You don't have to go through a divorce to know that it can be really brutal. There's something about the end of a relationship that can bring out an ugly side of people, and divorce takes those hard feelings and gives them a battlefield to duel on.
Who gets a front-row seat to this messy phenomenon? The lawyers that represent both sides.
1."I'm a lawyer but have had a very limited amount of experience in divorce cases. The first case I ever worked the husband shaved/waxed every single hair off his body in an attempt to avoid a court-mandated drug test."
2."Worst I saw was a decades-long case. The husband had been in a motorcycle accident and suffered brain damage. Has severely limited capacity going forward. Got a huge settlement afterward. The wife spent the next several years stealing the entirety of the guy's money and property variously by forging his signature or putting documents in front of him that he couldn't understand and telling him they were something benign so he'd sign it."
"She then forged a bunch of letters from a tax authority and convinced him he was about to go to jail and further convinced him to flee the country. He finally came back several years later to find out everything he owned was in her name and one of the documents he was told to sign were divorce papers. Dude got left with nothing. I moved on before I found out how the story ended."
3."A soon-to-be ex-husband left his wife's prized Koi to die on the doorstep of their house. Apparently, the value of these fish (six in total) was over $100,000. She was, according to her lawyer, so distraught that she couldn't be in court. Only in LA."
4."Had a client whose wife wanted him out of the house. I told him not to leave, just move to a different bedroom for the time being because once he was out the chances of him ever getting back in were slim. He texted his wife and told her he was staying in the house. She called back and left a VM that she wanted him out and if he wasn't out soon, she would start taking out her unhappiness on the children and would remind the children that mommy was being mean to them because daddy wouldn't leave."
5."Divorce lawyer here. Spouse had been out of the house for weeks. She waited until he was on a business trip, came into the house, turned on all of the faucets, plugged the drains, turned off the furnace, and left. It was -10 degrees. He came back five days later. The house was ruined. The water froze and cracked the foundation."
6."Paralegal for a divorce lawyer. This one is morbid. We represented a guy who believed vehemently that his wife was assaulting the children. The authorities were involved, Child Services was involved. It was never clear what the truth was or if anything at all was going on, but our client was sure. He shot his wife dead at a custody exchange in front of the children. He then sat down and waited for the authorities. We visited him in jail with his criminal defense attorney. As we were leaving, he told me, 'well, I guess the divorce is over now.' And he laughed. This was the first time I had ever been speechless."
7."Former divorce lawyer. Not so much 'insane,' but unfortunately common — accusing former spouse of molesting the children and domestic violence to retain full custody, and get a restraining order to force spouse out of the marital home. This sets the "new status quo" for custody (which judges are reluctant to disrupt considerably down the road). Takes months, if not years, for the accused spouse to 'prove' his innocence and CPS will often find 'evidence' where none exists if the accusing party is a good enough manipulator/actor. Pretty horrendous long-term outcome for all parties. Kids are brainwashed against their estranged parent when young. Later, they often grow to resent the accusing parent for poisoning their relationship with the estranged parent. Kids often grow up with a multitude of mental health issues. Probably one of the worst things a person can do to their children...all to 'win' against their former spouse."
8."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.) On a related note, I once had just the mother call for a consult because she said explicitly she wanted her son to get a divorce. I politely informed her that's not how divorces worked."
9."Lawyer here. One of mine that sticks out is that the husband and wife both played some sort of online role-playing game, sort of like the Sims I think but a little more elaborate and adult (Second Life maybe?). I don't know anything about online games. The wife got heavily involved with the game, like, 10 hours a day, and wouldn't reduce her time playing no matter what he said. What tipped things over the edge, however, was that he set up a fake profile/ avatar and went online to stalk her in the game and found her avatar having sex with some random guy's avatar. Nothing ever happened in real life (neither of them were exactly oil paintings to look at) but that was enough for the guy to initiate a fairly acrimonious divorce."
10."I work for a divorce attorney now but the craziest thing came to my attention when I worked for the prosecuting attorney. This couple was breaking up and Mister left the house. The Missus went to work the next morning as usual. When she returned home in the evening she found Mister had been to the house and removed his clothing and belongings as she expected. What she didn't expect was that he had also Gorilla glued her belongings together. He glued the tv remote to the table, the phone to its cradle, the couch pillows to the couch and even glued the vacuum cleaner to the carpet."
"She called the police and reported this as property damage. The police went with her through the house documenting dozens of items glued to various things but for days she was discovering random things and she would call to amend or update her report. 'My gd oven mitts were glued to the wall.' or 'He glued the effing sheets together in the linen closet!' I've seen people do and say really awful things to each other but that was diabolical."
12."She was kidnapped in Mexico and he refused to pay the ransom. Eventually, her family managed to pay and she was left on the side of the road. It is not outrageous as in petty but outrageous as how absurd that is."
13."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 worst guy."
14."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. This particular morning the wife was on the toilet and the husband 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."
15."How about a wholesome, insane one? This was told to me by my mom regarding the divorce she got from my dad. They couldn’t settle on an alimony amount. Mom and her lawyer came in with a number, and dad countered with a number. They couldn't agree...BECAUSE my dad thought my mom should get twice the amount in alimony she was asking for and my mom didn’t want my dad to give her that much money for months."
"It took months for them to settle on a figure that appeased both of them. Even then, my mom puts aside the extra above what she wanted in case my dad ever has a financial emergency and my dad puts aside the extra she didn’t want in case my mom ever has a financial emergency. The funny thing is, they don’t know the other is putting the money aside for the other. My mom told me about her emergency stash and my dad told my brother about his emergency stash, bro and I discussed it while talking about what nutjobs our parents are."
16."She spent $42,000 on psychic hotlines. Notable, she then wouldn’t accept any of our offers, and I continuously asked her lawyer to provide counter-offers...shouldn’t her psychic have told her how the case would turn out?!? Lol."
17."My client put his wife in an assisted living facility based on a misdiagnosis, the medication of which caused the wife to be unable to care for herself. While in the facility, my client shocker started dating another woman and methinks began using hard drugs. He used a loooot of money on both of these things. She eventually got off the medication and got better. Suffice to say, she was not happy about what had transpired."
18."My client was the outrageous one, so my heart went out to his poor wife. He had OCD which manifested primarily financially, so he made their lives a penny-pinching hell. 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. Wife finally got fed up and left him when 1) he gave her bangs during an in-home haircut and 2) their daughter was so traumatized by the toilet paper thing they couldn’t potty train her."
19."A husband and a wife were having a very acrimonious separation. If I remember correctly, he was very successful, and she was going after him for an immense amount of money. She happened to be a multi-prize-winning gardener. We're talking about an absolutely exceptional collection of rare and gorgeous flowers, shrubs, the works. After an unsatisfactory development in their divorce proceedings, she came home to find that her husband had ridden their lawnmower over her entire garden, shredding every last stem and leaf into bits."
20."Had a client whose soon-to-be-ex-husband used her email address and phone number to sign her up for every bank, loan, religious, mental illness, and pornographic site he could think of. She was bombarded by people contacting her about her interest in their product/services. He even put out ads for sex partners on Craigslist with her information. The kicker is that she actually went out with a guy who contacted her!"
21."My brother is a divorce attorney. His most memorable case was representing a guy in a divorce custody battle who was accused of horrific child abuse. Very graphic, very detailed depositions from the young kids against daddy. Things looked grim. Then my brother, a failed actor, notices the deposition transcript (done by social workers under oath) contains a question at the end from one of the kids, 'Did I hit my marks?'"
"He wonders how little kids know about acting jargon. He subpoenas the wife's personal checking account during discovery, sure enough, acting lessons. Deposes an extremely sketchy 'acting coach,' and the panicked coach produces DVDs of 'practice interrogations' with the kids, hours of coaching the kids on exactly what imaginary things to say about daddy. He says it was his one and only 'Perry Mason moment' in 20+ years of practice, and Dad got sole custody of the kids."
22."A girl and her mother hired a PI who obtained pictures of her husband and his boss cheating on their spouses in the home of a government official who had been accepting their bids for contract work with the state for years. The photographs also showed them drinking and driving in the company vehicles. By agreeing not to receive alimony, she was able to raid the hell out of savings, retirement, and got debt paid off as well as a general lump sum of cash upfront."
"But then, after the settlement, the pictures of their highly illegal activities were sent to the company owners who promptly fired his manager for wild impropriety and drinking on the job and had the ex-husband submit his resignation for the same thing. The government official also lost her job which meant her employee, who the husband was sleeping with, also lost a job. So the dude got ruined and she made bank. She also got out of a very unhappy marriage guilt-free whereas beforehand she felt obligated to remain in a very abusive relationship due to religious hangups. The thing is, she has to be one of the sweetest girls I know. But man, does she know how to revenge."
23."My grandpa was a family law attorney in Los Angeles in the '70s who had a pretty memorable case. He was representing the wife during the divorce. One day, during some court hearing in front of a judge they went on a recess. In front of the courthouse during the recess, the ex-husband pulled a gun on my grandpa. My grandpa ducked and dodged around a tree for a bit but was still shot three times in the stomach. He spent a few months in the hospital and pulled through. He claimed to be the reason that metal detectors were installed in court houses."
24."Not a divorce lawyer but I worked for a guy who did this: A wealthy landowner lost his home to his ex but not the entire undeveloped neighborhood land that he owned that surrounded it. He turned it industrial and her huge house is now surrounded by factories."
25."Husband inherits about two years' salary from a relative and puts the money in an investment account. Husband and wife live off of their incomes for the next decade, but any major purchase is bought with a check drawn off the inheritance account (nice furniture, a car, electronics, etc.). When they divorced he got EVERYTHING because his inheritance had never co-mingled with the marital assets. So all the major purchases were his free & clear, and they divided the 'junk.' Diabolical."
