The lengths that parents will go to make life hell during a divorce, or to just be downright petty, is incredible.
Below are family lawyers who share the pettiest behavior they’ve seen from a parent during a divorce. Check them out! A source to more stories can be found on the last page.
Client once called me with an “emergency.” the emergency was that his soon to be ex wife fed the kid canned ravioli for dinner.
I went to law school for this.
pretzel_logic_esq
The interim court order said that my client (the mom) was not to discuss the court proceedings with the child. During an access visit the child asked her “when will I get to see you again?” and my client responded, “we’ll have to see, but hopefully soon.”
The father then argued that this was “discussing the court proceedings with the child” and tried using it as an excuse to deny any further access.
JournalofFailure
Father wanted full custody of his child. Child was in full mother’s custody. Child has diabetes. Both parents must fill a daily glucose intake measured by glucometer. Every time father dropped the child at moms, he would buy a Snickers or Twix on the way there and feed it to the kid. Then we flipped out the glucose measurings during court. Due to the measurings being extremely high when the child was at moms we were able to get the child to the fathers full custody. I didn’t knew what he was doing. I certainly didn’t advise him to do it. He just bring it to the courthouse and ordered me to present it.
Either that or that time where during divorce a guy had exact knowledge of how many toilet paper sheets his wife was overusing and how many litres of warm water she overused.
Marmot_Dildo_Lover
As an intern, I saw a couple have long, hateful emails about who was going to keep a unisex Armani hoodie. Almost all of their discussions centered on that one hoodie. When in the end the husband got to keep it, the wife cut holes into it which ruined it.
RegularLegsBabyLegs
Family law legal assistant here: A client of ours included a chunk of pork in the freezer in her list of assets that she insisted she get back.
The lawyer on the other side came back with “Respectfully, I’m not going to argue over second hand meat in a freezer”.
RipleyAugust
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My girlfriend is a family lawyer. She had a pair from Eastern Europe who wanted a divorce. Long fight over what the husband’s assets were, he claimed to be living on less than $12,000 cash/year. Wife hired a private detective, eventually found that he was hiding another home, won a big settlement. My girlfriend is really happy (note: she doesn’t get a penny of the settlement or bonus or extra pay; she just liked seeing the liar caught).
But, the wife STILL isn’t happy. Claims the husband is hiding even more money, keeps badgering him with more legal stuff, even though my girlfriend is telling her “You won, let it be”. Then, husband hires a PI, finds out the wife is joint owner of another house with her new boyfriend. Settlement invalidated. My girlfriend immediately got off the record, and refused to help the woman any more.
FrankDrakman
I’m just an intern, but I once was sifting through discovery that our client provided, as he was trying to win custody over his son.
One of these pieces of discovery was a “detailed account of the mother’s timeliness.” Basically, if the mother was late to pick up her son, they would time it and document it. Which would make sense if it was significant. But I’m not exaggerating, over a 6-month period, she was late for a TOTAL of 33 minutes. Seeing as they met to exchange the child three times/week, it means she was late by about one or two minutes once a week. It was the most insignificant piece of data that I have ever seen in my entire life, but the client was adamant that we use it in court to prove that the mother was irresponsible.
AndrewOfArtorias2
In law school I did some intern work for a family law clinic. Most of my clients were pretty reasonable, but when waiting for my cases to be heard in the hearing room, I saw some really petty and terrible stuff from other parties. But one case stood out as the worst.
One guy who got custody of the family dog in the divorce, said that if he didn’t get more visitation with the children he would have the dog euthanized. His excuse was that without the kids there, the dog wouldn’t get the attention it needed and was better off dead.
The ex-wife made an impassioned plea before the judge, showing pictures of the kids playing with the dog and video testimony from the kids expressing their love for it. It was 100% clear they would be devastated if the dog was put down. While the judge was very sympathetic, and tried asking the ex-husband to be reasonable, in the end her hands were tied, since the dog was the ex-husband’s property per the divorce agreement, and he was free to do whatever he wanted, provided it comported with state anti-cruelty laws.
In the end she relented to give him custody rights basically every weekend of the month in order to save the kids’ dog.
To the judge’s credit, she gave the ex husband a verbal haranguing like I’ve never seen in all my years of practicing law since. She warned him that she would be watching this case very closely and would not hesitate referring it to a criminal prosecutor if he slips up in any way either towards the treatment of the dog or the kids. And that if anything happens to that dog, she would fast track a hearing to revisit his visitation rights, and strongly implied the new visitation schedule would be vastly against his favor should that come to pass.
On that day I realized I never wanted to be a family lawyer.
Muppetude
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The worst I was ever a part of:
In California we have certain requirements to meet before one parent can move away with the child. This requirements kick in when the other parents visitation will be materially impacted by the move.
My client is mom. She is a dental hygienist. She has kids with dentist 1 and divorces dad for dentist 2. She wants to move with the kids to dentist 2’s town so she can work for him, live closer to work, etc.
Dentist 2s town is a 25 minute drive away from Dentist 1s town. 25 minutes.
Between the two of them, the two dentists must have spent nearly 400k fighting over a 25 minute move. This was also the moment I realized I made a terrible mistake becoming a lawyer when I should have become a dentist.
Bonus: Funniest thing I ever saw: Rich, breadwinning Wife refused to pay husband spousal support because “Those laws were written to protect housewives! He’s not a housewife! This is insane!”
Thedurtysanchez
The ex-husband didn’t want to pay what he owed his ex-wife. He thought he could screw her over by dragging on the process with appeals. He was not only hurting her but also his children. She desperately needed the money, and he knew that. Him dragging the process caused her to lose her job and have to move back with her parents. But once he paid she not only moved out, but bought a house, no not just like applied for a loan and got a house. Straight out paid cash for a full house. In the end he not only had to pay the full amount of what he owed, but child support, his lawyer fees and her lawyer fees.
abyg9
Parents didn’t let a kid get his college education because they were fighting over who was going to pay it. This includes cosigning on the predatory loans that everyone was rushing to sign up for.
The judge asked why either one didn’t bring this up 6 months earlier when they new he was starting college. Both of them gave the same answer except from their perspective, something like the other parent is to blame because they didn’t tell the parent about the bills. Apparently both new about the bills and the deadlines for the previous 3 months and expected the other to pay for it. The case wasn’t raised in court until after the deadline for the next semester had passed.
The kid probably was forced to take loans on his own, god only knows his situation now. The parents ended up spending the same amount as the tution each in lawyer fees just for them both to have to pay half the tution.
Never get divorced.
b_coin
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One guy was a total control freak. He’d gone to the Philippines and “romanced” his now ex-wife, brought her back to Australia and then expected her to be a slave for him, pop out his kids, etc etc. When she left him, he manipulated her into believing that they would share care of the kids, and they didn’t need court orders – then behind her back he went to court, obtained “sole custody” of the kids and basically cut her out.
Real nice guy.
In the end, he didn’t use a lawyer, so he was completely steamrolled in court – his court documents were laughable, literally everything that had ever gone wrong with the kids was the mother’s fault – and he now sees the kids once a fortnight instead of having them live with him full time. So there’s a way not to do things.
chililily
For my first job as an attorney, I clerked for a state court of appeals. An appellate court reviews all manner of lower court decisions, including Family Law. Every single case that was sent to our court came with a “case file”, that included all the actions that the trial court took in the course of a trial, a transcript of all court proceedings, and briefs by all concerned parties. And, most often, you could immediately know what kind of case you were handling, simply by the size/thickness of that case file:
Usually, criminal cases had the thinnest files – 2-3 inches thick ; a day or two of trial transcript, short briefs by the defendant and the state, and approximately 10-15 motions.
Civil cases were a little thicker, because the frequent use of expert testimony made the trial, and transcripts, longer. And the lack of a constitutional right to speedy trial in civil cases allowed many attorneys to use procedural law and motions in a coercive manner, so there was a lot of paperwork (read Rainmaker). Usually, the parties briefs included a few more issues than you’d find in a criminal case. Altogether, 5-6 inches thick.
This was a death penalty state, and we did have many such cases. These were serious felonies, and trials took a couple of weeks (so very thick transcripts), many required constitutional steps, and required a separate ‘trial’ for sentencing. These case files were maybe 12-15 inches thick.
Then there were the divorce cases. Appeals are not mandated in divorce cases, so my court only saw those divorce cases where the fighting between the ex-spouses couldn’t be resolved satisfactorily by the divorce court. In other words, at least one ex wanted another opinion/chance at ‘winning’.
These case files took up drawers. These case files were measured in feet, not inches. The largest files were those where children were involved. In other words, these people wouldn’t co-parent, and so had to run back to the trial court for nearly every single disagreement: where and how to school, feed, clothe, practice religion, conduct extracurricular activities, etc. Repeatedly renegotiating child support. Repeatedly trying to change custody or visitation orders. Trying to control how the other parent managed his or her time with the child.
And every single one of these court proceedings cost money; lots of money. I handled one case where the father didn’t want the mother to give the child multi-vitamins. Hundreds of dollars in attorney fees over a Flintstone chewable.
These fights were really rarely about the kids; they were attempts to control the ex-spouse through the kids. And what these litigants never realized is that, by refusing to co-parent, they essentially were giving over their parental role to the judge. In their efforts to control one another, they lost all power and control.
tipsana
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I practice law – not usually family law, but I have a case of my own right now.
My grade school-aged son took an entrance exam for a gifted student program. He has been offered a spot in the program, but it will require switching to a different school (within the district) next year if he joins. The program is well regarded in town – one person whose kids went through it described it to me as a “quality private school education for free.”
I have to go to court in a few weeks to argue over whether our son should join the program. His mother – who signed him up for the test, and called it the most important day of his life – has now decided he shouldn’t join it. I don’t know why. She’s made some half-hearted arguments that he couldn’t handle it, and that she’d have to do too much driving. But I suspect it’s just because I’m in favor of it.
This is getting me really down – it’s a great opportunity for our son, and she just…doesn’t want to agree.
OtterLLC
Worked in an attorney’s office for a little bit. Knew about a divorce case one of the attorneys was involved in where the child had been diagnosed with a terminal disease with maybe a few years left and the parents tried to fight over what the child’s “wish” should be for one of those Make-A-Wish type of foundations.
I do know the judge chewed both parents a new one when this issue came up, but ultimately could not make a call on how the “wish” would be granted. I believe the child ending up refusing the wish on account of the argument it caused between the parents.
peevishness
Worked in a law firm dealing in family matters. Couple hammers out a separation agreement over months of meetings, mediation, letters and drafts back and forth. Ended up having to take it to court because they couldn’t agree on who would get the air miles.
The air miles.
odnadevotchka
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This happened in January. Guy was straight out of jail (2 years) and of course at that point, his marriage was rocky as hell. When his wife dropped his kids off to visit (he lived with his parents for parole purposes) the son said his uncle hit him. The father then filed a PFA against the wife and uncle. It was granted. Then he files for sole custody. It was granted. The kids were in his custody for about 2 months before the custody hearing.
Of course, my boss threw me the file and I had to handle the mediation and last minute prep.
At mediation, the father and wife sit angry eyed. Literally, each cross armed and furious. The other lawyer and I discuss the facts and what arrangement each client wants briefly in another room. We come out and our clients are gone. Magically, and praise the Lord, in the course of 10 minutes of me and the lawyer talking, the father and mother made up, made out in the corner of the hallway and returned. The case was dropped.
butterfly105
I have been in family law for over a decade and the most petty thing I have ever seen happen was that the wife from an affluent divorcing family had several trees planted on one side of a fence on the property and the husband wanted them planted on the other side of the exact same fence – about 5 feet from where the wife had them planted. He insisted that we file contempt against the wife for said tree plantings. They spent close to $50k in legal fees arguing over the stupid trees. It was incredulous! I have stories upon stories of people’s pettiness but this one will always stand out for me!
Another REALLY petty one was a dad buying a money order for child support every month but not actually giving them to the mom. He gave us copies of all of the money orders he bought as evidence of the support he paid but she claimed she had never received them. Well that seemed stupid but no he had actually just kept them and then, like an idiot, gave the original months old money order to the mom to pay for the outstanding child support balance. He was definitely found in contempt!! People can be really ridiculous!
LongLegz2