35 Lawyers Share the Petty Ways Couples Tried To Screw Each Other

1.

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.

2.

My parents got divorced, and my mom didn't want my dad to show up in court and contest. So she called me and told me to put laxatives in his food so he wouldn't make it. I didn't, and she still hates me for it.

3.

Divorce lawyer. Accusing their former spouse of forcing them into prostitution. Text messages revealed they were actually just swingers. She also admitted to lying in order to "make him burn." I can't wait to leave my practice area.

4.

This one hits close to home because it happened between my parents. We had a family “friend” who was a lawyer and my parents agreed that he would be the lawyer for both of them as a mediator. So, as the assets were being divided my dad got absolutely slammed. She was going to get the house, cars, half his retirement, and an insane amount of alimony. To the tune of like $2,500 a month for the rest of her life. My dad has a good job as a municipal employee, but that was probably 70%ish of his paycheck.

Turns out that my mom and the “family friend” actually conspired to rip my dad off and make it seem like that’s what a divorce settlement looks like. And she was going kick back more money under the table after the dust had settled. Dad just didn’t know how these things worked. So, after some convincing, he finally went out and got his own lawyer. He got a very fair divorce settlement after that. Mom still to this day can’t understand why we don’t talk to her much.

5.

I work for a divorce attorney, and the craziest divorce I saw was when the husband — who had left the home — returned while his wife was at work to not only remove his clothing and belongings, but to Gorilla glue her things together! He glued the TV remote to the table, the phone to its cradle, the couch pillows to the couch, and he even glued the vacuum cleaner to the carpet. She called the police to report property damage, and for days afterward, she continued discovering random things glued together, including her oven mitts, which were glued to the wall, and all of her sheets in the linen closet, which were glued together.

6.

Used to work as a file clerk for a divorce attorney. Our client was trying to get full custody over her child because her husband was “dangerously neglectful of their son”. How was he being dangerously neglectful?By serving spaghetti (instead of turkey) for thanksgiving. I wish I was making this up

7.

The couple wanted everything split right down the middle, right down to the block of cheese in the fridge.

8.

The husband gave his wife five of his nine companies — the ones that owed seven figures in payroll taxes. He had made her the bookkeeper on paper, and she spent decades trying to shake the IRS for the results.

9.

During my first year of law school, a divorce lawyer told us about a well-to-do couple that spent months and months and tens of thousands of dollars fighting over every single thing, all the way down to a single ceramic ashtray. Even after they'd decided on everything else, they spent an additional $100,000 fighting over this ashtray... Well, after a court hearing, the wife finally won the ashtray, and she promptly strode out to the white courthouse steps and smashed it, leaving the pieces for the husband to see on his way out.

10.

The couple was divorcing on mutual terms, and the wife had one child with this husband and one from a previous marriage. Well, the husband agreed to pay child support for both children even though he wasn't obligated to... The judge signed the order, they set up the child support account, and it got kicked back, saying they couldn't have two accounts for the same child. Well, it turns out, the wife had been collecting child support from the biological father the entire time they were married, and she never told her husband! So, she basically tried to milk two fathers for one child!

11.

I read about a case where the wife was trying to take half of a guys business and millions in personal assets, only to find out that the business had been moved into his sons name years earlier, and the guy donated all their savings, millions of dollars, to a children's hospital in his soon to be ex-wife's name so she couldn't get the money.The judge said what he did was technically legal since it was community property and no freeze had been placed on it yet, but was morally unconscionable. Lawyer said in his entire life he never saw a bigger smile on a mans face. He just kept saying "I just wanted to help the children" and smiling.

12.

I read about a top executive at a Fortune 500 company who was caught in a nasty divorce. He was set up for life with a bunch of stock, houses, and assets in many places, and the wife wanted everything she could possible get. Well, the husband proposed that if his wife let him keep everything, he'd give her half of his paycheck for the rest of his life... She quickly agreed because his checks were huge, and he received millions of dollars in bonuses. Well, as soon as the paperwork was finalized, he quit his job and started to work part-time at a sporting goods store! He would still drive to work in his expensive car and was still set for life. But every Friday, he loved knowing that his ex-wife would only be getting about $150 per check.

13.

My dad is a divorce attorney. His clients couldn't decide who would get the Labrador puppy's from a new litter they just breed. The pups are worth $1000 a pop. Well they also hadn't been up to date on their payments. So dad brought a litter of 8 floppy puppy's home as collateral for us to have until they could negotiate the settlement. So much fun for us kids

14.

My cousin's ex-wife wanted half of the house in their divorce — as in, she literally tried to get half of the house demolished just to spite my cousin.

15.

I represented a guy who was on his second marriage. His first wife had passed away from cancer. Well, while divorcing his second wife, he met a very kind, affectionate woman, they hit it off, and they became basically engaged...Well, the fiancé was later diagnosed with terminal cancer, and when the wife found out, she accused him — in court — of killing his first wife by 'giving' her cancer and trying to do the same thing to his fiancé! I wish I had an artist's rendering of the scene, capturing the crazy look in the wife's eyes, her attorney's look of shame and embarrassment, and the judge's look of plain confusion.

16.

I was an assistant at a family law practice, and in one divorce case we had, the wife had started dating someone new who was severely allergic to cats. Well, her ex-husband bought a cat for their kids — knowing that he wasn't allowed to have pets in his apartment — so that his ex-wife would have to keep it at her house.The wife called us, saying that the kids were distraught she didn't want to keep it, and that her ex-husband told the kids that if their mom loved them, she would keep the cat.

17.

He owed her $500 as part of the settlement. He brought two buckets of unsorted coins (mostly pennies) to our office.She took the light bulbs out of every fixture when she moved out, then refused to give him right of first refusal if she wanted to get rid of their dog.She spent a year and a half systematically destroying their business and then expected him to pay her hundreds of thousands of dollars for her share of the (now worthless) business.

18.

My sister and her ex-husband had agreed in arbitration that he would keep the house and car and that she would keep the furniture and electronics.My dad and I rented a Uhaul to help her go get her stuff. We figured the amount of stuff she would get would be enough to get about $10-15K off Craigslist.We arrived at the house to find only an Ikea futon, a smaller TV than they had, an old iMac, and all the outdoor furniture destroyed. We were so devastated for her.She decided she wanted to close that venomous chapter of her life so she just took her losses rather than fight for stupid possessions.Happy ending... She finished optometry school and became an optometrist, found a great husband, and is raising two awesome kids.

19.

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.

20.

I worked in family courts when I was first starting out, and the most memorable case I saw was when the wife literally took everything from the house. She even ripped out the carpets!

21.

I worked on a divorce in which the wife waited for her husband to leave the house on a business trip, then came to the house, turned on all of the faucets, plugged the drains, turned off the furnace, and left. It was -10 degrees.When the husband came back five days later, the house was ruined, and the water froze and cracked the foundation.

22.

Not a lawyer but was a legal intern for a divorce attorney a few years back. Dumbest f**king divorce I ever sat through lasted over two years because they refused to let each other get any ground. I was only there for the last year of the divorce but they argued over who got the Christmas ornaments for 4 months.Pro tip: If you’re ever in a divorce, saying “sure, take it” is infinitely cheaper than your invoice would be otherwise.

23.

Child of traumatic divorce here.There’s so many and I mean SO many things I could post on this thread about how f**king terrible my parents were to each other, but this takes the cake.My parents were separated, in the process of divorcing, and had split custody between my brother and I (we were 5 and 7 at the time). My dad didn’t have his own place yet so when it was his turn to be with us he came back to our house (the one he purchased mind you) and my mom was supposed to leave. One weekend they were arguing over something and it got so bad that my mom wouldn’t leave and told my dad she would call the police (something she apparently did a lot to get her way, which after growing up with her I can attest she did this a lot unnecessarily to control us). So she left, called the police, told them my father was dangerous and had a gun (my dad was in the army and we had plenty guns, locked in a safe of course).Of course the police were just doing their job, and took my mom at face value. It went so fast from my brother and I watching tv with my dad to the police knocking at our door, my dad opening the door and getting pepper sprayed without the cops saying anything, and then my dad locked the door and the cops couldn’t bust it down, so they came around back and broke our sliding glass door in so they could arrest my dad in our front yard with all our neighbors watching. I didn’t really understand what was happening at the time but it was traumatizing for sure.Then my mom tried to get full custody of us in their actual divorce, and thank god the judge ruled for split custody. My whole childhood was s**tty honestly bc all they did was explain very deep and emotionally complex situations to very young children who just wanted their parents to love each other.But yeah, I’ve never quite forgiven my mom for that one.

24.

I worked in family law for three years as a Paralegal. Once we had a client request us to represent them and make them look like the more incompetent parent so the kids would stay with the other party per the parenting plan 100% of the time. The client wanted us to prove that they were not fit to watch children under any circumstances - unfortunately for them the other party tried to show that they were the incompetent one and our client should have the kids 100% of the time.

25.

Watched a 14 million dollar settlement, which took months to achieve, abandoned when the parties came to who would keep the cat. For that, there was a week long trial. Jurors wanted to euthanize them both and take the cat home themselves.

26.

Friend was going through divorce from insane husband. He had been texting her pics of the gun he bought and threatening her. Police were called. Nothing they could do because it was 'only a picture'. He was staying with a secret girlfriend at this point. She allowed him to go get his stuff from the house. She was scared to go back in the house alone. I went with her. First red flag was he had changed the locks. So we waited for locksmith to open the house and change the locks again. Well, when the door opens...we noticed all of the furniture was gone. So we carefully went upstairs in search of her cats. The entire second floor was empty. No cats. No furniture. Even her clothes were gone. Come to find out he hired a moving company to pack and take everything, even the food in the fridge. Finally found the cats. He had taken them to another vet in town and put them up for boarding under his sister's name thinking she would not be able to find them. He was finally forced to disclose what happened to her possessions. He had them taken to a storage unit far away from the home.

27.

She accused her ex-husband of sexually molesting their children while under the watchful eye of the nationally endorsed social workers who oversaw his contact with them (which was only required because he didn’t have his own private accommodation at the time). She also said that his Indian flatmates were inherently “dirty”. After the obviously false child molestation suggestion I warned her of the consequences of being caught lying about that (i.e. permanent loss of custody). She fired me but kept calling back using fake names to try and obtain free advice which contradicted my advice, but everyone she called immediately spotted her. This was a long time ago and now I specialize in insurance litigation, which is far less ugly.

28.

Husband and wife getting divorced. There was a classic car Ferrari, jaguar or something like that that was worth a lot of money. It was a bone of contention in the divorce. After several months the husband finally proposes that he will let her have the car if she gives him the house. She agrees. Come to find out he had been taking the car out everyday and doing loops around the city for hours putting thousands of miles on it making it worth nothing.

29.

Most malicious thing I know of personally involved a coworker of mine. He was sleeping with a married woman, and ultimately the husband found out she was having an affair. Really ugly divorce ensues, during which they fought over a lot of assets, but the real point of contention was their dog, lovely GSD named Orion. Eventually, husband gets custody of the dog, and in under a month, has the dog put down, just to hurt her back for the affair.

30.

My uncle's ex tried to work it in that she would get half of whatever my grandmother would leave him when she passes. Joke's on her, my grandmother is passing over her kids (not maliciously, my uncle is very well off and so is my mom) and leaving everything to my brother and me.Oh, also tried to get sole custody of both of their children...who are in their twenty's...

31.

A friends ex wife and he settled their divorce with her getting the house, a hefty chunk of retirement, all the gifted jewelry and his Harley she had gifted him for his birthday.A few weeks later, a “robbery” occurred and the only thing that was stolen was the jewelry that he had gifted her, which was intended for their daughter. She tried to file an insurance claim on the jewelry but forgot to get appraisals and add as Riders so the max insurance paid was $1,500 for over $20,000 of jewelry. Suspicion is she staged it but is now stuck with “stolen” jewelry she can’t legally sell, nor wear, nor give to the daughter without tipping the dad off to the scam.

32.

Articled at a family law firm, thankfully moved on since.Worst I saw was a decades long case. Husband had been in a motorcycle accident, suffered brain damage. Has severely limited capacity going forward. Got a huge settlement afterwards.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.

33.

I’m not a lawyer, but I work as a legal assistant for a family lawyer. The ex-husband was getting remarried. 1) His ex-wife sent him and his new fiancé a dozen black roses before their wedding. 2) His ex-wife then had a plane fly across during their wedding, dragging a sign that read “(name of ex-husband) likes it up the you know what.” You can’t make this stuff up. Sad part is, she was not well and had been in and out of psych wards over the years. I hope she’s getting the help she needs now!

34.

Our office worked on a messy divorce in which the parties were required to split up some antique pots. Well, when the husband delivered the wife's share of the pots to our office, he [pooped] in each one.

35.

In the first divorce case I'd ever worked on, the husband waxed every single hair off his body to avoid a court-mandated drug test.