People will do some of the lowest, meanest, nastiest things when they get divorced. These are some of the nastiest we've ever seen!
Ruining the Value of a Car
“Story from my parents who are 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 3 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.”
A Man Has To Pay Child Support For A Kid That Isn’t His
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“Guy was married to a woman who slept with another guy, had that other guy’s baby, and never told the husband, then for other reasons they start divorce proceedings, a paternity test is done, the husband finds out the kid isn’t his, and the courts rule that he still has to pay child support, because it is in the best interests of the kid.”
If She Can’t Have The Cats…
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“She took the cats. He wanted the cats. Looked like courts would give him the cats. She had the cats put down.”
Even The Judge Calls Him Vile
“Handled a divorce between a teacher (wife) and a CVS cashier (husband.) I represented the wife.
For all intents and purposes, the wife was the breadwinner of the family and she supported herself, her husband, and their two children. I should note: one of the children was severely autistic and required intensive (and expensive) rehab and education.
During the process of the divorce, the husband (living alone) sued the wife (caring for both children) for temporary spousal support. He met all the statutory guidelines to receive it. But, it just came off as slimy.
At the day of the hearing, the judge reviewed all of the facts and spent 20 minutes lambasting the husband. He called him a ‘vile creature’ that was everything wrong with society.
The judge then told us that his ‘hands were tied’ and that he was forced to grant the spousal support. But he let everyone know how little he thought of the husband.
As we were leaving the court, the husband just kept saying to my crying client ‘Just like Goodfellas – Forget you, pay me.’
It was literally humanity at its worst.”
A Restraining Order, A Mean Person, A Dying Mother
“Bad separation, wife filed a restraining order on the husband (very common, wasn’t a terrible guy but not great either). A year into the divorce his mother was dying, he asked his sister to speak with his ex-wife and ask to bring the kids to see her in the hospital before she died. The wife never did, instead she went to the court and said he violated the restraining order by trying to contact her (you can’t contact someone through another party).
He admitted it and explained the situation, but was found in breach of the order. His mother died while he was locked up and the wife never brought the kids to see her.”
A Woman Gets Dangerous Revenge on an Abusive Husband
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“When I practiced family law, I often worked with a woman who ran a battered women’s shelter. She would attend court to give moral and practical support to some of our clients. There’s a lot of waiting around in family court in the UK and so I got to hear a lot of her own story. Her husband had, apparently, been a nightmare of a man. She did always say, though, that she often gave as good as she got.
One day, after she’d had another drunken payday beating, she waited until he was unconscious on the sofa and stole all the money so she could leave him. Before she left, she stripped the mattress sheet off their bed. She took a full-length mirror, laid it down his side of the bed and replaced the sheet. Then, she took a hammer, smashed the mirror to pieces and straightened the sheets again so it wouldn’t be visible to her piss-drunk husband when he finally fell onto what was now a bed of broken glass covered by a thin cotton sheet.”
A Man Takes a Hit Because It’ll Worse For His Ex
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“I did some consulting work for two divorce attorneys when I was in grad school.
Their client was a career airline pilot. His wife worked part time so there was a huge income disparity. It was an ugly divorce.
During the process but before the final decree, tax time rolled around. The wife’s attorney calls my guys and says, ‘Her accountant just called. If they can just share their W-2’s and file jointly, they each stand to save about $8000 over married filing separately.’
My guys took that info to the husband. He says, ‘Screw her. Losing $8000 is going to be way worse for her than it will be for me.’ Cold as ice, man.”
Successful Guy Ditches Everything To Mess With Ex’s Income
“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 etc. 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 Senior VP 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..no dollar figure or employer specified. 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 it’s 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 lifestyle 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.”
A Man Uses His Contact in the Police to Scam His Ex
“There’s the typical cleaning out the accounts and running, claiming the children first on taxes so the other party can’t, claiming the other party as a dependent so they can’t file separately, stuff like that.
Then there was this one case.
My client fled the home with her baby after an incident of domestic violence. In my state, both parents have full rights to the children unless a custody order in place. In other words, whoever has the kid, gets the kid. Police will not intervene where one spouse is withholding a child from the other spouse if there are no orders in place.
Well my client had the child for two weeks at her new place when H showed up demanding the child. She refused. He called the police. The responding officer was a family friend of both, but originally a friend of H. This PO shows up and decides to try to mediate the conflict. The PO tells my client something along the lines of ‘let him hug his son goodbye and he will leave peacefully.’ My client was hesitant, but agreed. H took the kid and exclaimed ‘he’s mine now!’ And ran to his car with the baby. No supplies, no clothes, nothing. The PO claimed he had no idea what was happening (yeah right). And since no orders were in place, there was nothing my client could do.
While we were trying to track him down, we got an order returning the child to my client’s possession. He suddenly contacted my client saying he was at a hotel in the area and if she wanted her son back, she could if she came over and slept with him. We sent the police.”
Dad’s Lawyer Does All The Screwing Up
“Dad was a real jerk and mom tried to save him a lot of money during the divorce. They have 3 kids who were 16, 13, and 8. Dad wouldn’t sign ANY agreement my moms lawyer produced. It had to be his idea and from his lawyer or it wasn’t getting signed. Dad’s lawyer was incompetent and sends an agreement that states he will pay $2,000 a month in child support until all kids are 18. Mom tried to explain to dad that it needed to be revised to lower every time a child turned 18. Dad called mom a nasty name during that negotiation so mom said forget it and signed the agreement and dad paid the $2,000/month for 10 years when he should’ve been paying around $1,400/month for 5 years and $700/month for the last 5 years.”
A Truly Horrible Mother
“Not a lawyer, but when I was a kid my parents got divorced. My mom met a guy on the internet and left my dad for him. My sisters and I were all teenagers and being that my mom had never really been around decided that we all wanted to live with him. We all had to write a letter stating our wishes and it was understood that we would stay with him – my mom didn’t even seem to care.
Additionally, my dad had this retirement account from his old job – he wasn’t rich at all and had worked his ass off for everything he’d ever had. When he got hurt on the job he could have sued, but was promised that in exchange for him not suing, they’d keep him around. Instead, they canned him and he left with about $100k (I think) in a 401-k type account that he’d been saving for nearly 30 years.
Lastly, my dad had his house. It was a 3 bedroom, 1 bath brick house that was all of about 800 SF. It wasn’t much at all, but my dad loved the place. My mom couldn’t stand that house and wanted to move for as long as I could remember – that was another contentious subject that led to the divorce. He’d been paying on it forever and when he left his old job, he took out a small chunk and paid it off.
Anyway, their separation is progressing and it’s understood we’re living with him. She was so in love with this internet guy that she didn’t care. He was in school halfway around the country and she was going to move there to be with him; we knew we’d get by just fine. They seemed amicable and it was understood how this would all play out.
The day in court finally comes and instead of what we all assumed, even my dad’s lawyer – she goes to the court with all these crazy claims. He was an abusive alcoholic, he beat us and my mom nightly, he was crazy and no one would be safe in his care. My mom got full custody, she got 50% of his house and 50% of his retirement account. My dad was stunned – that judgement would basically bankrupt him – in order for him to keep the house, he’d essentially have to clean out his retirement account and give her everything.
The night of their divorce I went over to see him. He was almost catatonic – he just stared off into space the entire time and would mumble whenever I asked him a question. I’ve never seen anyone like that ever. My birthday was 2 days away and I asked if he wanted to do something for my birthday and he just answered with ‘your mom has full custody. I will if she allows me to see you.’ I asked if I could drive his old truck to school since I didn’t yet have a car and he just said no, that I needed to call my mom and have her pick me up. So that’s what I did.
And the next day in school, the day before my birthday, I’m sitting in our lunchroom when I hear ‘hey, isn’t that your grandpa?’ from a buddy of mine. I look over and see my grandpa and a cop making their way across the lunchroom toward me. They told me to grab my stuff and in the office, I found my sister there as well. We rode home with them, where we were also met by my little sister and that’s where they told us that our dad had committed suicide, shortly after I left the previous night.
To make matters worse, it all happened so quickly that nothing had been finalized. My mom dropped all her paperwork and legally became a widow and got everything – house, retirement, and his insurance policy. She also got social security benefits for us, a fact we didn’t find out until much later. She basically took all the money and moved across the country with her new man, leaving us to care for ourselves for the most part.
And to this day, when asked about raising us, she’ll spin this story of a young widow, doing her best to raise three kids on her own..”
A Mother Has No Problem Lying About a Father’s Net Worth
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“My parents are currently going through a divorce. Luckily kids are all in late 20s/30s so no custody battle, but basically, my mum is a nutter and is desperately trying to screw my dad over as much as humanly possible. She told her lawyer that he has SO MANY hidden assets, when in fact he has none. She lied and told the mediator that he has a record collection worth hundreds of thousands, when in fact it’s probably worth like £8. She said his guitar collection was worth tens of thousands, whereas secondhand value, like maybe £2k. She wants all of his businesses assets. All of them. She wants both houses. Her lawyer repeatedly reminds her that at most she’d get half of everything, but she clearly doesn’t listen. Then she demanded back all of our (the kids) Christmas and birthday presents from our childhood, like the violin they bought me when I was 13. It’s hers. Obviously. /s. Her lawyer laughed at her and reminded her that’s not how divorce works.
They’re still in the very early mediation process, so it’ll be interesting to see how it goes once they actually get started properly. Interestingly, despite her hollering that it’s all my dad’s fault, she was the one that walked out, and subsequently shacked up with my Dad’s brother, WHO’S WIFE HAD DIED 3 WEEKS EARLIER. Yeah, and that’s why I’m completely no contact with my jerk of a ‘mother.'”
A Lawyer Sometimes Does Screwing
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“My dad actually got screwed by his divorce lawyer during my parents’ divorce last year.
My dad and my sister have never gotten along, and over the years it got more and more strained. They eventually got into a physical fight which led to a CPS report and him getting slapped with a child abuse record (they labeled it as ‘confirmed but isolated’, so he’s not on the registry and you can only see it with certain background checks).
In this case, my mom was OBVIOUSLY going to get full custody of my sister. My mom also wanted to give my dad the house, and his cars, and his money pit of a boat.
Lawyer decided, because my dad is stubborn as heck, that he would string ol’ dad along. Lawyer spent HOURS with my dad trying to convince him that Dad could get more money and custody from my mom.
They did a divorce mediation (so they wouldn’t have to go to court), and lawyer dragged it out for 4 hours. The whole time he was riling my dad up, thinking he could get things like the original down payment on the house, half custody of my sister, my mom’s car, etc. At the end of the 4 hours of mediation, Lawyer told my dad he should take the deal that my mom and her lawyer had originally offered in the first place, and Dad signed that.
So he paid about $12,000 in completely unnecessary legal fees.”
Man Tries to Screw Wife, Gets Himself Screwed
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“Nasty divorce/custody case. Dad was a real piece of trash, mom had her problems too – difference is mom knew she had problems and was trying to work on them. Night, before a hearing, dad completely set off mom. Mom takes a pill (anxiety med of some sort) before court to calm herself down, and ends up loopy. She’s in court, just in a daze. Dad tries to argue she’s drunk and all kinds of other false claims.
Judge ordered drug testing, and mom was clean. Dad then goes on to spend thousands of dollars having a PI follow mom to ‘prove’ she’s unfit. It all backfired though. PI found she was getting psych help for her issues (which actually helped mom), and dad had to explain to the judge why he had thousands to pay a PI but was arguing to not have to pay child support.
The whole situation was screwed up and took way too long, but dad’s case just crumbled beneath him.”
A Women Declines The Advice Of A Bad Attorney that Wanted Her To Fake Abuse
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“Not a lawyer, but I met with a scummy one when I was looking to get a divorce. The first lawyer I met with, who had been recommended by a coworker as an amazing divorce attorney, suggested that, if I wanted full custody, I should make sure people knew the relationship was abusive. Tell my friends/family, make sure the neighbors heard me screaming/begging him not to hit me, document every bruise even if I wasn’t sure it came from him. Thing is, my relationship wasn’t abusive and I’d already told her that multiple times. She never outright said I should fabricate evidence or anything, but she ignored my repeated statements that there was no abuse and kept on with her detailed instructions of how to document any abuse that might happen. I got the distinct impression that she was letting me know how to create an abusive relationship out of thin-air in order to get custody of my kids.
I ended up not using her as an attorney, for obvious reasons, and in the end my ex and I shared 50/50 physical and legal custody of our children and raised them together despite whatever issues we had with each other. I can’t help but wonder, though, how many dads lost a relationship with their kids because of her zealous coaching.”
A Deadbeat Dad Bankrupts His Ex
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“My dad basically appealed custody over and over, bringing in new friends to back his character. This forced my mum to seek a barrister/lawyer to defend herself.
My dad is/was a massive problem gambler – had no permanent home and was pretty terrible at practical life stuff (nutrition, education, etc.)
This forced my mum to dig into all her savings to pay legal fees to keep a child anybody with a sound mind would know is much more capable than my dad.
So in the end my dad basically made my mother bankrupt trying to get custody over a child he wouldn’t have been able to raise.”
A Woman Messes Herself Up
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“Worked at a law firm that was subpoenaed as part of a divorce between a partner at the firm and a partner at another major law firm.
The woman issued more than 70 subpoenas to banks, firms, investment companies — you name it — because she was convinced he had squirreled away $20+ million overseas behind her back. It got so bad that she dug up receipts from 25 years ago to try to put together this grand conspiracy puzzle.
In the end, after she racked up $1.5 million in legal fees, and 7 different lawyers, the judge said that this stuff is ridiculous — there was no conspiracy, and you are not entitled to a portion of this phantom $20 million.
Mind you: this was a major law firm partner who was acting this way. She made millions per year in her career. But she apparently lost her mind.”
A Husband is Crushed By Not One But Two Ex-Wives
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“My step dad has been divorced twice before, both marriages had kids involved. First divorce was mutual, and had shared custody of the kids, second was because he was cheated on and also involved shared custody of kids.
Wife #1 lived out of state, and kept no-showing, forcing costly legal action every time he wanted to see his kid. Wife #2 was initially supportive of him through this, until they had kids themselves and the cost became too much. Wife #1 wanted him to give up legal rights to their kids, and after years and years of legal battles that nearly bankrupted them, Wife #2 basically gave him an ultimatum – give up the kids, or get divorced. He knew that getting divorced from wife #2 could result in him never seeing his other kids either so eventually he was forced into giving up kid #1.
A few years later Wife #2 cheats on him, they get divorced, wife #2 tells the kids it was him that cheated, but to never mention it to him in case he gets angry. Initially they were splitting custody very evenly, but eventually, wife #2 figured out that she would get more money if she was technically sole custodian, and he would see them on that basis because he loves his children. So to arrange for this to happen she accused him of molesting their youngest child, then used that accusation to gain full custody before the charge was dropped due to total lack of evidence. Then she tells the kids that he did molest them, again something he didn’t know she told them for years.
Upshot is that he was forced to give up first kids permanently by one wife, and then second wife had the rest of his kids think he was a cheater and sexual predator, and thus be terrified of him and never truly love him, so she could save face and pick up a larger check.”