a 1 yo at the time that I found out about his lengthy affair. He became violent when I tried to leave but I was able to get away with my child, a few important documents, and my cat (that I brought into the marriage).
Between then and when I was able to arrange for family to come help me get the rest, he: threw out all of my original work from my time getting two degrees, destroyed every book of mine and the rest of my clothes, and starved our other pets to d**th (geckos and a snake). All while continuing to see the other woman. Never once asked about our child.
In the years after, he used the courts to financially control me (saying it could all stop if I just came back). He fought tooth and nail for the house, which I gave up without a fight, only to immediately stop paying the mortgage. He destroyed it inside and let it go into foreclosure before my name was removed despite being court ordered to remove it. He also fought for full custody, telling me to my face he’d use every second he was given to teach our child to hate me. He was not awarded more than some weekend visitation.
His affair had been years long and he told me repeatedly that she was his True Love. They lasted four weeks in an actual relationship after I left (she dumped him). My child and I are doing well now.
Not a divorce lawyer, but saw a video recently of a guy in a city close to mine getting his b**t absolutely handed to him by *his own brothers* because he either threatened to or actually did call ICE on his future ex-wife to get her deported so he wouldn’t have to fight for custody or pay her child support for their son. He apparently brought this up at a family get together, leading to his brothers taking out the trash.
In the case in question we have husband, wife and two children ages 7 and 10. She immediately brings out the big guns and starts fighting for sole custody of the kids. She grasped for every straw she could, reported him to CPS over and over again for extremely minor issues or simply made up accusations, CPS took his kids several times but every single time their investigation came up clean. It went on until the CPS unit manager called her and said that if she called in with one more false accusation they would volunteer as witnesses against her.
It all ended up exactly where they started: shared custody, every other week.
It was never about the kids. It was about making his life as horrible as she could. She had way more money than him and she knew it, the whole point of the whole process was to run him broke from lawyers fees. In the end it cost him something like 230k to be allowed to still see his kids.
I am not lawyer but when I was a kid my parents had a nasty divorce. My mum told everyone that she was having an affair with a 20 year old at my brother birthday party.Weeks after she moved out, she waited until the house was completely empty.I was at school and my dad was at work.She broke in and stole everything.I mean everything from our beds to plugs.She had moving van.One of our neighbours texted my dad asking what going on and by the time we got there it was to late.The house was completely empty.She even stole my dogs.We had to call the police and went to court so many times.She was told by the courts to give back my dogs and she told them she put them down.I haven’t spoken to her since that day.One birthday she burned all my childhood photos and spent me the ashes.She even had the nerve to come back to the house a month because she hadn’t taken the stuff in the attic.She is a very evil woman.
Second story since my first one was bleak. This wasn’t petty, but it was weird. This is the story of the custody of the pet raccoon. Let’s call the raccoon “Rocky.” The divorcing couple had raised Rocky since he was a baby as a pet raccoon. Rocky had custom clothes, multiple cat condos, and was litter box trained and TOILET TRAINED. When the couple got divorced, they had a giant fight over custody of the raccoon. I’m talking comparing medical bills, who let the raccoon into the garbage, and who spent more time to Rocky’s nails. It was hilarious and petty.
Ultimately, we had to reach a visitation schedule with Rocky and a list of house rules – including sending Rocky to each household with his clothes, maintaining a specific diet, and providing evidence that the garbage was secured against the raccoon.
It was my favorite case for a long time. And yes I got to meet the raccoon. He was a good boy.
Not an attorney, but from my own experience:
I left my horrible husband with my 10m old baby after he choked me and spit in my face for asking him to change a diaper. Before I could file the actual divorce papers, he asked to see our son. I wasn’t able to keep him from him, so I let him take him for a day. He proceeded to kidnap our breastfeeding baby for 16 days. Cops couldn’t do anything because papers weren’t filed yet. He then tried to put a protection order against me. When I showed up to court I was instructed that I wasn’t even allowed to look at my son in the elevator to the court room. It haunts me to this day.
Now, almost 8 years later, he hasn’t had any contact with his son in a year and a half. Before that he had seen him one time in the year prior. He’s doing the bare minimum to keep the custody case in a constant state of continuations. He has paid child support once a year for the last several years to say he’s done it. He has no job to garnish wages from, and lives in a trailer with his new ex-wife. Yes, they got married and divorced and now he’s isolating her like he isolated me.
I’m not a lawyer, but this happened to a friend (Bernie) recently. He and his wife have been married for over 30 years. He made a few horrible financial decisions and she left him, lives with friends, and is suing for divorce. My friend had what he thought was a mini-stroke and called friends of ours. They called an ambulance for him. Turns out that he probably did not have a TIA but there is a problem with one of his heart valves.
When his wife learned that he called friends and they called an ambulance, she called them and said “Bernie has a living will and requested a DNR, so next time he calls you, please do not call an ambulance”.”.
The divorce is still ongoing, but they are parents of minor children. One of the kids suffers from depression, so, during the happier days of their marriage, they got her a dog to train. It helped A LOT to give her a friend, companion, and basically a goal. The dog is incredibly well trained.
In the divorce proceedings, dad got custody of the kids and the dog. He proceeded to feed the dog approximately a cup of puppy food a day and keeps the dog outside only. The dog has never lived outside before and is a full grown German shepherd mix. He knew the kids would complain to Mom.
Neighbors noticed the dog getting scary skinny and started tossing food to the dog over the fence. They called the police multiple times, but the police only took it seriously once the dog was too weak to get the fence scraps.
Dad now has to take the dog to the local humane society every week for weigh-ins. The dog was down TWENTY POUNDS from when it was first granted to Dad. Just recently, Dad decided he wanted to adopt the dog out instead.
The kids obviously hate their dad.
Im not a lawyer but I worked as a paralegal and did a Will for a guy who was getting divorced. He didnt want his soon to be ex wife to get any of his money so he took out a hit on her. Fortunately for her he contracted an undercover cop.
Not a divorce lawyer but worked as a paralegal for a few years. The pettiest thing I saw was someone who demanded the family photo albums in the settlement, then mailed their ex photocopies of every picture with themselves cut out. Took actual time and effort to be that spiteful. The ones that got to me the most were when kids got used as weapons though. That stuff changes people in ways that take years to undo.
He told her he had her dog put down. When he died 3 years later in a car accident, she discovered the dog was still alive and in his care.
I was representing wife. Dealing with custody, child support, etc. They had already been separated for about 2 years when we went to trial, and my client was in a new relationship. Her boyfriend sat in court. Just finished trial and while we were taking a break, her ex walked up to her boyfriend in the body of the court and sucker punched him in the face, right in front of a police guard. Arrested on the spot. I won the trial.
My parents used to be notaries in a rural area of France. They had a couple as their clients who were getting a divorce. They had children and a dog. One day he said “we are not gonna be able to agree” (on who’s gonna keep the dog) and s**t the dog with a rifle IN FRONT OF the wife and the kids.
Happened to some distant cousins. Their dad told their mom to visit her mom for a while. “Go on! I got this. You never do anything for yourself. I can take care of the kids!”
She came home to an empty house, lights off, everyone gone. He’d taken their kids and driven 1500 miles away to be with his affair partner and filed for divorce, claiming she’d abandoned them.
She never saw her children again. .
They had a long term affair partner they were still talking to while requesting an abatement to “try and work on the marriage.” No intimacy and then dropped the charade once they got the presents they were expecting for their birthday. Pretty darn cold to dangle the carrot over concert tickets and a new sports bag.
On a lighter note: I’m still using my ex-wife’s husband’s logins for YouTube TV, Disney+ and Hulu.
She moved him in about a week after filing for divorce and about a year later, I got the TV in the property settlement. They didn’t log out of anything. Going on 2 years of having the TV.
I was the manager at a family law firm so I saw bits and pieces of every case that came through.
This one is less outright violent or cruel than a lot of these but a man flat out put in an email to his ex that he don’t care if he spent every dime and left himself, her, and the kids destitute, he would never settle and would drain her dry in motions.
My ex husband was opening my mail without permission. As soon as my divorce was finalized, I reported him to the postmaster general. He’s now a felon.
Saw one case where a spouse dragged things out on purpose, not for money, just to keep control. Endless “missing paperwork,” last minute changes, and refusing reasonable offers so the other person stayed stressed, broke, and stuck in limbo for months. It was basically emotional warfare dressed up as legal strategy.
Not a lawyer but my friend’s ex husband secretly took out credit cards in her name during the divorce proceedings and maxed them all out. She didn’t find out until months later when her credit was completely destroyed and she couldn’t get approved for an apartment.
Not a lawyer.
My partner of 10 years got into debt and was very panicked about it. Most of her debt came from going to Cancun with her friends. I told her I would pay the bills until she got out of debt. I put my debts from grad school on hold which she called a “waste of money” (Ivy League, Software Engineering).
She didn’t tell me when she got out of debt and she started stacking money. She then cheated on me several times with multiple people to end the relationship. With the money she saved she went with her boyfriend to see Phish on New Year’s Eve in New York and then a few days in Tampa. In Tampa she went to some EDM shows and did hard substances. She told me she was visiting her mother.
Obviously she doesn’t have money to live on her own so after this week long bang session with her boyfriend she came home.
Edit: I did not kick her out. She was my partner of 10 years and I love her very much. She just falls under the category of people I love that I can’t be in a relationship with. When she gets on her feet she can leave. Some of our mutual friends started wondering if she has had some head trauma or suffered a psychotic break. Most of them stopped talking to her. She’s in a rough spot.
I will do fine. I am taking the time to get in shape and change careers. I am tall, educated and loving. All of my other partners have spoken three languages, had PhDs and been smoking hot. I will be fine.
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