This is kind of more for peace of mind, I’ve asked Reddit but it doesn’t seem interesting enough to rise above the general posting level there.
The TLDR is that my father unwisely married less than a year after a COVID divorce of my mother without a pre-nup. The woman turned out to be extremely abusive (physically and mentally), but my father, being a bit of a roll-over and a bit desperate for love after 40 years of a mostly loveless marriage, went along with her for too long. Eventually she convinced him to sell his nice home, move states, and buy a new home twice as expensive. When he finally couldn’t take the physical abuse (black eyes, ect) he ran out of the house without any shoes on. Three days later she filed for divorce, six months to the dot after buying the home.
Now she’s basically asking for a majority of the estate - the entire house, 1/2 the existing cash, and spousal support forever which is equivalent to 1/2 or more than 1/2 of his annual income. Of course he’s fighting this, but the process doesn’t seem capable of moving at anything like a reasonable pace. She grabbed about 250,000 in cash in various accounts she had access to and has already spent all but 75,000 of it. Her attorneys ignore the temporary hearing orders and do what they want. Her intransigence has already negatively affected his work, as a deal he was doing fell through because she denied access to his files in the home she now occupies (he had to move an hour away to a 100 year old beater shared family home).
I mean, this just seems like one of those Bro-culture examples of ‘never get married’, which is horrifying to admit. Even while undergoing divorce, she’s burning all his income. It seems like there’s a loophole that she can burn through ‘community property’ while divorcing, to the point of bankruptcy, so even if she ‘loses’ in the end, she’s got everything anyway. It’s pretty flabbergasting how bad a ‘bad faith divorcee’ can be. He just gives her 75% now, or he burns all his money fighting her in court (using his own money) so that he ends up with 25% after court costs and expenses anyway.
Anyway, just a ramble. If anyone has some tips, I’d be all ears. Thanks for listening.
Thanks guys. It’s pretty painful watching a guy i love and respect, and who has always been there for me, getting his entirely life’s work torched by a crazy woman who was literally abusive to him for two years. He might well end up (relatively) homeless and broke at the end of this ordeal.
Get a pre-nup. Tell your sons, tell your daughters. Get a pre-nup.
I can’t help because I live in a different country with different laws, in which divorce is thankfully much less potentially complicated than in the US (apparently), but I’m sad to hear what happened and I hope you find someone who can help…
Front end caveat: what everyone else said about this is state law so it’ll vary and getting a local attorney to help handle is the best advice.
The first two things that come to mind are:
Seems to me the new house was purchased using separate funds given the house sold to fund this purchase was separate property.
The 250k will again depend on where funds came from, but worse case it’s joint and in a community property state gets divided. If she spent it all then that just gets subtracted from her half.
I’ve only ever lived and practiced in community property states so I’ve no idea about spousal support business, other than to say not a fan.
None of the above should be taken as legal advice as it’s worth as much as was paid for it. ;)
Hold on… forget about the divorce for a second… if she was physically abusive and he has proof and good witnesses to the fact, she should be charged criminally. He would end up with the entire estate with that as part of the divorce proceedings.
Edit: get a lawyer now. If it’s just a consultation, then fine, but an attorney will have much more useful input.
He of course has as lawyer, but they seem to think it’s just “he said, she said”, even though he has documented photos and a diary. But he never filed anything with the police.
The ‘problem’ (I say this because it feels like making the argument for them) is that because she so obsessively checked all his messages, phone, email and text communication whenever she had the chance, he felt it necessary to delete the photos from his photo stream and send it to, i think, maybe Apple Notes or something, which no longer seems to have a date associated with it. But i’m not sure why his lawyer isn’t pushing this harder. It feels like they’re treating it as a plain jane 50/50 case.
There’s no doubt in my mind were the gender’s reversed we’d be looking at an entirely different divorce trajectory. This seems to me a very clear case of spousal abuse, but there’s little sympathy for abused men when married to a woman.
EDIT: oh, and because, they’re playing out her divorce. Because she filed divorce first, before he did, so she’s running the divorce schedule. He’s also… kind of naive, and kind of has a hard time figuring out what to do. He just doesn’t think this way and it takes him weeks or months of ‘pondering’ to really understand all that’s going on.
The good thing–and this might depend on the state-- is that the amount she can get for spousal support will depend on length of marriage and he’s only been married a few years. At least that’s the way I remember it from my own divorce.
This is not to be ignored. Pictures are obviously great evidence, but even the testimony of you, your siblings, his friends, former neighbors, etc…all of that can be gathered through interviews and depositions to build a case for domestic violence, and make no mistake, that is exactly what this is. When domestic violence is part of a divorce proceeding, even in community property states, it takes on a whole new aspect. Your dad was pretty obviously a victim, and her actions are continuing to make him a victim, and a GOOD attorney will listen to that and act accordingly. If his attorney still insists on treating this like a 50/50 dissolution of marriage then he needs to be fired, another more experienced and aggressive attorney hired, and possibly the first one sued for malpractice (assuming he knew about the abuse and her continuing actions and did nothing to protect your dad or his assets).
I feel for your dad @Enidigm . Give him a hug from all of us.
I’m not a lawyer so I’m just talking about stuff I barely understand here. I’m sorry for your father because the situation sounds awful. My guess is that the statute of limitations has not passed for the abuse. In fact, your father might even be able to make the case the the woman married him exclusively to “steal” his money and that the original marriage contract should be voided. (TBH, I don’t know if that’s even a thing.) Maybe get the opinion of a different lawyer? A $500 bill for an hour of talking through possibilities could save him a massive amount of money. She’s likely trying to push to move fast because she knows that time is not on her side if he truly decides to press charges and lawyer up in a way to calls her out on her bullshit and abuse. He might even be able to have her charged with elder abuse?
First: most of what you’re asking about is a question for a lawyer. Divorce laws vary state by state, but in most states the starting point is pretty clear cut: pre-marital assets are protected, assets acquired after the marriage are split 50-50. Now there are definitely some cases where this gets tricky, assets can become “blended,” but like if your dad is (say) sitting on a $5 million investment account that he had before the marriage, that’s likely his money.
Whatever the laws are in his jurisdiction, his lawyer should have communicated this all pretty clearly, and should have outlined steps to prevent further theft of marital assets as well as the likely range of outcomes & path to achieving them. His lawyer should also be aggressively moving to get his soon to be ex wife sanctioned for e.g., continued theft of joint assets.
That being said, you observe your father “…has a hard time figuring out what to do. He just doesn’t think this way and it takes him weeks or months of ‘pondering’ to really understand all that’s going on.”
That makes it seem like it may not be a lawyer problem at all. Obviously I don’t know your father at all and how you might get through to him, but it seems like if he’s not going to treat this situation with the urgency it requires there isn’t all that much that can be done.
Should note that she can ask for whatever she wants, but in general this will be determined by the laws in the relevant jurisdictions. Which–again–your father’s lawyer should have explained to him. Similarly, in many states burning through community property as the way you say she’s doing is something that will get her sanctioned & could potentially be grounds for walling that property off in a way she can’t access until the divorce proceedings have ended.
My mom’s friend’s kid is going through a similar situation. There doesn’t seem to be anything you can do about it except fight with lawyers, which is just burning money a different way. This guys wife is also abusing the kids too, and saying he’s hurting them, which is extra fucked up.
Maybe there’s some details in state law that can help? I got divorced in MA, and it’s all codified in law here. You do a worksheet, file, and that’s it. No one can haggle. Believe me, I tried. My ex and I made an agreement where she gets the house and I keep my retirement. Judge threw it out. Made us do the worksheet. She got half my retirement. (And the house which I’d already given her)
