24 Messy Divorce Stories Where Spite Became The Most Expensive Part
It’s wild how many people I know who are divorced or have divorced parents. It’s been so common in my life. Luckily, not for me personally. I’m happily married. But when I hear about it, people’s initial reactions are always something like, “I’m sorry.” I actually think it can be a good thing.
Especially after reading these messy divorce stories on Reddit. If it’s come to this much spiteful pettiness over just about everything, especially money, then you probably never should’ve been married in the first place.
At that point, going your separate ways sounds like the healthiest decision anyone involved has made in a while.
1. He Had A Plan For The Car They Both Wanted
“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 one of their summer houses. It turns out he had been driving the car for three hours every day 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 doing that was really something.”
2. Winning Custody Of The Dog Was All That Mattered
“I did have a case where my client fought really hard for the dog, and then ended up turning him over to a shelter. F*ing ahole. Thankfully, the ex-wife received an ‘anonymous’ tip and was able to get the dog back quickly.”
3. His Wife Helped Save His Life, And This Was Her Thank-You
“A guy I worked with got sick and needed an organ transplant. His wife was a match, but he was too high-risk for the surgery. He quit smoking/drinking, got in shape, and was finally able to get the surgery with his wife donating the organ. After the transplant… he divorced his wife for a younger hottie.”
4. Neither Parent Wanted Custody, So The Judge Got Creative
“A judge I met in law school had a pretty wild divorce story. The issue wasn’t the divorce itself, but the custody battle. Both parents wanted the other one to get full custody of their two children (a boy and a girl, around 2 and 4). For some weird reason, they both thought that if they didn’t get custody, they wouldn’t have to pay alimony to the other?? So the couple was in court, both dead set on not getting the kids so they wouldn’t have to send money to their ex, and the judge was feeling stuck.”
“Eventually, the judge decided to go along with what the parents wanted and said, ‘Well, since neither of you wants your kids, I’ll take the boy.’ He then asked the stenographer if she wanted the girl (the poor woman was horrified and refused), but the court clerk, who knew the judge well, intervened and declared she would take in the girl. It made the parents realize they were being dumb and that they did not actually want to lose their children. After a half-hour recess, they had a full custody agreement. The judge was pretty proud of his little ruse, but those poor kids.”
5. He Paid What He Owed, Down To The Last Coin
“I had a client who hated his wife’s guts. He was asked to pay interim maintenance of $3,000 per month. This guy went to the bank and got 3,000 bucks, all in coins, and gave it to his wife in court. Technically, it’s legal. So the wife had to sit and count all the coins in court. Then he said he wanted the bag back. Technically, it’s his bag, so this lady was left with $3,000 in coins and had no way to carry it home. The guy was an evil genius.”
6. The Hidden Camera Footage Became Leverage
“Recent case. I was representing the husband. He had quit a fairly lucrative job to go to law school, so he was essentially a student and stay-at-home dad to his young daughter. His wife was a pharmacist. The wife became suspicious that the husband was cheating on her, so she set up a hidden camera in their living room. Well, she was right. She got footage of the husband cheating on her… with another man. The husband was terrified that others would find out. The wife and her attorney knew this, and successfully exploited it to keep everything out of court and to f*** him hard on finances, custody, and pretty much everything. The wife kept implying she would tell everyone they knew unless he agreed to her terms.”
“I kept telling the guy people would find out anyway, and there’d be nothing we could do to stop her from reneging on her promise not to out him. He came out to his parents, but no one else. Then, despite my very vocal protests, he agreed to about 90% of what they initially asked for. It was stuff that a judge would never order given the facts.”
7. $15,000 A Month Wasn’t Enough
“I once got a woman $15,000 per month in non-taxable support. She began to cry in my office because it was ‘impossible for one person to live off of that.’ I was so annoyed. I thought she’d be so excited when I got her that award. I have found that higher-income families tend to have more money issues than middle-class families. At $60K per year, you learn to budget. At $500K per year, you throw money away on silly things.”
8. He Got The Wine Collection, With One Small Catch
“My in-laws are mega into food and wine, literally traveling the world on food and wine tours, and are part of clubs, etc. They told me about a nasty divorce where the husband was the wine aficionado, and the wife was p***ed off about getting divorced. The husband got all the wines in their extensive cellar, but 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).”
9. Trying To Leave Her Broke Cost Him Everything
“The parties had about $15 million in assets, and the husband had owned about 90% of the assets going into the marriage. Courts wanted to award the wife about $2 million and give the husband the rest, but the husband wanted to leave her destitute. He ended up spending all of his money to fight at every step of the divorce by filing frivolous motions and generally doing whatever he could to be an a**hole. After attorney’s fees, penalties, costs, and money wasted on schemes, the parties’ remaining assets were about $500K. The court awarded all of it to the wife and left him completely broke.”
10. Even Feeding The Pet Sheep Became A Fight
“Outright pettiness makes agreements fall apart over the most minor crap. These settlements shape the rest of their lives, but they are willing to throw them away over bringing the kids to their cousin’s wedding, who gets the mirror in the sitting room, or who feeds the pet sheep (all real examples). Access disputes are always the most vicious. People cry over their love for their children, but in reality, they are treating them as pawns in a war with their spouse. False or exaggerated reports of physical abuse and child neglect are common. Men and women are equally guilty of this, all of whom are hardworking and otherwise respectable people.”
11. He Transferred The House After Making Sure She Couldn’t Live In It
“A couple separated 10 years ago but hadn’t officially divorced. The husband found out that the wife was going to get his house, so he burned it down and then faxed her the transfer of ownership forms. He might be going to jail for arson, though.”
12. He Left His Lawyer To Deliver The News At The Worst Possible Time
“My client got caught cheating on his wife, wanted a divorce but didn’t have the balls to tell her, and asked me to inform her he was filing for divorce two days after she gave birth to their child.”
13. The Dirty Laundry Was Literal, And There Were Truckloads Of It
“A long-running divorce in my county involved a wife who refused to work in any way, shape, or form. The husband showed how lazy she was when he sent his construction crew to the house while she was out of town, removed five or six truckloads of dirty clothes, and tried to bring them to court as evidence in an effort to reduce the temporary alimony he was paying. Rather than wash her or the kids’ clothes, she would just buy new clothes every week.”
14. His Lawyer Warned Him, But He Had A Better Idea
“It’s not that I hoped my client would get screwed; it’s just that he was screwing himself, AND I TOLD HIM HE WAS SCREWING HIMSELF, but he refused to listen. I represented the husband in a nasty divorce case. Custody fights. Protective orders. Subpoenas for text messages. Allegations of infidelity on both sides. Lots of assets in play. The guy had a stereo installation business. Good margins, good money. Legally, it was going okay until my client started giving his wife temporary maintenance payments USING COMPANY CHECKS.”
“I said, ‘Hey bud, that is unwise.’ See, if you treat your business like a personal asset, the court will conclude it should be treated like a personal asset, meaning it should be shared 50/50. My client disagreed with this. He felt it was important to show the court how well his business was doing. As it turns out, the judge DID think it was important, and the wife essentially got a 50% share of the business’s profits. Book-learnin’ folks call this ‘hubris.'”
15. Her Trip To The Police Station Backfired Before She Got Home
“Not a lawyer, but during our custody battle, my spouse went to the police station to make some BS allegations against me. The officers there thought she was drunk, and they arrested her for DUI as soon as she pulled out of the parking lot. The custody battle went a lot better for me after that.”
16. The Search For Hidden Millions Came With A Huge Bill
“I worked at a law firm that was subpoenaed as part of a divorce between a partner at our 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-plus 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. In the end, after she racked up $1.5 million in legal fees and seven different lawyers, the judge said there was no conspiracy and that she was 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 during her divorce.”
17. A Request For One Last Family Visit Had A Heartbreaking Outcome
“During a bad separation, the wife filed a restraining order against the husband, which is very common. He 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 her 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 his mother.”
18. He Was Willing To Lose $8,000 As Long As She Lost It Too
“The 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 called and said, ‘Her accountant just called. If they can just share their W-2s and file jointly, they each stand to save about $8,000.’ That info was given to the husband, but he said, ‘F*** her. Losing $8,000 is going to be way worse for her than it will be for me.’ Cold as ice, man.”
19. The Custody Appeals Kept Coming Until Her Savings Were Gone
“My dad basically appealed custody over and over, bringing in new friends to back his character. This forced my mum to seek a lawyer to defend herself. My dad had/has a massive gambling problem, had no permanent home, and was pretty s*** at practical life stuff (nutrition, education, etc.). This forced my mum to dig into all her savings to pay legal fees for a custody battle that should have been a no-brainer. In the end, my dad basically made my mother bankrupt trying to get custody of a child he wouldn’t have been able to raise.”
—u/Triple6Mafia
20. Even The Judge Had Something To Say About This One
“I handled a divorce between a teacher (wife) and a pharmacy cashier (husband). I represented the wife. For all intents and purposes, the wife was the breadwinner, supporting herself, her husband, and their two children. I should note: one of the children was autistic and required intensive (and expensive) rehab and education. During 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.
On 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.’ The judge then told us that his ‘hands were tied’ and that he was forced to grant the spousal support. As we were leaving the court, the husband said to my crying client, ‘Just like Goodfellas, F*** you, pay me.’ It was literally humanity at its worst.”
21. Six Hours Of Negotiating Fell Apart Over One Bank Account
“I had a mediation that was completely agreed upon. Well over a million dollars were at stake. Both sides agreed to the disposition of the marital assets. But then, after almost six hours of negotiating, the wife realized that one bank account with less than $10,000 in it was going to the husband rather than to her. And the whole agreement broke down over that. She was willing to pay way more than 10 grand to go to trial and possibly get less because she thought it was unfair for the husband to get the money.”
22. They Had Very Different Ideas About What Was Fair
“I had one person who wanted my client to pay alimony for 20 years even though they had been married for only 16 years. I see the opposite situation much more often: the parties have been married for 15 or 20 years, and the higher-earning spouse thinks it’s totally fair to walk away without providing any support to the other and wants to keep all of their retirement and investment funds because he/she is the one who ‘earned’ them.”
23. The Settlement Discussion Got Loud Enough To Bring In Staff
“My client was in her mid-40s and had never worked a day in her life. She’d gone from her father’s home to her husband’s and expected to be taken care of for the rest of her life. The husband worked, but wasn’t making a ton. To her, the idea that she would need to transition into the workforce was so unfair! In our settlement negotiations, when discussing spousal support, I asked her if X would be enough. Her response: screaming in the judge’s conference room and slamming her hand on the table, ‘No! It’s not enough! It’s never F***ING enough!'”
“The judge’s staff and opposing counsel walked in to make sure she hadn’t knocked me against the wall. The case had been going on for over a year at that point, and she still hadn’t considered that she would need to be self-sufficient. It was the hardest case I’ve ever had because I just couldn’t relate to my client in any way. Feminism completely missed her, and having it hit you in the face in your 40s must be rough.”
24. The Papers Were Signed, But He Wasn’t Finished
“A man told his wife he would give up custody of their twin daughters if she would agree not to go after spousal support or ask to split any assets. She agreed, and the divorce was finalized. The day the papers were signed, he went after full custody of the twins, saying that he could better care for them because he had a big house while she only had an apartment, and he made more money, etc. He just wanted to leave her with as little as possible. When the judge wouldn’t grant him custody because of their previous arrangement, he went after one of them and permanently split up the twins.”