42 Tales From The Court When Divorce Feud Went Too Far, Shared By Lawyers And Other Folks Involved

My ex destroyed one of every pair of socks I had. 40 pair. Not a single match.

When I was an intern I was doing my ER rotation and a woman in her late 30s or so came in complaining of nausea and lower abdominal discomfort for the last few days. I did the dilligent history taking and of course, asked her about the possibility of her being pregnant.

She lost it and went off on me...said she was a lesbian woman and had not been with a man for 10 plus years. Yelled at me to get my boss and let an "adult" treat her.

I reported back to my attending and delineated the tests I wanted done. He was like..."I didn't hear a plan for a pregnancy test." and I was like: "I don't think that's needed...she's a lesbian and hasn't been with a man in 10 years.". My attending smiled and said: "Humor me."

She was actually pregnant. Went back to her room and there were two dudes mean mugging one another about to fight. She couldn't even look me in the eye.

False allegations of child neglect in order to support custody claims. I wish it were rare. It is not. One of the absolute worst things about practicing family law is the environment in which perjury is considered completely normal.

A dad finding out that his 4-year-old son wasn't his.

Despite the horrible tension between the parents, when a kid has to go to court and basically pick between two pieces of bad.

Husband had terminal cancer and wife was verbally insulting him and taunting him while he was bed bound. I believe she physically attacked him too, but I’ll never forget her voice on the recordings. Just bone chilling.

(Australian as FYI). Two notable examples: one cretin who viewed his children as a prize to be won. On separation his ex kept their nice car registered in his sole name but also the only car roadworthy to drive their 3 kids around in he wanted to have her charged with everything and anything to get the car back. His attitude to "but she has the kids????" "She can figure it out" sacked me immediately after i gave him my advice

Second was a cretin who wanted the kids after his own severe offending ruined his and his ex' relationship and he lost shock horror. Kids are sadly not doing well sadly.

I’m not a divorce lawyer but a buddy of mine’s now ex wife flushed both of his car keyfobs down the toilet before she left.

Not lawyer, handyman. The house that I am currently working on renovating, when the couple bought the house there were no remotes for the air-conditionings, because the husband wouldn't let the rest of the family turn on the AC "to save on electricity"

So she took all the remotes when she moved out.

In the process of withdrawing from a client's case right now. We were working on custody and he decides to beat his daughter. Admits everything to the police, says even worse about it over text to his ex, facing prison time.

This man, with his creative grip on reality, is still insisting we fight for split custody of the daughter he beat and full custody of the younger. He truly, deeply, does not believe he did anything wrong and it was his ex wife and daughter that forced him to do it.

Can I answer even though I'm not a lawyer? A female friend of mine intentionally dragged out the divorce so she could continue living in the marital home while her husband paid half the mortgage as well as 100% of the rent for his apartment. (Once the divorce was finalized, the home had to be sold, so she moved into a rental for awhile.) I judge her for what she did but have never told her how I really feel.

Represented the wife. Soon-to-be ex husband went back into the house after the split and tore out the last 50 pages of every novel she had.

Then he went into her closet and ejaculated all over her clothes.

I haven’t handled any family case in over a decade. One of the cases that sticks with me that I handled involved the husband who refused to settle bc he was under the belief the wife stole the remote when she left. He would send emails a mile long about how horrible she was and the theft of the remote was the last straw. He’d call constantly about it. I even told him it was cheaper to just call his cable company for a replacement remote than to blow money from his retainer for me to take his calls and review his emails. Glad when that one was over.

Where the wife was awarded the wallpaper and lightbulbs. (… wallpaper was on the walls).

When my parents went through their divorce I was 9, my dad was a bad guy, alcoholic, misogynist, narcissistic sociopath. He cut my mom's break lines twice, once it was when she had my brother with her for his eye appointment, thankfully she had only taken off in the parking lot and noticed, the second time she discovered it when she was trying to leave for work and rear ended a tree. He also came to our house, broke in, and tried taking my mom's life when myself, one sister and brother were at school, and my 2 oldest siblings were home sick. He ran out when they called the cops. He also threatened my mom that he would make her suffer by taking lives of all 5 of us kids and dump us in a ditch on one of his court ordered unsupervised visits so she would never find us or know what happened to us. Thankfully once the divorce was final, he disappeared for 4 years before coming back into our lives with a new wife, and supposedly had gone through substance and alcohol programs.

We had lived in one state since our daughter was 2. She was almost 13 when I finally told him I was done. He never liked living there which is ironic since we moved for HIS career that he quit. He quit everything and told me he wanted to move back to our home state in the weeks leading up to our marriage ending. Well when we told our daughter we were moving she was obviously very upset and he goes “you see your mother just doesn’t want to be in this state anymore”. I was so close to punching him in the face I had to leave the house for 45 mins to calm down. .

Not a lawyer, but my mother was awarded sole care and control over me when my biological father couldn't be bothered to show up to any court proceedings and just signed his rights away without a fight. That really hurts, man.

I will tell you a story of the opposite pov, a (horrible) case which prevented a divorce!

I was with my (then) gf, which I thought was the woman or my life, for 4 years.
Never argued, I always trusted her (I shouldn't, but I would be "insecure" and "controlling" if i was monitoring her moves).

We used to spend the whole day together (except when we were at work), and (it seemed that) we were enjoying eachother's company.
We didn't sleep together for only ONE single night all these years because I was hospitalised with a severe allergy; (Keep it in mind).

I had already proposed and 7 months before the ceremony, she told me she's pregnant!
We were both joyful and started to plan this as either a name-giving/wedding (it's usual in my country), and thus a little later, or as an expecting-couple-marriage, and thus a little earlier.

Weeks went by, we chose the wedding dress etc (you know, invitations bla bla) and I jokingly said: "you know, I am the first from my friend group to have a baby, and we gave a promise to eachother when we were younger (we are all guys) that we will all do DNA tests to our children!"

Her attitude changed immediately, she said she felt pressured etc and she didn't want the child. Stupid me, never connected the dots.
We proceeded with the abortion (it's legal in my country), I PAID FULLY FOR IT, and I thought we would continue our lives as we did before. After a while she decided to leave (as I mentioned we were living together all these 4 years), because she "didn't love me anymore".

I was devastated, helped her move on, while I still had feelings for her.

Many months later a random bartender ,which I didn't know, approached me and apologised to me for sleeping with my GF in a one-night-stand.
I told him he's mistaken, but he described the inside of my house perfectly, and the date he was estimating this happened was spot on the night I spent in the hospital.
(Note, it's a small town, we all "know" eachother by appearance, despite never spoken)


Long story short : I was in the hospital for ONE NIGHT during all our years, she went out, slept RAW by a random dude, got pregnant, and she kept sleeping by my side, eating at my place, and i would have raised another man's kid, if it wasn't for what started as a joke, (I never intended to do a test, i was trusting her blindly).

She never told me...
At least there was no divorce...

NAL, buddy going through one with his ex wife. He is Veteran with full disability and retired. She deceived on child support where she was told to pay him, as she makes way more than him by gaming the system so it be like 50 bucks or something. She refuses to pay it.

An American friend (male) marry a Russian(female). They separated for a divorce and she moved out. She managed to get back for "one last night together", and of course became pregnant. After a paternity test he let her move back in. He came home one night from work, the 4 bed, 3 bath house was completely empty. All furniture, everything, down to the shower curtains and canned goods in the pantry were gone. She was 8 months pregnant. She flew back to Russia and asked for $20k to not have his name on the birth certificate. Oh, they divorced.

Edit- he paid because fighting for custody would have cost more and split parenting would have been rough.