Divorce might as well be a four-letter word. Going through any breakup is hard enough, but getting a divorce is a whole other world of pain. You had the wedding, the honeymoon, maybe the house and the kids, and now it all means nothing. Maybe that's why these ex-husbands and wives had such nasty, bitter splits.
#1 My Hero
My great-grandpa was awful to his wife, but this was in the 1910s and she couldn't leave him—so she planned an ingenious trap. First, she moved out and lived with another man. Then she flaunted the new guy around town until her no-good husband got embarrassed enough to sue her for divorce for infidelity, one of the only ways to divorce someone at the time. Although she couldn't read or write, she signed those papers the minute he served her.
#2 Talking Smack in Three Languages
A friend of mine divorced his then-wife because she would only speak French when her family would come over. She was Spanish, as was her family. Her family spoke English, French, and Spanish, and he could only speak Spanish and English. I guess she got bored of being married to him, and her family basically talked smack about him while he was there.
It was only when he recorded a conversation while they were there and got it translated, that he found out what was going on.
#3 Bringing Down the House
I tried to get my ex-wife served with divorce papers, only to learn she had vandalized and abandoned our former home in response to my leaving. I went over to find almost all of my clothes had been bleached, along with our new living room set. The new dining room table and chairs had been gouged. Weeks worth of trash and raw food had been left out.
The refrigerator had been turned off, leaving hundreds of dollars worth of food to rot. The whole place smelled like rotting flesh. She had also taken all of the electronics (probably to hawk), my passport with stamps in it from around the world, and the painting I had inherited from my beloved grandfather who had passed on. She knew this would hurt me the most.
All said and done, there was $7,000 in property damage and another $1,500 in property. I filed a report but sadly, not much was done about it.
#4 Enjoying the Music a Little Too Much
I work as a clerk at a family courthouse. One bride slept with the DJ who was working at her wedding. This literally happened during the reception. It was a new record for our office pool. The divorce was about two months after the wedding, when the husband was finally told about it by the maid of honor.
#5 Blood Pudding, Anyone?
Not a divorce lawyer, but have done marriage therapy. Had a soldier stationed at Guantanamo Bay that met a local. Fell madly in love. They decided to get married so she could come with him back in the States once his tour was done. She was working on American dishes and was making spaghetti. He comes home from work one day, and she's making it.
She puts the meat in, puts the canned sauce in, and then pulls an unlabeled bag out of the freezer and adds it to the sauce. At this point in the session, she's wildly crying with broken Spanglish. She's trying to explain she didn't know any better. Through the hysteria, he explains the awful truth to me. Apparently her mother and grandmother told her if she wanted to keep her man, she needed to put her MENSTRUAL BLOOD in his food.
It was so hard to keep my composure. I was trying to hard not to gag. They both said that they were madly in love, but he couldn't let it go. They ended up getting a divorce.
#6 Drop the Digits and Your Spouse
I knew a guy who lost his own cell phone number in the divorce. He'd used the same number since high school, but she convinced the judge that she used his phone enough to get his number. Basically, he kept his clothes and car and had to pay alimony.
#7 Revenge Is a Dish Best Served Cold, Depending on the Season…
The wife cheated on her husband during his frequent travels for work. She was the one who filed for divorce, and she got to keep the house. Months elapse and the husband is still furious, rightfully so, 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 AM. 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.
#8 Does the End Justify the Means?
My ex-wife, the mother of my three kids, when I caught her cheating: “My boss offered me a higher position in his new company if I slept with him. I had no choice!”
#9 Morning Dump Disaster
The judge I work for used to do divorce work. He has some crazy stories, but this one is probably the most outrageous. Every morning, this couple would sit in the bathroom together while one of them had their morning dump. One would sit on the toilet and the other on the rim of the bathtub. Think that’s gross? Just wait.
This particular morning, the wife was on the toilet and husband seated on the edge of the tub. They started to argue about their relationship so the wife reaches down, pulls her tampon out and flings it at the husband. I’m told the tampon stuck for a brief second to his forehead before sliding off. He filed for divorce that same day or the next.
#10 Just Throw out the Whole Man
My great-great-grandparents had an interesting case. He was awful, like "pimp her out and then beat her for infidelity" levels of stuff. This was the 1910s, though, and in our state, you couldn't initiate a divorce for cruelty. In fact, the only possible grounds for divorce was infidelity. A few times, she tried just leaving him anyway.
Once he came home from work and she, plus all eight of their kids, were just gone. But he always found them, and since they were still married, he had every right to grab the kids and go back home with them. Finally, she moved out and went to live with another man. She flaunted the new guy around town until her no-good husband got embarrassed enough to sue her for divorce on the grounds of infidelity.
Although she couldn't read or write, she put her X on those papers the minute he served her. It was a major local scandal (very Catholic community, divorce was rare), but she got what she needed to be safe.
#11 Cheaters Never Prosper
I knew my ex wife was cheating but didn’t tell her that I knew. Took her out to dinner and I casually asked questions about who she had been spending time with while I was at sea, she barely worked so she had to spend her time doing something. She failed to mention the guy that had been staying at my house for nearly 2 months, the guy she had to call the authorities on just to get to leave because I was coming home in 2 days.
Soooo I slid her a copy of the report that was filed for the incident and watched as she crumbled over the fact she had been caught, and I didn’t have to say a word.
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#12 Love Is Not a Get Rich Quick Scheme
He got drunk at the wedding, she did not like it, and decided to divorce him right after the honeymoon, which she went on without him) Moreover, this was all an elaborate scheme of divorce, because the guy was loaded, and so was his entire family...but they were loaded because they were a family of EXCELLENT lawyers.
He was a third-generation lawyer, with all the smarts and experience of his predecessors combined. Let’s just say it did not go well for her.
#13 Hide and Go Seek Gone Wrong
I'm a divorce lawyer, and I 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.
#14 Here Today, Gone Tomorrow
When I was in the army, my wife and I were good friends with a newlywed couple that lived a few doors down from us. One day, I got home from work to find the guy sitting on his front door step. I said, "Hey!" He said, "Dude, you gotta come see this." So I walked into his house, and it was completely empty. There was not even a single scrap of paper or a bag of trash.
To make things even weirder, every single cabinet door was open, as was every refrigerator door and every drawer. If it was supposed to be closed, it was open. He said that the front door was wide open when he got home, and every faucet was turned on, too. There was no note or anything whatsoever. His wife was just gone without a trace, and everything in their house was gone with her.
Strangely enough, my wife and I had just dinner with them, at their house, the very night before. We were all laughing it up, drinking wine, and having a great time, with not even the remotest sign of anything being wrong. He said that the first thing he did after making this discovery was to call her parents’ house. Their response was unforgettable.
As soon as the phone rang, her father answered the phone and—before the poor guy could even ask if he knew anything about what was going on—he just said: "Bill, you need to let it go," and hung up on him. Remember that line from True Lies when Tom Arnold says that his ex-wife even took the ice cube trays? Well, this girl really did take the ice cube trays.
She also took all of his uniforms and other clothes. He literally only had the clothes on his back and whatever was in his pockets at the time to his name. I never did find out what the motivator was; she was just gone forever.
#15 A One-Square Household
My boss just got divorced. They had seemed all good on the outside, but the reason for their divorce has kind of haunted me since I heard about it. Apparently, She was a super coupon-clipper thrifty lady and one of her obsessions was toilet paper. She would listen when he went to the bathroom to see if he was using “too much TP" like super controlling freak. Worst of all, she divorced him.
#16 Who Are You Gonna Believe, Me or Your Own Eyes?
Go to the gym, no headphones! That’s cool, house is five minutes away. Pull up in front of my house and see work buddy’s car out front. Walk in house through open garage. Son coloring at kitchen table. Ask him “Hey bud, where’s your mom?” He points at the stairs. Walk to stairs to hear moans and movement. My heart started pounding.
Up to this point I had suspected the worst but never had proof. Knew I had to go look and catch her or she would say I was overreacting and tell me it wasn’t what I thought. Walk upstairs and hear them in the spare bedroom. Walk in the room and say “well this is awkward.” They freak out and try to grab clothes and tell me nothing is happening.
I walk out to my car and have ex-buddy chase me out and tell me to hit him. I go to my command the next day. Report him and have the command force him to call his wife that day and let her know. I am now divorced and much happier!
#17 You Just Played Yourself
One of my father's friends tried to salt the earth before getting divorced. A rental house and a cabin were deeded to relatives, the cars they drove every day were sold to other relatives for tiny sums, stocks handed over to a trust "for the children," etc. He even vanished a chunk of cash from the company he co-owned with his wife using phony invoices and stopped paying himself a salary, electing to burn through their personal savings for over a year instead.
He learned that judges really, really, REALLY hate it when you try to hide or intentionally diminish assets, and they will absolutely refer you to prosecutors. I don't think that he did any time in the end, but his ex-wife got absolutely EVERYTHING, plus the satisfaction of firing him from his own company.
#18 A Toxic Relationship
This husband and wife were getting divorced after multiple attempts to reconcile. The husband is an attorney, though not family law. One of the attempted reconciliations included the wife losing some weight and sending husband some naked pictures. Once the divorce litigation started, the husband sent these pictures to the wife’s minister father, asking if he knew what a harlot he raised. But then he did something even worse.
During the litigation process, the husband also drove around at night—with, I should add, their two small children in the car with him—to find the wife’s car parked over in her friend’s driveway. He proceeded to pour airplane acid (yeah apparently, it’s a thing) all over the hood of the wife’s car. Not a great guy, that's for sure.
#19 I Quit!
My dad got back from his honeymoon, with his first wife, and went back to work. He came home and something felt off when he walked in through the door. She wasn't there when he got home from work, which was very odd for her since she got off work earlier than him and was always home when he got back. He just felt off about it.
When she got back, he mentioned that it was out of the ordinary that she had been out and asked if she went somewhere. He wasn't accusatory, just curious because it never happened, but she dodged his questions at first. Eventually after he got suspicious of her dodging a simple question, she admitted that she'd quit her job, and when he asked why, she said she didn't need to work.
So, she was planning on using him as her cash cow. He tried counselling and asked her to get her job back, but she always brushed him off and never took him seriously. He threw in the towel seven months later and she started trying to fix things, but it had been seven months of him trying to fix things and she had shown no interest.
He filed for divorce and went on to achieve his lifelong dream: he dated and then married his middle school crush, my mom. They are now 28 years strong.
#20 Only on Cam
I represented an webcam model who filed for divorce from her husband who also did the webcam model business. He would do videos on the side because the pay was better. She was hesitant about it, but dealt with it because the pay was decent. Both sides had an agreement that it wasn't cheating as long as it was for work...
One day she came home early and found her husband in bed with two men, but they were not filming. That was too much for her.
#21 A Golden Opportunity
I’ve been aching to tell this story for a while. So, this girl I went to school with marries this rich guy from Ohio. She moves in with him and they seem to get along well. Six months later, she files for divorce. Up to that point, all I’ve heard from her was how good it was going. But that's when I learned his dirty little secret.
It turns out our buddy had a thing where he got off on urine. He asked her to urinate on him in the tub. At first, she agrees to it as she thought it was a one-time thing. But he kept asking for it more and more. She tried to decline it respectfully, but he wouldn’t get any of the hints. She finally used the tub being too small as a reason.
The next day, she comes home with two dozen construction guys and their heavy equipment tearing the bathroom walls. A week or so later, they finish up the bathroom. She comes home to a sign left on the fridge with a note to drink up, she got some watering to do. I don't know what exactly she put down as the official reason in the paperwork but that was a doozy.
#22 A Real Man
My dad was a divorce lawyer. He had a client who wanted to divorce her husband for two ridiculous reasons. The first was that he did not have enough hair on his chest. The second was that he did not drive fast enough. Keep in mind this was in the 70s, when chest hair was a bit more important. Still...not that important, though.
#23 You’ll Pay for This!
The beginning of the end of my marriage was when my husband tried to kill me. For a while, he’d had a mistress with an insatiable appetite for lousy, overpriced mall jewelry and lingerie designed to impress a 400-pound sack of poop such as herself. I knew her quite well. She was a con artist and not a very nice person.
My husband took out credit cards and store accounts in my name and drained his entire retirement account for this bum. At a certain point, my credit was so trashed that he couldn’t do any more damage to it even if he actively wanted to, so he decided to arrange to have me offed before I could find out about it and divorce him.
Luckily, I found out in time to prevent it from happening. I am still suffering from the consequences of his actions to this day. I still have a garnishment that I can’t afford to fight for about $8K ($1K per month), plus another $16K in various stages of collection. On top of all that, the loser didn’t pay his spousal support, so I can’t even afford a lawyer.
#24 Adulting? Nah
My dad stated in court that he was divorcing my mom because she was always asking him to take out the trash or mow the lawn or calling him at work to ask him to pick up milk. You know, adult stuff like maintaining a home and family. Her lawyer turned to her and just said, “You’re dodging a bullet here. Someday you’ll be glad he left.” She quickly discovered just how right he was.
It turned out that my dad was cheating on her. My mom made a very good life for herself. At 71 years old, she can afford a house-cleaning service and pays someone to maintain her lawn. Karma.
#25 Challenge Accepted
Friend of mine is a divorce lawyer. His favorite is the time the husband in a bitter divorce got some slimy lawyer and said he would out-lawyer her and break the bank before giving her anything she wanted. This was in front of my friend, who just happened to be her lawyer. He looks at her and says, "I'm working for you pro bono (free) from this moment forward."
He looks back at the husband and says, "I got all day."
#26 The Power of the Stairs Compels You!
I saw a couple get divorced over failed exorcisms. My client had an inner ear condition that caused chronic vertigo, but symptoms could be treated with medication. The husband was an evangelical who was convinced his wife had become possessed and that her vertigo and general crankiness with his methods were evidence of demonic possession.
He also thought the medications she was taking was enabling the devil to hide inside her, and that the only proper recourse was an exorcism. He would hide her meds until she got dizzy and then try various methods of exorcism. This included sweating it out, where he put her under blankets while incapacitated and locked in a room full of space heaters.
He also made her freeze it out—pretty much the reverse, with AC, fans, and bags of ice. He tried to surprise it out. He would jump out and scare her like it was the hiccups, but instead of yelling “Boo!” he would recite the Lord’s Prayer or psalms. But then the final straw happened. He tried to “surprise it out of her” by pushing her down the stairs when they were heading out for dinner.
By the way, this guy was some type of executive and they still went out to dinner after the stairs incident. She asked for the divorce at an Applebee’s that night. I have often tried to picture that conversation, as she was adamant that he was a total sweetheart and never acted out of malice or anger. Except apparently he was also a total psycho.
#27 The Take-Out Queen
My father’s best friend divorced his wife over her cooking. Apparently, every day he would come home to amazing cooked meals. Eventually, he found out what she was really doing. It turns out she couldn’t cook at all and was ordering food from different restaurants. She even went as far as dirtying pots and pans to make it look like she cooked all day.
She got away with this for almost a year before he caught on. This was back in the day before you could check your bank statements online, and since she did all the billing, he didn’t notice how much money was missing. She was spending it all on takeout.
#28 From Nothing to Millions to Nothing Again
Back in 1996, a woman filed for divorce, seemingly out of nowhere, to end her happy marriage of 25 years. Two years later, her ex-husband got a letter that made his blood run cold. It was about her lump-sum lottery winnings. It turns out that 11 days before filing for divorce, she had won $1.3 million dollars in the lottery.
She didn't disclose this at all during the divorce proceedings in an effort to keep the winnings all to herself, as he would have received half under California law. When the ex-husband took this to court, the judge said she had violated state asset disclosure laws. Even better? The judge gave all of her winnings to him.
Her lawyer apparently said that if she had said something during the divorce, it's possible she might have been able to keep all of it or come to some agreement, but because of what she did, she lost it all.
#29 Dream Wedding, Nightmare Marriage
My husband's first marriage lasted six months. He found out she had been sleeping around with several of his friends and one of those friends finally felt so guilty that he fessed up. My husband actually wanted to work it out if he could, but when he tried to talk to her about it, she locked him out of the house and told him she wanted a divorce.
He finally asked her, "Why did you marry me?” Her response was so disturbing, it's impossible to forget. She said it was because he was the only one she was sleeping with who could afford her dream wedding. Yup, the woman married him because she wanted a wedding and she just chose the person who could afford it.
#30 Cheapest Skate
I'm a lawyer. My most dramatic case was a woman who was divorcing her husband because he discovered he could talk to the dead on their honeymoon, and then later spent all their money on spiritualist groups. But that wasn't even what made it dramatic. During the divorce, the woman left the house while the husband stayed back.
At some point her husband approached her and claimed that as he was letting the house fall into ruin, it would be better for both of them if he sold the house and split the proceeds with her. She agreed to this without consulting her lawyer. A few weeks later, the husband gave her $5.00. She asked what it was for. It was her share of the house.
He'd sold it to his sister for $10.00 and kept living there. When the wife went to complain to her lawyers, she found they'd done the conveyancing for him. He'd deliberately used his wife's divorce lawyers and nobody at the firm had realized.
#31 Hands Off!
I knew it was over the day after we got married when he slapped me across the face, hard and completely out of the blue. No argument, no conversation leading up to it, nothing. He said it wasn't that hard of a hit, he was just kidding around, and I was being overdramatic. He had never gotten violent with me while dating.
As soon as we got married, it was like a switch flipped and he was a COMPLETELY different person. It got worse very quickly, and I ended up filing for divorce 73 days after we got married.
#32 Dumpster Divorce
He was frustrated by her hoarding. She was frustrated by his utter uselessness. He filed for divorce, and she was my client. Division of property? Well, her prized possession was a room or two full of scrapbooking materials. His prized possession was a yard full of junk cars that he never worked on. They had no children and no real assets.
They hated each other more than any two people I'd ever met, and the only terms they would agree to were these: he gets the scrapbooking stuff, and she gets the cars. My client also took the house, as he had no income and didn't want it anyway. It was the shortest divorce decree I ever drafted. I intentionally squeezed it onto one page, and the judge and I had a good laugh over it.
Once the decree was signed and filed, she hauled all the scrapbooking stuff to the yard, and he removed it to the dump. She then called a junk shop I referred her to and had all of his cars removed from the yard. These two also fought over a toilet brush, as he didn't want to have to buy one when he moved out. I politely instructed my client to "give him the freaking toilet brush."
#33 Surprise!
I heard this one while moving for deployment. This guy signs over power of attorney to his mother before leaving. She misused it in the worst way possible. As soon as he was out of the country, his mother files for divorce from HIS wife because the mom and wife never got along. This dude is in the middle of the desert and didn't know until he came back three weeks after the fact.
#34 Give Me the Money
My dad got remarried after being divorced for five years. I would have been all for it, but this didn’t feel right. He met this woman in another state on a business trip and would travel up to see her every weekend. They knew each other for six months before getting engaged. The engagement only lasted three months.
My brother and I tried telling him about all the red flags, telling him to take his time. My dad is very well-off financially, and we kept trying to explain to him that things were moving too quickly, and she seemed like a gold-digger. She moved her whole family from their hometown to the city my dad lived in, including their elderly grandmother who needed constant medical supervision.
Before they were even married, the pantry was full of branded food from Whole Foods, instead of the unbranded things we got from the local grocery store. He bought new furniture and had the house repainted, all at his bride-to-be's request. The marriage lasted all of two weeks. The reason he finally left her chilled me to the bone.
Apparently, my dad's new bride had the gall to ask my dad to leave everything to her in the will and write me and my brother out. Only then did he realize she was in it for the money. The next day he had the marriage annulled.
#35 Flip-Flopping Through Marriage
Either stupid or brilliant depending on your perspective, but: This husband was getting sick of his wife—and also having an extramarital affair—so he pretended to go bankrupt to try to induce her to leave him. His wife got pretty ticked off at him but decided to try to help him out with his "failing" business instead.
The husband then revealed it was all a ruse and he had just been "testing" his wife, hardy har—he didn't actually want to separate anymore. Then the wife got genuinely ticked off and decided to initiate a divorce, due to his overall deceitfulness. The husband then attempted to hide his assets during the separation process, but their daughter ratted him out because, y'know, screw that guy and all.
The wife, therefore, cleaned her husband out during the separation. She got significant spousal and child support, plus two and a half out of three properties. The husband also lost his mistress due to actually being semi-broke, or at least broke for a supposedly rich guy. The wife remarried shortly afterward.
#36 Race to the Finish
I once worked on bank equipment, and my favorite was opening safety deposit boxes for the bank. So one day, I was asked to get there before the bank opened, which was really odd. I show up and greet the bank employee—along with a lawyer and a very angry looking woman. She is really impatient to get into the safety deposit box.
I get the lock open and swing the door out, and she's screaming, "Let me in there!," So I stepped outside and let her rush by. Its contents infuriated her. A few moment later, I hear a string of loud curse words: It was empty. Then she busts out and storms off, but while she passed she threw down a single piece of paper that had been in the vault.
It basically said, "Screw you, witch." It had been a nasty divorce, and the-ex husband got there before she did.
#37 Uh-Oh
I was in an on-and-off relationship with this girl for a while. I never wanted anything serious, then my mom was in a fatal accident and I went into a deep depression and this girl was there for me. Her mom had died of cancer about a year earlier and I guess we really bonded over that. It pushed us much further emotionally than we ever should’ve gone.
We ended up doing a courthouse marriage. I knew within the month that I had messed up. But I didn’t want to just give up and get divorced. Once the emotions of my mom’s fate passed, I realized how toxic she really was. She was an incredibly unstable person and ended up just taking me into an even deeper depression.
We divorced about a year ago (after being married for about ten months), and I was immediately much happier. Marriage shouldn’t be taken lightly, but people also shouldn’t force themselves to be in unhealthy relationships. We all make mistakes. Don’t waste your life with someone that doesn’t deserve you.
#38 Holiday Fling
I was blindsided. We lived together for a year, about an hour from my hometown. We relocated, upon her request, to my hometown prior to our marriage so that when we had kids, we'd be close to family. We had a house we loved, a dog we loved, jobs we both loved, everything was going so well—or so I thought.
We got married in October. Less than a year later, she went to visit her sister over the Labor Day weekend, and I couldn’t attend due to work. She came back the Tuesday after Labor Day and told me she’s living a lie and someone else’s dream, so she needs a divorce. I had no idea. Our divorce was finalized in January, but then she dealt me another surprise.
She married someone her sister was friends with, who she met on that trip I was unable to attend in September.
#39 The Elephant in the Room
I knew a couple who got divorced just because the kid got one elephant ride too many. I know, it's insane, but let me back it up. Mom and dad agreed before dad took daughter to the circus that one elephant ride should be plenty. Mom later finds out that dad let the daughter have two—not one, as agreed, but two—elephant rides. That was it. But her reasoning was even more deranged.
As mom would describe it, “He's doubling down again, trying to get her to hate me. I know it. Why the heck else is someone letting their kid ride an elephant halfway around the whole dang town. Everybody knows now.”
#40 “Traditional” Husband = Chauvinist
A female friend of mine got divorced about four to six weeks into her marriage. Her husband at the time basically spent a few years prior to marriage being a bit of a salesman to everyone. But behind closed doors, the truth came out. They both had careers, and while he was okay with her making money, he also expected her to cook, clean, take care of the dogs, and never lifted a finger. He would just come home and pound drinks until dinner.
#41 Seriously?!
Less than a year into actively trying to get pregnant, my husband got discouraged, gave up and started staying out until 4:15am with his "coworker." He posted selfies on her couch on snapchat and even went as far as asking her to marry him once he could get rid of me. He had two biological children (my step-children) that he abandoned at home with me while he was out doing this.
But that's not even the worst part. The icing on the cake was that on my favorite holiday, while holding my brand-new baby nephew in front of his entire family, he told me he wanted a divorce. I was gone in two weeks, left everything to him, and vanished. New number, new address, everything. Best choice I ever made.
#42 Err…Living in Denial Much?
My sister didn’t see anything wrong with her husband moving to another state, leaving her to stay at my parents’ house, and only seeing him when she flew to visit (he was in the army). She didn’t see a problem when girls would post Instagram and Facebook photos of her husband completely drunk at a party when he told her he was at work.
She didn’t see a problem when he made huge purchases (a sports car, a four-wheeler) that they couldn’t afford without telling her. She also didn’t see a problem when he told her she should get breast implants. Nope, never saw a problem. She didn’t realize it was a mistake until he sent her divorce papers. They were married less than a year.
#43 Funny Not Funny
A friend woke up really early one morning, because middle age. So while he makes coffee, he checks the lottery numbers and sees that they didn't hit a single number. He realizes he needs milk for the coffee and runs to the corner store. He starts to buy lottery tickets for the next drawing and comes up with what should have been a funny idea.
He buys another ticket with their regular numbers and also plays the numbers that had already won the night before. He goes home and puts the ticket on the fridge where the other ones were, thinking she will have no reason to pay attention to the day they are for. One hour later, his wife gets up and makes some coffee.
He yells from the living room that he hasn't checked the lottery numbers yet and for her to see if they won anything last night. He hears her use the laptop to check the numbers and then she is quiet for a minute. He said he had this big grin on his face waiting for her to start yelling they won and thinking how funny it would be. But her reaction made his blood run cold.
She yells from the kitchen that they didn't win anything. She heads back upstairs and 15 minutes later she comes through the living room with both their elementary-age kids in tow. She says she forgot to tell him she had to go to her mom's for the day. Then she just takes the kids and leaves. He was shell-shocked.
He went and checked, and the lottery ticket was gone, not in the trash or anywhere else. He realizes that she thinks they won the lottery and that she’s trying to run off with the winnings. She won't return his calls or talk to him and when he calls her mother’s house, the grandma will confirm she is there and put the kids on the phone, but that is it.
She finally shows up with the kids a couple of days later. She just walks into the house, says “screw you,” walks into the bedroom, and won't talk to him. The kids confirm that mom thought she had won a ton of money. Realizing what kind of person she is and that she also isn't very smart to think she would have gotten away with it, he divorced her.
Wikimedia Commons, Santeri Viinamäki
#44 Outed by Pie
A friend of mine was married to this guy for six months. He seemed like a nice guy. He had a violent history and spent a few years in jail, but she claimed he had changed. After six months, she learned that she was so, so wrong. He threw a knife at her because she didn't want him to eat a pie she had just baked. Later, she learned that he was also regularly poisoning her dog. The dog survived and is fine, but the marriage, not so much.
#45 (Don’t) Meet the Parents
We grew up on a ranch. My brother’s girlfriend came from the city, but during visits to the ranch, she would dive right in, helping our mom around the house and participating in all the stuff we did—horseback riding, ATVs, etc. She claimed to love it. My brother was so happy his city gal was compatible with the ranch lifestyle he grew up in.
He just loved that she was able to connect with him that way and more importantly, with his family. They dated for about 18 months before marrying, made many visits to the ranch, and all seemed well. She insisted that she wanted to have her wedding at my parent's home, and my folks went all out for it, had both families there, and everyone had a great time.
The next morning, we had a send-off breakfast for the couple, and they headed to the airport for their honeymoon. My mom and the bride's mom were visiting later, and the bride's mom mentioned she's glad my mom had no hard feelings that her daughter and my brother would no longer be coming out to the ranch. My mom's jaw dropped.
She was like, “What do you mean?” Bride's mom said, “Oh, I thought ‘Laura’ told you that having the wedding here was her gift to you to have your son home one last time with all his family here.” My mom went as white as a sheet. We all were stunned. We were confused as to whether my brother knew this, and more importantly, had agreed to it.
My other brother texted our big bro saying, "Is it true that this is your last time visiting mom and dad?" And big bro texted back, “What are you talking about?” Middle bro said, "Ask your new wife." Needless to say, the honeymoon never happened. It turned out that his wife had been hiding her belief that that a man leaves his family behind and becomes part of the woman's family.
It was fully her intent to never visit my parents again, to spend all holidays at her parents' home, to have any future children only have relationships with her family, and on and on. My brother literally had no idea these were her beliefs/desires. To this day, I don't know if she was evil or just clueless. They remained married for about a month until the divorce was final, but my bro never saw her again after the day-after-wedding-day.
#46 It Takes Two to Tango: One to Gab and One to Cheat
My dad split from my mom because "she takes too long to tell a story." He was actually having affair #4795809374 and that came out shortly after. But this was one of the main reasons he gave when they did a counseling session together.
#47 Don’t Shoot the Messenger
Just to warn everybody, this one is kind of messed up. It happened to a friend of mine. We were both deployed to Okinawa. My friend married his girl prior to the deployment. Then, he found out mid-deployment that she had cheated on him. Now, finding out about something like that is bad enough as it is—but the way my friend found out about this was the part that was the most messed up.
He had checked his Facebook messages one day and suddenly saw a message from some dude that he didn't know. The guy straight up told him that he had slept with his wife. Apparently, she had never told him that she was married and, when he eventually added her on Facebook, he realized that she was married to my friend.
After making this discovery, he felt so guilty about the whole thing that he decided he had to message my friend and let him know. My friend wasted no time and divorced her while still in Oki. I'm not even sure how that was possible, but I definitely remember him doing some kind of paperwork the very next day after getting the messages—so I guess he found a way.
#48 Two Is a Marriage, Mom Is a Crowd
Not me, but a friend my mum has divorced her husband because his mother still coddled him at age 40, with his consent. They lived with his mother. By coddle, I mean that she would walk straight into their room after his shower and powder his back for him. They couldn’t lock their bedroom door because his mother would come in as and when she wanted.
If they locked the door, she would knock repeatedly asking what they were doing. What would they be possibly doing??? Playing poker???
#49 Payday Coming
The saddest divorce we were hired to do, but ended up not doing for reasons that'll become apparent, was a woman in her 50s whose husband had really just let himself go. He was over 400 lbs., just did his third triple bypass, refused to do ANYTHING different, and just smoked and drank all day long while watching TV.
His doctors told him he was going to die in six months if he didn't change his behavior. He told them they were all morons and could get lost. Meanwhile, his wife was this successful woman who made over $10k a month on her HOBBY, while making six figures in her normal job. She lost all respect for him, all desire, and all love for him by watching his decline.
For the past few years, she could barely stand him. It also sounded like there was some verbal mistreatment going on, where he constantly accused her of cheating on him, which was gaslighting her, because he was cheating himself throughout their entire marriage—and spending all his money on illicit substances, the usual.
His accusations ramped up considerably once she lost about 200 lbs. through diet and exercise. We were working on her divorce, and one of her provisions was that he keeps her as the beneficiary on his life insurance, for obvious reasons. She assured us he would agree to everything she suggested in the paperwork if she talked him through it. That's when it took a twist.
One day, we get an email from her saying to halt the divorce. Not because they were reconciling, but because he refused to keep her as the beneficiary on his life insurance if they divorced. So, she stopped the divorce. He was in such poor health that by staying married and keeping the policy, she would inevitably get the benefits within months. Yikes.
#50 Karma Chameleon
He begged me to have kids. I wasn’t ready but I thought he loved me. We had money, insurance, he was my high school sweetheart, seven years together, first year married...so I thought, why not? Two miscarriages later, I caught him sending explicit messages to his best friend’s girlfriend. As I read through the messages, my heart broke.
The first one started with how horrific my miscarriages were. He thought I was infertile and was looking for a way out. Turns out there were issues on his end not mine. I talked to him a decade later and he thinks God punished him for what he did to me and that’s why he never had children. I have a daughter now. Karma is real.
#51 What Goes Down Must Come Up
My husband's parents got a divorce after many, many years of marriage. He said he knew that his parents weren't really happy for a long time. He also said they went to family therapy together at one point, but ultimately chose to part ways once both of their kids were out of the house. As soon as my husband (the younger of the two) went off to the Army, they divorced, and both later married other people.
In the years that followed, these two could never get along for anything. They absolutely HATED each other. At our wedding, we had to take separate family pictures with the dad and his new wife and then with the mom and my sister-in-law. It was insane! Cut to about two years after our wedding. Out of the blue, I get a phone call one day from my father in-law's wife of 10 years.
She is in hysterics. She had caught him in bed...with my mother-in-law! My husband would not believe it until he talked to his father and confirmed that this had indeed taken place. That was over 10 years ago. Shortly after that incident, my in-laws both divorced their new partners and they have been back together with each other ever since.
My mother-in-law now has all of their old family pictures up on display everywhere, and just acts like the divorce never happened. If you met them and saw them together today, you would have no reason to doubt that they had simply been together for over four decades like any other couple their age!
#52 A Slightly Important Detail to Leave out...
Years and years ago, my uncle's girlfriend planned a wedding for the two of them, sent out invitations to all of their friends and family members. But she missed one crucial thing. She didn't even bother to tell him about it until the week of. As in, he was not even aware that they were getting married, let alone that everything had already been planned and arranged.
I don't remember the whole story about what made her decide to do this, but he ended up going through with the ceremony just to avoid the embarrassment. He then quietly got the marriage annulled and broke up with her immediately after.
#53 An Italian Affair—Or Not
Honestly, before we even got married I had doubts but there was a great deal of denial and fear surrounding the relationship, and we thought of ending it months before the wedding. HOWEVER, there was a definitive moment when I realized this was not the man for me. Unfortunately, it happened right on our honeymoon.
About three weeks into our honeymoon, we had been traveling through the British Isles and had finally made it to Italy. I really wanted to stay in a remote village and be immersed, he did not. We settled on Florence. Don’t get me wrong, it’s lovely there but it’s extremely touristy and I didn’t feel like I was getting the full cultural experience in a big city like that.
I asked our host at the Bed and Breakfast, what their favorite restaurant was, something only locals knew about. The sweet man drew me a little map and even told me it would look closed and was very small and had very specific hours, which he wrote down for me. The next day, after some searching we found it in an alley way off the beaten path.
It was like a dream come true. Only Italians, no English translations on the menu, no couple from Florida at the table next to us. It was packed and smelled so amazing. They squeezed us in on a tiny table, got us menus and said what I imagine was, we’ll be back in a bit. I was awestruck, finally feeling like I was in my home country.
For the first time since landing I truly felt like I was in Italy. My husband looked at me and said: “this is too cramped. I can’t eat here.” I looked back at him and he just got up and walked out. I had to hold back tears realizing that he just walked out on me when I had found the happiest place on our honeymoon.
The waitress came over confused and I just apologized as I stammered out of the restaurant. Embarrassed and heartbroken knowing this was not the kind of man I wanted to share experiences with. I knew at that moment I had made a huge mistake.
#45 Red Alert!
A friend of mine had been married about six weeks. She had just moved in when they returned from the honeymoon, and she was rearranging furniture, organizing closets and doing other such chores one day while he was at work. She started pulling some of his boxes down from a closet shelf to make room for her things.
Suddenly, a box fell down accidentally. Its contents were utterly disturbing. It was filled with hundred of explicit photos. Even worse, they were of kids. She divorced her new husband immediately and reported him to the authorities.
#55. Unfore-Sea-able
Back in the early 1980s, I was engaged to a young lady three years my junior and had a bit more than $20,000 in savings. Everything looked promising with a new career in the Army and a new family life. The wedding went off without a hitch. I was looking at a vacation of about three months between exiting the Navy and entering training for the Army.
But when my recruiter contacted me over my security clearance, things went south. My credit report did not match my questionnaire. There were three credit cards with a $14,000 balance I hadn’t mentioned. Turned out my wife opened up a charge card at our bank, then got a couple of store cards around town for her personal use.
She purchased some serious clothes and jewelry, but the real kicker was that she bought a horse. She took lessons as a child and decided this was going to be her new thing. There was the price of the animal, riding gear, saddle and tack, vet bills, stable fees, and so on. I ended up dumping a big chunk of my savings into paying down these cards, then amending my questionnaire responses.
I treated this as a bump in our relationship, but things got dark very soon. My ship date was coming up and things had to be done before I started training. I was in good physical shape, but I was facing Boot camp, AIT, Airborne school, ranger school, warrant officer selection and advance training—basically 18 months of utter insanity.
If I got through it, I was a Warrant Officer, but if I dropped the ball along the way, I would not only be enlisted, but junior enlisted in a job they would decide for me. In theory, I could end up a line cook in some chow hall at Camp NoWhere. About a week later, the phone rang. It was about the horse. No one was taking care of the animal or cleaning the stable, or even feeding the poor thing.
The stable had covered down for the sake of the animal, but now were charging $350 a week for the extra services my wife was supposed to be doing. She was leaving our apartment every day, and I assumed it was for riding and care of the animal, and for the first week she was. The second week, she was lawyer shopping. She wanted out.
She must have gotten wind of what happened at the stable and didn’t come home that night. The next day I got served with papers. Total marriage time: 47 days. So, I ended up with an apartment with four months on the lease, no car, and a horse. I found a new home for the horse. I had to defer my ship date and it took 14 months to settle the divorce.
My security clearance was approved two days after the papers were filed. I shipped the next day. In the end, I had two pair of pants, three shirts and a pair of shoes that had no business on anyone’s feet. I was working two minimum wage jobs, 14 hours a day, paying down debt, lawyers fees, rent and sometimes eating only to get by.
In Airborne school, I met a cadet. We’d get together on holidays, between training, long weekends. When I finished training and got my warrant, she flew across the country to give me my first salute. I gave her a silver dollar as per tradition. Two months later, she received her commission, to which I saluted her, and returned the silver dollar. Married that Christmas. We’ve been together 31 years.
#56 Til Debt Do Us Part
Divorce lawyer here. One client filed for divorce because he owed his bookie $70,000. He didn't want to leave his wife, but he figured he would get half the house in the divorce, which was worth $700,000 and pay his debts. He had already blown through their life savings gambling. He was the absolute worst guy you'll ever meet.
#57 It Isn’t You, It’s Me
My friend’s sister got engaged after eight months of being in a relationship, and got married four months later. Everything seemed fine for the first five months, but soon everything changed. He wasn’t chatty, his good morning/goodnight kisses became dull, etc. His wife would ask if everything was okay and he would say “I’m fine” every time.
She didn’t want to push him, so she waited for him to talk about what’s bothering him. One evening after eating dinner, the husband said he wanted to talk about their relationship. Before he could say anything though, he started crying. He cried for a few minutes and then told her he’s gay. The girl filed for divorce and after the divorce was settled, she wasn’t mad at him anymore, so she went to see him and forgave him.
They became good friends and she helped him become comfortable with his sexuality. She even helped him come out to his close friends and then to his family. Five years later, the girl is now engaged to another man and expecting their first child. Her ex-husband is now very happily married to a man for almost a year now.
#58 Two Strikes, I’m out
My jerk cousin told his wife she had three chances to give him a son. Daughter was born first. Strike one. Son was born second. Then they find out the boy can’t eat gluten. So, my cousin divorced her and has made zero effort to see his kids. He would also take off work, and instead of spending time with the babies or her, he'd tell her, "Just act like I’m at work and do all your normal stuff." Then he'd watch TV all day. Jerk.
#59 A Stroke of Bad Love
My father in law had a stroke at the age of 46. He lost the use of his right arm and the ability to speak. Shortly after his stroke, his wife decided they needed to move into a smaller house and sell their current one, which was under his name and he had paid for. This also meant she was kicking out my brother-in-law and my wife (girlfriend at the time).
She also decided to put down my wife's cat and get rid of the family dog since their new house wouldn't have pets, according to her. She sold their house at a loss and immediately bought a new car with the money. My wife and her brother found a new place, and my father-in-law and his wife moved in with one of her kids.
After six months, she dumped him at my wife's place and said, “I can't take care of him we are getting a divorce.” I don't know how it happened exactly, but she got half his money and a new car. She then went to all his family and lied to them and somehow convinced them that he was being abusive and didn't love her anymore.
We tried to convince him to fight it, but he refused to do anything because he was so depressed. The lawyer ruled he was of sound mind so he could make his own decisions. My wife is still upset about it and wishes he had tried to fight it, but he still loved his wife, so he didn't want to. He lives with us now and has been doing a lot better emotionally.
#60 Not the Brightest Match
I knew a guy from a high school job who divorced his wife of two months because she would sleep with a nightlight, but he could only sleep in total darkness. They apparently never lived together until after getting married. He hated her nightlight so much that he would often sleep on the couch instead, but sometimes he would claim the bed for himself and lock her out of the bedroom for the night.
This was an eccentric late 40s man working at Burger King who acted like all the other high school coworkers were his best chums, and often told us these weird stories. I'm glad I don't work with him anymore.
#61 Setting an Example for the Baby
When I got home from work, she would be going to work and I would be hanging out with our baby. Around the time he was one and a half, she started going to the bar with co-workers. I was fine with it because it wasn't often, maybe one night a week, and she came back home by 12. It quickly got up to coming home between 2:30 am and 4 am, plastered, four to six times a week.
Then it escalated beyond what I could ever imagine. She started mentioning this one co-worker a lot and how cool he was. My paranoia got the better of me and I checked her phone one alcohol-induced coma night and she had been trying to get said co-worker to meet with her at an abandoned gas station a few miles up the road while she was on her way out.
I approached her and asked what she planned to do when he showed up, "just hang out!" to which I replied, "While you’re drunk, at 2 am, behind an abandoned gas station..." She never admitted to it, but that, a lot of not-even-subtle clues and people I knew seeing her out at the bar gave me all I needed to know.
#62 Leave Him to Side Hose
My divorce lawyer aunt had a case where the wife had glued all of the outdoor hoses together so he wouldn’t spend more time washing his vehicle anymore. When the glue didn’t work, she just cut them all up. When he bought new ones, she filed for divorce.
#63 This Tiger Has Claws
Divorce lawyer and mediator here. I once mediated the case of Neckbeard v. Tiger Mom. It must have started out as the perfect dream for Neckbeard. He landed a hot Asian wife, brought her to this country, but once that green card came through things changed. They had a daughter together and the case was mostly about her.
Tiger Mom had zero respect for this guy and, try as I might to maintain my empathy, I've never felt a greater urge to stuff another human into a locker. Two of his demands really stand out. He asked for the following injunction: "Tiger Mom shall be enjoined from discussing Neckbeard's weight in a derogatory manner, specifically, tiger mom may not refer to neckbeard as fatty, tubby, pudgy, or Baymax."
Normally, I wouldn't take an offer like that to the other side. I'd normally help a guy come up with something more sensible, but everyone, including his lawyer, just could not take this guy seriously, so I wrote that out verbatim and trotted over to Tiger Mom's room. Of course, she thought it was hilarious. She had a super thick accent and said, "My daughter call him Baymax cuz he look like Baymax, I can't fix that, he have to fix that."
There comes a point at the end of the day when everything is pretty much settled and people are dividing up the stuff in the house. Of course, Neckbeard has a meltdown at this point, and it's over a dang Nintendo Switch for the daughter. Tiger Mom made the very sensible proposal that the daughter take the switch with her to each parent’s house as she goes back and forth.
Neckbeard freaks out and demands the Switch stay with him at all times because "There's no way Tiger Mom can take proper care of it." Mind you, the attorneys are billing enough to pay for three Switches an hour at this point. I don't know what happened to the guy, but I do know calling him Baymax could land one lady in contempt of court after the most hilarious enforcement trial of all time, and he owns what's probably the most expensive Nintendo Switch in the world.
As for who is the victim here: Both? Neither? Neckbeard had intimate relations at least once and it was way out of his league. He also has a well-adjusted daughter and plenty of time with her if he wants to take it. He even has gaming in common with her. Tiger Mom had to put up with this guy for a few years but now has a prosperous life and a lovely daughter.
#64 Work to Rule
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! The best.
#65 A Brilliant Ex
Not me, but a guy I worked with 10 years ago. I worked with a guy who really stuck it to his ex wife. When I met him he was working in a sporting goods store making 8 dollars an hour. He was not really like the other retail monkeys. He was older, well groomed, well spoken, clearly educated, all of that stuff. It didn't take long for me to find out the truth.
One night after work he gets into his car, and I couldn't help but notice that it was a very very nice newish Jaguar. I asked him how he could afford it and he explained it to me: He had been an SVP at a well known fortune 50 company, pulling in 300k with bonuses and stock options. He was married but the marriage fell apart and in the divorce, she demanded that she get the house and 40% of his wages.
He and his lawyer somehow managed to get her to agree to let him keep the house in exchange for 75% of his pay. As soon as she took the settlement he quit his job and looked for a minimum wage job. He said to me that "She gets 75% of nearly nothing now." He had other money stashed away, so he didn't even need the job and he had the house and its equity as well.
Also, no kids, so there was no child support. Just alimony. She was furious of course, and tried to re-sue him but failed at least once and when she claimed that the settlement was not keeping her in the life style she was accustomed to, he simply told the judge that the divorce was traumatic to him and he could no longer do his old job as a result.
At least at that time, she did not manage to get out of the deal. Not sure how it all ended. But I thought it was brilliant if not crazy-level spiteful. He was a good employee too...good with customers, showed up on time, no absenteeism or anything like that. He claimed he loved each payday because it reminded him how little she was getting.
#66 Meeting Expectations
My wife started to feel “trapped” just a few months into our marriage—as in, my expectation of monogamy was too much for her to handle. So she discovered polyamory, decided that she wanted to be polyamorous with her boss, and retroactively decided that our marriage was an open one. She was pretty surprised when I divorced her.
#67 I Now Pronounce You Squatter and Wife
My aunt was dating this unemployed dude for a while. He was staying in her house rent-free. They got married and were getting ready to go on the honeymoon when the new husband tells her he’s not going because he has to take care of his plants at the house. Big fight. Aunt goes on the honeymoon with her sisters instead.
She comes home and tries to kick him out of her house; he refuses to leave. She tries to get the authorities involved. Dude is live streaming on Facebook how he is being trapped in his own home. Officers tell my aunt there is basically nothing they can do. She can file for eviction after a divorce. Dude gets to live in her house with his precious plants for like three months until everything gets worked out.
#68 Not What He Signed up for
When I worked at a college, I saw this one couple get married because the girl was pregnant and she wanted to have the baby in wedlock. They quickly got an annulment three months later when the baby was born a different color than either of his parents…
#69 Hogging the Attention
I used to work at a wedding venue. At one wedding, the groom was from Arkansas, and the bride had specifically asked that there be no “Call of the Hogs” during the wedding speech. For those who don’t know, “Call of the Hogs” is a traditional cheer that’s popular at the University of Arkansas, and it has become a fairly common custom for many alumni to perform the cheer at their weddings.
In spite of the bride’s clear request to the contrary, one of the groomsmen proceeded to do the cheer during the ceremony anyway. The bride was absolutely furious and started storming back towards the bridal party. The groom's response stopped everyone in their tracks. Before she was able to make it away, her would-be husband slapped her across the face.
It was in front of everybody, and he said that they were going to be getting this marriage annulled the next morning. Honestly, she might have not dodged the slap, but she definitely dodged a bullet.
#70 Keeping a Tally
Upon my return home from Afghanistan, my new wife of less than a year admitted to me that she had slept with 23 different guys while I was gone. Needless to say, our marriage ended real quick…
#71 For This Couple, It’s the Least Wonderful Time of the Year
My friend married this woman after years of dating. They had only been married for about six months when, on their first Christmas as husband and wife, he bought her a present and she got him nothing in return. Later that night, she left their house without an explanation and didn’t come back until the next morning.
Apparently, she had made an account on some dating site earlier that day, met a guy, and slept with him that same night. She came clean to my friend the next day, and that was the end of their six-month marriage.
#72 That’s Just Wrong
My ex's brother helped his friend (he was friends with the couple, but clearly "chose" the guy) hide assets and wash cash in the six months leading up to a "surprise, I'm divorcing you!" by the friend to his now ex and deceased wife. Oh yeah—he did this because she had just been diagnosed with cancer, was not going to live, and he didn't see why "his money" should go to "her health care" when she was going to "die in a few years" anyway.
#73 Second in Command
Phone dinged, I checked it, (same phones no case both charging next to each other.) The text said, "I miss you too" and was from a girl he was dating when we were separated. Fast forward a few months to when he deploys. Check his email because at this point I know something is up. Find emails, so I contact the mistress.
She was very transparent with me and told me that basically, they were dating before he even met me, which means he courted me, asked me to marry him, married me then we had a child together all while he was still seeing her. We separate for a year, he dates her exclusively, we get back together, and he maintains a relationship with her. All of this without me knowing.
I found this all out while I was a month away from birthing his second child and he's getting shot at in Afghanistan. We decide to work through it, but I never could get over the fact that he cheated on me for four years and had no problem hiding it from me, and only came clean because I found out, as in, he had no intention of coming clean.
When he returned home he confessed to many other times with other people. After three subsequent years of him refusing to go to counseling so that we can ACTUALLY deal with it, he tells me he wants a divorce a month before we are supposed to get a permanent change of station to Alaska. Moved back home with the kids, filed for divorce and life is amazingly better now. Screw that guy!
#74 His Bark Was Bigger Than Her Bite
My uncle had married someone after just three months of dating them. He had two dogs and two cats. On their first day living together, she made an utterly cold-blooded demand. She told him that he needed get rid of the dogs and replace them with two new ones of her choosing. They were divorced within two weeks.
#75 That's Not in the Job Description
It was the night of her company Christmas party. I had to stay home and babysit our five-year-old son. Grandma was supposed to, but she fell and was in the hospital with a broken hip. I figured my wife would go and then come home early. Turns out, she was planning to stay the night at a hotel so "she could drink and not worry about driving."
I woke up about 3 am just knowing something was wrong (never happened before) and checked "Find My Phone" to see where she was. She was with her boss at his apartment. Pretty much sucked.
#76 Off to a Great Start
My husband decided to start having an affair within three months of our marriage. I found out about six months later. He still maintains that he did absolutely nothing wrong, because he had just thought that it would be long over before I ever found out. Oh, and we had a 6-month-old baby at the time. What a catch of a man!
I started the divorce proceedings at the first possible moment after waiting the one-year minimum.
#77 When the True Colors Came out
He became a totally different person after we got married. He became very controlling and manipulative. I was expected to do all the chores and make dinner every night. This after working a highly stressful 40 hour/week job. He became emotionally and verbally hurtful to me. Constantly thought I was cheating on him.
If I had anything other than a smile on my face at all times I was ridiculed. Everything that happened was always my fault. He was never wrong. He was always the victim. I didn't want to go home because I didn't know if I was walking into Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde. Had him go to two different counselors and didn't make it more than two sessions with each because he didn't need therapy.
I decided to stop it all when I started to become depressed from the constant stress. I am a normally very happy positive person and I became a walking bunch of nerves. I couldn't get past the belief that anyone who truly loved me would never treat me like he had been. Have been divorced for six months now. Although I get lonely sometimes, I would still take loneliness a thousand times over being back with him.
EmpowHER
#78 Always Put the Seat Down
Came home from working a double shift and found the toilet seat up. Either my wife didn't pee for 20 hours straight or there had been another man in my house. I suspected it was her "gay" friend from work. I also knew that said friend was trying to sell his house, so I called the real estate agent and asked the see his place.
Right inside the front door, I recognized one of her jackets hanging in the mud room. Proceeded to the living room. When I walked in, I saw an utterly chilling sight. Right on the mantel was a picture of my wife and this guy. Right there. We divorced shortly after. She ended up marrying this guy...then cheated on him...and now they are divorced. Didn't feel bad for him at all.
#79 Going All out, Without Being All in
My neighbor’s daughter got married and threw a huge wedding day bash for everyone that she knew to attend. She spent a total of about 50 to 70 thousand dollars on the event. Then, not even two weeks later, she got divorced. She had been cheating on her husband throughout the engagement, but still wanted to experience her “special day.”
I heard later on that she had asked her mom whether she would actually have to live with her husband after they got married. That definitely should have raised some red flags.
#80 Absolutely Awful
The husband was severely screwed over by the wife purely because she could. She divorced him in a no-fault state, providing her with immediate out-of-pocket support from him until the end of the divorce, as well as all bills paid. Now this doesn't sound so bad... if the wife wasn't an abusive, vindictive, bipolar monster.
He's a gentleman, you know... the good husband type. But she just kept at it, arguing with family, abusing children, attempting suicide by sleeping pills, the works. The woman was an absolute train wreck. The worst thing was, there was nothing he could do about it. No one would really help him out of the mess.
Due to the laws of the state, despite firing four attorneys, and telling all of them "oh just send the attorney costs to my husband, have him pay," the court just shrugged their shoulders. The divorce carried on for nearly four years because the state did not require a settlement be made, so she just kept declining all of his offers while continuing to bask in free income.
It even got to the point where he was offering half a mil over the next four years and she said "go screw yourself." Over those four years his appearance and personality was like that of a president serving a term. It was absolutely awful to see.
#81 Supportive Spouse
My buddy’s dad was diagnosed with colon cancer. He starts going to chemo and his wife starts going out with some other guy. His sister found out his mom was cheating on his dad, so she told my buddy and he sat his dad down and talked to him. Dad confronts cheating mom and she says, “my fortune teller told me that the best way to get over your passing would be to start something new with someone else.”
Now mind you, his dad’s not dead, or really even close to it. The cancer is responding well to chemo, and he’s been slowly getting better. She literally tried justifying cheating on him because he might die...She no longer lives in the house and, to the best of my knowledge, has been ex-communicated from the entire family.
#82 Doesn’t This Guy Have Anything Better to Do?
This is a story from my parents, who are divorce 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 three 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.
#83 Getting Straight to the Point
I know two couples who got married for the sole purpose of being able to have intimate relations with each other, since they were both very religious and didn’t believe in premarital relations. Both marriages lasted a combined one year.
#84 Over the Hill
My ex-wife and I went up to Big Bear to go snowboarding and spend some time together. We were having issues and I thought to be fun to get away and do something fun together. Let's just say it did not go well. She said she grew up snowboarding, but she never made it down a hill and had a terrible time. So we went back to the cabin and she was pretty much just on her phone, not talking to me.
We make it back and she says she needs to just shower and be alone for a bit. She goes off and I just hang in the den. She left her phone in her purse and it just kept buzzing, so I checked it out because what if someone was trying to reach us or something? I open it up to read a full conversation between her and this guy. It wasn't good.
I read how that day’s texts started and they started really early in the morning. "Hope you're doing ok up there." She said, "We'll see, doubt it. He's trying too hard. He should just know it really doesn't matter. Wish I was up here with you instead." Just the worst stuff. I was pretty devastated and really didn't know what to do.
I knew I didn't want to fight because I realized she wasn't worth fighting for. Grabbed my bag and drove back to San Diego. I took her phone with me, so I could text him and tell him, "We're coming home early, let's meet." I ended up inviting him to a coffee shop and waited for him to show up. When he walked through the door, he saw me immediately and kind of stopped.
I waved him over and wasn't too far from the door, so I told him we need to talk. He comes over and already front loads with the "It's not what you think," blah blah blah speech. I told him that if he wants her, he can take his sorry butt to Big Bear and go get her. Because I was leaving and we're through. See you when we sign the papers. And I left.
Second worst day of my life but I'm glad it happened. Met my lady three years later and we've been together for four years, now engaged. I don't know if you asked this because you yourself are going through this and need comfort and to know what to do. But I hope this is just a hypothetical question and if not, there are better partners out there for us. You just need to let life introduce you to them.
#85 The Slip-Up
Apparently our dad had another kid about 8 years older than me. My mom blurted something out about it after their divorce when she was pissed about something. It was along the lines of, "if he thinks he can forget you exist like that other kid of his..." She then turned very white and I was never able to get more out of her than that.
My dad pretends he doesn't know what I'm talking about, but has apparently told my brother a bit of the story and then backtracked and never talked about it again. So yeah, apparently I'm not the oldest.
#86 Like Riding a Bike...
My 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 on 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.
#87 A Slight Change of Plans
A relative of mine was forced into a shotgun wedding because he accidentally got his girlfriend pregnant. Then the bride had a miscarriage, so they got a divorce a month later.
#88 Choose Your Partners Wisely
I'm a divorce lawyer and I currently have a client who makes a sizeable salary, north of $200k/yr. His spouse has separated but will not leave the matrimonial home, despite her overtures that she wants to become independent. She has actively depleted the joint bank account of hundreds of thousands of dollars, which she has siphoned into personal bank accounts.
She uses the money to finance her lifestyle of expensive yoga classes, buying luxury purses and shoes, eating at fine dining establishments and spending recklessly to deplete her net family property. She was literally taking every penny that he deposited from his paycheque on the advice of her lawyer, which she then used to pay for her lawyer.
He was literally financing opposing counsel. That has now stopped. She will not allow him to see the kids when he comes home from work, or even read them bedtime stories. She refused to allow him to take his sons to see their grandfather in hospital, who passed on shortly thereafter, and she continues to alienate the children from the paternal aunts and grandmother.
She has no extensive family that still speaks to her. Both her and her counsel are bloodthirsty. Even though they signed a prenup, she wants to take half of the $2.5 million home, wants full custody of the kids, and wants him to pay her $8,000 a month in spousal support. She could work full time earning as much as $95,000/yr, but she'd rather live life like a real housewife.
I just took this file on, but it has the makings of a nasty divorce already. I want nothing more than to take her and her counsel down hard. Files like this make my blood boil, because sometimes other lawyers take stupidly aggressive positions to force the matter into litigation. Perhaps, I'll provide an update in the near future.
#89 Hitting Where It Hurts
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 peeved about getting divorced. The husband got all the wines in their extensive cellar.
However, before he was able to collect 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. So I think she got the last laugh on that one.
#90 I’ve Got a Little Secret
This happened to my college roommate, who was one of my closest friends at the time. He met a girl in junior year that our ENTIRE group of friends thought was wrong for him. But, alas, love is blind. Fast forward to summer after graduation, and they are planning to get married in the fall. I am asked to be part of the wedding ceremony.
The two of them ended up being apart for most of the summer, as he was busy working while she was still finishing up school and working on putting the wedding together. Finally, the summer was over and the big day arrived, so we all converged on her home town in Colorado. The wedding went down, as did the big reception.
LOTS of money clearly was clearly dropped on this one reception by the two families. We see them off to the honeymoon, and I return to my home sweet home in St. Louis. A week later, I get a call from him asking if he can come stay with me. Despite my confusion and many questions, I said sure. I picked him up at the airport.
He was by himself. At his insistence, we hit the nearest bar, and I immediately got to hear all about how he had just found out that she cheated on him over the summer, but went ahead with the marriage anyway because she had felt pressured by how much her parents were spending on everything. But the story got even worse from there.
She told him about this pretty much as soon as they were alone together, right AFTER the ceremony. She did not choose to tell him about it at any point during the week to 10 days that they were alone together for BEFORE the wedding. She insisted that they still go on the honeymoon to "work things out." Nevertheless, she refused to be intimate with my roommate, as she still had feelings for the other guy.
So he left and never returned to her. He then had the marriage annulled within six months.
#91 Well, Someone Clearly Miscalculated Something...
One friend’s recent marriage abruptly ended after her husband had an unsolicited outburst at a family dinner, in which he shouted out "I KNOW THAT YOU GUYS KNOW I DO DRUGS! AND YOU ALL NEED TO GET THE HECK OFF MY BACK ABOUT IT!" Turns out, his wife had not known that; nor had her dad, or anybody else in her family. That is, at least until now!
#92 Hunting for Problems
Brother of mine caught his wife cheating. Her phone would always be going off and she would hide it. He got curious, looked into it, and found some guy had been texting her for a few months. She said she was going to stay home because she had to catch up on homework over the weekend. My brother and I went on our hunting trip and he told me about it.
We never left the city, we went to my house and stayed there till it got dark, then drove back to his neighborhood in my neighbor’s car. She sent him a picture of her at home saying she was going to go to bed early that night. Well, we snuck close to the house after a car parked down the street and a guy walked to the house and let himself in.
My brother was fuming at this point and wanted to beat the heck out of the guy. I settled him down and told him to think about the long run. We snuck up to the house and using the night vision camera got video of them bumping uglies in the living room. My brother wanted to confront this guy at this point so... I did something messed up and called the authorities. I said I heard a lot of yelling from the house and asked if they could go check. It kept my brother from messing with the dude (a coworker of hers).
Authorities show up, take statements. We leave and the next day he pulls her iMessages off the email account and talks to a lawyer. We give the lawyer the messages and when we show up five days later from our "hunting trip," he calls her and says he got something wild and wants her to come out and see it.
When she comes out he gives her divorce papers and kicks her out of the house. She had the authorities do a civil stand by while she got her stuff a few days later. House was his before they got married so all she got to keep was some stuff they bought together and her car. No kids and the prenup nullified the alimony she could have gotten as he made way more money than her.
The guy she was sleeping with had a record. We saw her a few months later, she tried talking to my wife and said she missed my brother and she was sorry, the guy and her broke up shortly after the divorce.
#93 Subtle, But Effective
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.
#94 The Square-Keeper
I'm a divorce lawyer. My client was outrageous, so my heart went out to his poor wife. He had OCD which manifested primarily financially, so he made their lives a penny-pinching nightmare. Examples: he was obsessed with avoiding unnecessary driving (wear and tear on the car, gas expenses), so he cut the whole family’s hair at home and never let them eat at a restaurant or go to the movies.
Weirdest of all? He kept one toilet paper roll on him at all times, and you had to get one square from him before you could go to the bathroom. He never gave more than one square. The wife finally got fed up and left him when he gave her bangs during an in-home haircut. There was also the fact that their daughter was so traumatized by the toilet paper thing that they couldn’t potty train her.
You better believe that he HATED paying his divorce lawyer bill. He was also an old-fashioned mega-Catholic who considered divorce a deadly sin. He viewed my whole job as an expense that was not only unnecessary but also sinful.
#95 Yes, Mom
I'm a divorce attorney, and I've had a lot of younger male potential clients come in for divorce consults…with their mother. Then, during the consult, the mother does 98% of the talking, and it's clear who actually wants the divorce. I'll usually escort Mom to wait in the lobby while I talk to the son directly, and most of the time he's just there to appease his mother.
#96 Take Your Lumps
I had a client file for divorce because every morning his wife would ask him how he takes his coffee...for seven years.
#97 Not Your Average Loophole
My uncle is a divorce lawyer and 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 the back of the houses faced each other.
The house gets built, and my uncle gets a call from his client asking about the situation he had somehow 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. His plan was brilliant.
Anytime he would let his dog back in from letting her out, he would yell "Susan you [curse for a female dog]! Get in here!" He would also yell if she was peeing on the flowers,"Susan! Quit pissing on the flowers!" or "Susan you! Quit digging in the dirt!" The ex-wife called the authorities on him a couple of times, but there was nothing they could do because the dog was registered under the name of Susan.
#98 A Cell Phony
I went to a wedding where the bride got drunk and the groom picked up her phone to discover that she had been texting a coworker throughout the entire wedding. He told the officiant to not file the paperwork. This occurred towards the end of the reception, as they were leaving to go to the honeymoon suite. The story is that she was very drunk.
Her phone kept getting notifications so he decided to pick it up for her. They did not go on their honeymoon and they returned the gifts to everyone. The guests weren’t told about what happened for a couple of weeks, as the bride was trying everything she could to save the relationship. Regardless, it was a great reception!
#99 A Matter of Trust
My sister was only married for two weeks. Originally, she was married to a really crazy jerk. She stayed with him for too long, and the divorce has been bitter. Her ex-husband was convinced that she had some kind of a secret trust fund that she was living off of, and he was demanding half of it. There is no such trust fund.
I mean, in what will hopefully be many, many years from now when our dad dies, there may be some money from his trust fund—but he’s very much still alive, so this guy was in no way entitled to any of that. Anyway, a little bit of time passes and my sister hooks up with another guy, who is apparently friends with her ex.
The ex decided to tell his friend about her mysterious “trust fund” and, intrigued by it, this new guy somehow convinced my gullible sister to marry him. New guy was clearly hoping that he would be more successful than his friend was in getting access to the trust fund—you know, the one that doesn’t actually exist.
Within days of marrying my sister, this new husband brought his ex-girlfriend and his child to stay with them—his ex who supposedly needed a place to stay since she was in an abusive relationship. Very shortly after, we learned that new hubby has secretly still been with baby mama for the entire duration of the relationship with my sister—and the guy only went out with her because he thought that she was a trust fund kid.
So, within just a couple of weeks of the nuptials, they were both at each other’s throats. He then threw out a bunch of her stuff, kept all of her expensive belongings, and filed a restraining order against her so that she couldn’t ever come back to the house—despite it having been her house all along. I’m not saying that my sister deserved all of this, but she does have a bit of a habit of stretching the truth.
Let’s just say I’m not fully convinced that these guys just got the idea that there was a secret trust fund out of thin air. Anyway, that’s the story of the time my sister was married for just two weeks!
#100 The Last Straw
I divorced him when I realized that no matter what I did he was never going to change. I let him walk all over me and cheat on me for years and kept thinking if I just did more, was more patient, a better wife etc, he would realize his mistakes. Example: He would cheat. I would catch him. A huge fight would break out.
He would manipulate me into it somehow being my fault he did it. You don't love me enough, you'll never trust me again, you didn't get it on with me that one time back in 2006 and I felt rejected. Somehow I would have to make it up to him and prove to him I trusted him. I'd forgive him and work my butt off to be happier, nicer, more understanding.
But after a few months I would just catch him all over again. The last straw was when he convinced me he had really changed. He wanted to be a family, the whole package. Of course I ended up pregnant. It turned out to be high risk and I was hospitalized often. Only allowed home with bed rest. Even then he wouldn’t stop running around on me.
I lost 45 pounds, my hair started falling out, I was too weak to even walk. My own family thought I was dying. He didn't even care. So at one point I was sitting by myself and I just realized. I was done. He was never going to change. And it wasn't my fault. I couldn't fix whatever was broken in him and I was done trying.
It took six months after the baby was born before doctors would let me go back to work. I moved out. Spent a few years alone, swearing off men. Now I'm with a fantastic man that loves me. The divorce is still dragging on. My ex tried a lot of dirty tricks when he found out I was leaving. I laughed in his face at every one.
He doesn't get it. At one point I seriously thought I would die. I thought my kids would be left alone with only him to take care of them. After going through that, nothing he could do could bother me. Ever. So anyway. That's my story. Hope it helps.
Source: Factinate
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