10+ Divorce Lawyers Share The Most Bizarre Reasons Their Clients Split

Some of these stories are so weird, they're almost unbelievable.

Elana

• Published in Funny
• May 26, 2020

According to Business Insider, nearly 9% of people in their early 30's have already ended their first marriage. Even more astonishingly, they reported that for people in their 60's over 40% had a divorce under their belt. Marriage is hard work and divorce almost seems like a booming business, with the stats ever increasing specifically for older couples (because apparently, younger couples seem to be sticking it out longer than previous generations.)

It begs the question, "what leads to divorce?" The easy answer is usually financially motivated, but as with many things in life, some of us are more nosy and we want to know what wild shenanigans have led to divorce. In comes r/AskReddit, where recently two separate threads begged the question posed specifically to divorce lawyers: What is the most outrageous / ridiculous reason your clients have filed for divorce? The answers are beyond comparison.

1. Swapsies

I had two couples come to me. They had been friends for nigh on 15 years.

Husband A decided he liked Wife B more than Wife A. Wife A decided she likes Husband B more than Husband A. The reverse was also true, and Husband B preferred Wife A, Wife B preferred Husband A.

The couples had near identical assets in terms of value. They came to me all together, and I drafted two sets of paperwork. Two default judgment hearings were set on the same day. The judge signed all the papers the same day.

A week after that, they all went to a JP and remarried. The husbands swapped houses and they all went about their lives exactly as they had the week before, but each slightly happier.

2. He did the right thing.

My cousin divorced his wife because, after his wife's father murdered two people in a robbery-gone-wrong, she defended him and harassed the victim's family over Facebook

3. Some kinks should be shamed. For example:

I knew a couple who got divorced after the wife walked in on her husband who was rubbing poop from their baby's diaper all over his body...

4. I wonder how this dude is handling the toilet paper crisis of 2020.

My client was the outrageous one, so my heart went out to his poor wife. He had OCD which manifested primarily financially, so he made their lives a penny-pinching hell. Examples: he was obsessed with avoiding unnecessary driving (wear and tear on the car, gas expenses), so he cut the whole family’s hair at home and never let them eat at a restaurant or go to the movies. Weirdest of all: he kept one toilet paper roll on him at all times and you had to get one square from him before you could go to the bathroom. He never gave more than one square. Wife finally got fed up and left him when 1) he gave her bangs during an in-home haircut and 2) their daughter was so traumatized by the toilet paper thing they couldn’t potty train her.

5. This cat must have been super impressive.

Paralegal. A couple got divorced over a cat. Wife called cat Snowball because of white fur and only wanted the cat to eat wet food or chicken breast. Husband called cat Lily again because of white fur and believed it should only eat dry food. These two argued for a year over custody of the cat but did not give a s**t about their human kids aged 15 months, 4 years, and 6 years old.

6. That escalated quickly.

Divorced guy here. I divorced my ex-wife because she decided to be a ‘Super Christian’ that spent hours each day lying on the floor speaking in tongues. Also she would have random conversations with former deceased relatives while doing mundane daily activities. The final straw was when I came home from work and my 2 yr old daughter was in the fireplace eating ashes two feet away from her while she laid on the ground chanting and speaking in her made up language.

7. She sounds like a keeper.

One of my coworkers has been married seven times. One time she divorced a guy because he was 'too good-looking' and she couldn't trust him. Another time she divorced a man because he came home with the wrong brand of hotdogs that she told him to buy. I wish I was making this up

8. Oh, y'all get along just fine? Let's fix that.

I do my student practice at my family's law firm. Young woman filed for a divorce because her husband drank ONE beer during weekdays after a day of work. The guy wasn't violent, doing drugs, or anything like that. He was just a normal, polite guy who liked to have a cold one after 10 hr shift. They are very good couple and argue so rarely that this woman's friends told her to write down everything he did to upset her and re-read it every day, so she had reasons to be angry about.

My mom (lawyer) set the woman straight, told her he' just doing what all guys do and to find herself new friends instead of ones ready to sabotage their marriage.

9. At least she saved on the divorce lawyer.

I knew someone who broke off an engagement because her fiancé kept pulling pranks on her, like buying fake lottery tickets and stuff. In her eyes, he was humiliating her in front of friends and family. It was almost like he was running social experiments on her to see how she'd react

10. A scheme gone awry.

He got drunk at the wedding, she did not like it, and decided to divorce him right after the Honeymoon (which she went to without him). Moreover, this was all an elaborate scheme of divorce-robbery, because the guy was loaded, and so was his entire family....

hey were loaded because they were a family of EXCELLENT lawyers, and he was a third generation lawyer, with all the smarts and experience of his predecessors combined.

Lets just say it did not go well for her.

11. ...Oh

"I didn't like her anymore" - 2 days after being married.

12. This cannot be real.

My client divorced her husband because he insisted on bringing his mother on their honeymoon. The reason? Because his mother was STILL breastfeeding him. Yes, the husband, a grown man, was still breastfeeding

13. What is this, medieval Europe?

My douche cousin told his wife she had three chances to give him a son. Daughter was born first. Strike one. Son was born second. Then they find out the boy cant eat gluten. So my cousin divorced her and has made zero effort to see his kids.

14. Whoopsie!

One of our consults came in because his wife had been proposed to by one of those online scam people posing as the Prince of Turkey or something. She fell for it and was going to give him $45,000 and move to Turkey to marry him

15. This is just depressing.

Colleague handled a case where money was not an issue but the kids were. Neither parent wanted them

16. Poor, fat doggo.

I worked as a paralegal for a divorce lawyer. Case analysis was one of my main responsibilities. I s**t you not.

A recently married couple (of 2 years) broke it off because the husband would not stop feeding the dog. The dog got outrageously fat.

Apparently she saw connection between the dog and future children.

17. Wow, rude.

Friend of mine divorced his then wife because she would only speak French when her family would come over. She was Spanish, as was her family... To add, her family spoke English, French and Spanish, he could only speak Spanish and English, she got bored of being married to him, her family basically talked s**t about him whilst he was there, was only when he recorded a conversation whilst they where there and got it translated he found out what was going on.

18. I'm sure that was only the beginning.

Not a divorce lawyer, but got out of my first marriage because shortly after we got married he decided he didn't like the way I talked, and asked me not to talk when we were out in company unless I "could talk straight."

19. An all out brawl.

I knew someone who got divorced the same day they got married. The groom was dancing with his sister at the reception, and the bride asked to cut in. His sister tried to punch her in the face but missed and punched the bride’s sister. All hell broke loose. The night ended with the bride asking the groom to choose between her or his sisters. He chose his sisters

20. Easy Peasy

Easy. She spent $42,000 on psychic hotlines. Notable, she then wouldn’t accept any of our offers, and I continuously asked her lawyer to provide counter-offers...shouldn’t her psychic have told her how the case would turn out?!? Lol.

21. The 70's were something else, y'all.

My dad was a divorce lawyer. He had a client who wanted to divorce her husband for 2 reasons:

1. He did not have enough hair on his chest.

2. He did not drive fast enough.

Keep in mind this was in the 70's when chest hair was a bit more important.

22. Would you pay your wife's ransom?

She was kidnapped in Mexico and he refused to pay ransom. Eventually her family managed to pay and she was left on the side of the road. It is not outrageous as in petty but outrageous as how absurd that is.

23. Nobody comes between her and her DOGS.

My friend divorced her husband because she read his text messages and saw that he was talking crap about her dogs to his friends. Her DOGS

24. Sounds like something that could be solved with a courtesy flush.

I deal with a lot of divorces at work. I once reviewed a complaint for divorce because the wife always left poop stains in the toilet.

25. Priorities, people. Priorities!

Paralegal here.

Still remember an early case i worked on, man divorced his wife for her Bingo Addiction. 10 to 12 times per week she went to bingo. She was 82 he was 86.

But the all time greatest. two 20 somethings, they were irreconcilable because he kept smoking her weed stash when she wasnt home.

26. "How do you take your coffee?"

I had a client file for divorce because every morning his wife would ask him how he takes his coffee. EVERY morning for seven years

27. There's nothing more precious than good tupperware.

Wasn't the reason but did happen during the course of the divorce. Neither side would follow the court orders. When they had to go back to court they were fighting over a pistol and the man's grandmother's bowls. I assumed for weeks that these bowls were some sort of heirloom or expensive china. When they finally brought the bowls in to swap they were f**king tupperware.

28. He's trash.

Not a lawyer, but did spend six months costing Legal Aid cases for solicitors in the early 90s. This included many divorces.

The most notable one was a woman divorcing her husband because he discovered he could talk to the dead on their honeymoon and then later spent all their money on spiritualist groups.

That wasn't what made it notable. During the divorce, the woman left the house. At some point her husband approached her and claimed that as he was letting the house fall into ruin, it would be better for both of them if he sold the house and split the proceeds with her. She agreed to this without consulting her solicitor.

A few weeks later the husband gave her £5. She asked what it was for. It was her share of the house. He'd sold it to his sister for £10 and kept living there. When she went to complain to her solicitors, she found they'd done the conveyancing for him. He'd deliberately used his wife's divorce solicitors and nobody at the firm had realised.

29. Well, that was rude of him.

My friend's sister was a strict vegetarian. One night her husband gave her fish and meat, but she thought it was a meat substitute. When she found out it was real meat, she divorced him

30. A terrible sound.

Was a loud chewer at the dinner table. He developed a complex & literally needed out as he couldn't bear to eat with her.

Elana