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Divorcing An Unfaithful Husband
Professor Snugglesworth
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
It is with some reservation that I make this thread, as I feel certain personal matters, especially family-related ones, should be kept within a tight circle of trusted faces and not anonymously discussed in a community forum, even one I hold with high regard. However, if I can gain any advice or tips from making such a thread that can help alleviate some of the ongoing pain and anger running through my house, then it would be worth trying.
We recently celebrated the wedding of a certain family member earlier this year, as she had wed the love of her life for nearly six years. In what must be an all-time record only soup operas could deliver, he decided to divorce her barely four weeks afterwards.
It started with some long-distance calls (her job has her currently living five hours away, while he was unable to find employment closer to her....allegedly, anyway), where he expressed concerns that he felt the marriage wouldn't work, and that it had to do with various factors on her part. This came as a complete and utter shock to her, but after days of emotional turmoil they allegedly patched things up. Less than two weeks later, however, he called up and spouted the same kind of bullshit, making it very clear that he wanted to end things with her.
Through a series of events, we were able to determine that he had been calling an unknown number with alarming frequency; the days that he would call her to express his doubts, he would call this number shortly afterward. He even called the number the days leading up to the wedding. We soon learned that it belonged to a young woman listed on his Facebook page (whom the wife had never met before). Not only is she a student at the same school as the husband (where he also works, making this relationship doubly taboo), but it turned out he had called her on the exact days he would call his wife to deliver the bad news. Friends of the wife also state to have known about the girl, and that she was very much the type who had no problems sleeping with a married man.
Despite the evidence, the husband has completely refused the claims of infidelity, and has continued to place the blame on the wife for his changed feelings. Obviously, this has been seen as a complete and utter betrayal for both her and the family, and even the husband's own parents and close friends claim they had no idea whatsoever about any of this. Either this is a drastic personality change, or his true colors, but it hardly makes a difference at this point. Even the affair itself is ultimately a moot point, because by the end of the day he does not want to stay married to her, and if he's going so far as to say he went into the wedding half-assed, then he's the most putrid kind of coward I've ever personally met.
Anyway, our family is out for blood, which is understandable, but the biggest priority involves money. A significant amount was spent on the wedding, and the fact that he had even gone so far as to admit that he "had second thoughts" on the day[/i] of the wedding has our family convinced that he is due to pay back some or all of the amount spent (my father is working on a written legal agreement that the husband has agreed to over e-mail, but personally I doubt he'll willingly pay a single dime). There is also the issue of alimony as well as other legal matters. Today we learned via his friend that the husband had allegedly been seeing a lawyer for "the past few weeks" (of which I highly doubt) and that he plans to have her file for divorce, as he believes that will give him an edge in court.
Right now we have a lot of support on our side, including family and friends from the husband's side (which only further proves what an utter scumbag he is). We also have a friend who is a real estate lawyer (and who claims to also work as a family lawyer, and alleges that she can help us) who is offering advice and will be visiting the house this weekend, plus a few shady methods that obviously we can't bring to court but is being used for the sake of giving the wife closure.
I would like whatever advice you can share to help ensure that the divorce process goes in our favor. Whether it be evidence that is legally admissible, testimony, things that we should be looking out for that he may try to pull, anything that could be helpful to us would be incredibly appreciated.
We recently celebrated the wedding of a certain family member earlier this year, as she had wed the love of her life for nearly six years. In what must be an all-time record only soup operas could deliver, he decided to divorce her barely four weeks afterwards.
It started with some long-distance calls (her job has her currently living five hours away, while he was unable to find employment closer to her....allegedly, anyway), where he expressed concerns that he felt the marriage wouldn't work, and that it had to do with various factors on her part. This came as a complete and utter shock to her, but after days of emotional turmoil they allegedly patched things up. Less than two weeks later, however, he called up and spouted the same kind of bullshit, making it very clear that he wanted to end things with her.
Through a series of events, we were able to determine that he had been calling an unknown number with alarming frequency; the days that he would call her to express his doubts, he would call this number shortly afterward. He even called the number the days leading up to the wedding. We soon learned that it belonged to a young woman listed on his Facebook page (whom the wife had never met before). Not only is she a student at the same school as the husband (where he also works, making this relationship doubly taboo), but it turned out he had called her on the exact days he would call his wife to deliver the bad news. Friends of the wife also state to have known about the girl, and that she was very much the type who had no problems sleeping with a married man.
Despite the evidence, the husband has completely refused the claims of infidelity, and has continued to place the blame on the wife for his changed feelings. Obviously, this has been seen as a complete and utter betrayal for both her and the family, and even the husband's own parents and close friends claim they had no idea whatsoever about any of this. Either this is a drastic personality change, or his true colors, but it hardly makes a difference at this point. Even the affair itself is ultimately a moot point, because by the end of the day he does not want to stay married to her, and if he's going so far as to say he went into the wedding half-assed, then he's the most putrid kind of coward I've ever personally met.
Anyway, our family is out for blood, which is understandable, but the biggest priority involves money. A significant amount was spent on the wedding, and the fact that he had even gone so far as to admit that he "had second thoughts" on the day[/i] of the wedding has our family convinced that he is due to pay back some or all of the amount spent (my father is working on a written legal agreement that the husband has agreed to over e-mail, but personally I doubt he'll willingly pay a single dime). There is also the issue of alimony as well as other legal matters. Today we learned via his friend that the husband had allegedly been seeing a lawyer for "the past few weeks" (of which I highly doubt) and that he plans to have her file for divorce, as he believes that will give him an edge in court.
Right now we have a lot of support on our side, including family and friends from the husband's side (which only further proves what an utter scumbag he is). We also have a friend who is a real estate lawyer (and who claims to also work as a family lawyer, and alleges that she can help us) who is offering advice and will be visiting the house this weekend, plus a few shady methods that obviously we can't bring to court but is being used for the sake of giving the wife closure.
I would like whatever advice you can share to help ensure that the divorce process goes in our favor. Whether it be evidence that is legally admissible, testimony, things that we should be looking out for that he may try to pull, anything that could be helpful to us would be incredibly appreciated.
Professor Snugglesworth on
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Peace of mind is all well and good, but doing it right, since there are significant monetary concerns, is fairly important.
I would not advocate doing anything with his text messages. Resist the urge to attempt to guess any more of his passwords.
I would not think that the chances of recovering the costs of a six-years gone wedding (lots of people get cold feet, right? Lots of people say hurtful things at the end of a relationship, right?) are good. Concentrate on the current marital assets, I would think.
A good lawyer (get a word of mouth referral if you can) will know what to do to get the best result for his client. Then, you and the rest of your family can stop playing amateur PIs and start emotionally supporting your relative through what is undoubtedly one of the worst experiences of her life.
I'm not trying to be critical of you or anything. I'm sure you're doing your absolute best. It's just a question of specialization, you know? Right now you're pissed off on your relative's behalf, and you're searching for ways to help. That's great. Giving her husband ammunition by rustling around in his private correspondence isn't.
The best way for you and yours to help your relative is to be there for her to turn to if she needs support (now and, crucially, down the line when people start to get busy with their own stuff and have less time to listen) and to make sure she has the best representation she can find.
The fact that you accessed his private accounts (even though the account is shared) you may have shot yourself in the foot. Talk to a lawyer now and figure out what you can do in terms of damage control if that gets thrown into your face.
TLDR Lawyer the fuck up.
My advice: be there to support your family member but stay the fuck out of their business and probably delete all of this on the off chance they run across it, PA is indexed by google
The relationship was six years. The proposal and planing that led up to the wedding lasted about one year, give or take. They stayed married for exactly four weeks.
Lawyering up certainly sounds like the best option, and it is one the family is talking about/planning to do. It was the belief that because they had "proof" he had an affair that he would basically be coerced to follow up with whatever demands we make (threats about presenting this information to his parents, his job, etc), but clearly he isn't falling for it.
Also, I want to stress that I don't have any real control over what the family is planning. All I can do is offer whatever advice/help I can, but I'm not the one who decides what plans they go through. I admit a lot of what they're doing is the result of heated emotions, but I do have confidence that when it comes to legal matters we will make the necessary decisions.
But timing is definitely a factor, especially if it turns out he has been seeing a lawyer and is already making the preemptive strike. In all fairness though, a lot of this, including the affair, has come as a big shock that none of us thought he was ever capable of. I had my own personal doubts/dislikes about him, but I still believed he was indeed faithful to her, so I feel every bit as insulted as the rest of the family.
Uh, no. Not sure why you'd think that, unless my OP wasn't clear enough.
Edit: Looking back, there is a part in the sentence where I wrote "my wife" instead of "his wife". My bad.
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As a side note, while you can certainly ask if the husband will cover some of the costs, I am very doubtful you could ever force him to pay. Other than that it's all going to be super location dependent.
but seriously. Delete that shit.
But just to be safe, I edited the OP. Also, none of the other things mentioned have been discussed in anything besides text messages.
She just got back home after another face-to-face meeting with Hubby McFuck-Face. Supposedly he got her so riled up that she slapped him, to which he then replied that he will file assault charges against her.
I really believe he's blowing smoke (and who the hell can prove a slap as an assault?), but she's not taking this well. Any of it. I'm trying to keep cool myself, but the temptation to enact on my ugly thoughts is certainly being reigned in.
I personally have never known anyone to undergo such a 180 turn, and I'm beginning to suspect this is the result of psychopathy. On the plus side, he at least expressed his desire to divorce her rather than keep the charade going. The best advice I've given her is that she basically "caught cancer early", and I think that has helped in a small way.
Also I've shared the advice given here so far, and they assure me that they won't snoop into his personal life or do anything else legally reckless. They've also given me assurances the lawyer friend that will be coming this weekend is perfectly capable of handling things from here out.
That's about all I can do, hoping that things won't get worse from here out.
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Tell her to get a lawyer and let the lawyer tell her what to do and when to do it.
I get that you can't make this person do anything, but that's your advice for her. If she refuses to follow that advice, don't help her do anything that has to do with the husband.
She's crying her brains out now, but I believe she understands now that meeting him in person from here out will do no good. The family is also on board, so that should be it for the hot-headed decisions.
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This is a very very poor view to take.
So if he slapped her would that mean it was ok? Who would say that wasn't assault or DV?
I don't give a shit what one person has done but no one has the right to lay hands on someone else in any form unless it is in self defense.
So blackmail is ok?
Not only is this about as shitty of a thing that someone can do, but also its something that can be used against you. Snooping through someones personal accounts and then attempting to blackmail them with what you find? A lawyer would have a goddamn field day with that.
Think before you fucking act, because if you or she or that family continues to conduct themselves in that form his lawyer will most likely bend them over a barrel for it.
Funny thing about emotions: they tend to make you act irrationally, whether you want to or not.
It was a bad decision to make in hindsight, I'm not arguing that, but I can perfectly understand why she would react that way. Having someone you trusted and loved completely for six years and turning it against you is a kind of pain I wouldn't want to feel. I may have said I doubt he will go through with the assault charge, but I'm more hoping he won't. And yes, we did express how he could have easily slapped her back, so yes it was a dumb thing to do. But I certainly understand why she did it.
Actually I don't think they ever expressed plans to blackmail him, at least I don't believe they ever had plans to say "pay us or this gets out". Sorry, but my own emotions are kind of mixing things up here, so it's hard to discern what they genuinely want to do versus what they may have said out of anger.
The hope was that he would admit to the affair upon having the evidence thrown at him. That's all she wanted from him, an actual admittance to give her closure. But he wouldn't give that to her and instead just kept piling up very obvious lies to get around it.
Maybe in the end he really wasn't having an affair, and had a totally platonic reason to call her over 128 times a month (we counted). Ultimately that doesn't really matter: he wants to end this, has been a tremendous asshole about it, the end. Now it's just about the right legal approach to take.
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People don't seem to get that their actions can be used against them, stuff they say and text to people can be used against them. Simply put even if you get emotional that is not a valid defense in court against an assault charge.
And in the future phrasing something "basically be coerced to follow up with whatever demands" you should expect it to sound exactly like blackmail.
The dude more than likely cheated, I don't really care I've been down that road where I had someone do that to me, but people need to take a logical path by lawyering up and listening to that legal advice.
If he wants to divorce as quickly as possible, he may want to admit infidelity, because typically there has to be some reason for a divorce, and absent infidelity or abuse that means a reasonably long separation.
Edit: Also, the stuff about "filing first to get an edge" and "preemptive strikes" sounds like a lot of BS. They were hardly married, so they hardly had time to accumulate much marital property, or accrue entitlements.