Not a lawyer, but when I was a kid my parents got divorced. My mom met a guy on the internet and left my dad for him. My sisters and I were all teenagers and being that my mom had never really been around decided that we all wanted to live with him. We all had to write a letter stating our wishes and it was understood that we would stay with him - my mom didn't even seem to care.

Additionally, my dad had this retirement account from his old job - he wasn't rich at all and had worked his ass off for everything he'd ever had. When he got hurt on the job he could have sued, but was promised that in exchange for him not suing, they'd keep him around. Instead they canned him and he left with about $100k (I think) in a 401-k type account that he'd been saving for nearly 30 years.

Lastly, my dad had his house. It was a 3 bedroom, 1 bath brick house that was all of about 800 SF. It wasn't much at all, but my dad loved the place. My mom couldn't stand that house and wanted to move for as long as I could remember - that was another contentious subject that led to the divorce. He'd been paying on it forever and when he left his old job, he took out a small chunk and paid it off.

Anyway, their separation is progressing and it's understood we're living with him. She was so in love with this internet guy that she didn't care. He was in school halfway around the country and she was going to move there to be with him; we knew we'd get by just fine. They seemed amicable and it was understood how this would all play out.

The day in court finally comes and instead of what we all assumed, even my dad's lawyer - she goes to the court with all these crazy claims. He was an abusive alcoholic, he beat us and my mom nightly, he was crazy and no one would be safe in his care. My mom got full custody, she got 50% of his house and 50% of his retirement account. My dad was stunned - that judgement would basically bankrupt him - in order for him to keep the house, he'd essentially have to clean out his retirement account and give her everything.

The night of their divorce I went over to see him. He was almost catatonic - he just stared off in space the entire time and would mumble whenever I asked him a question. I've never seen anyone like that ever. My birthday was 2 days away and I asked if he wanted to do something for my birthday and he just answered with "your mom has full custody. I will if she allows me to see you." I asked if I could drive his old truck to school, since I didn't yet have a car and he just said no, that I needed to call my mom and have her pick me up. So that's what I did.

And the next day in school, the day before my birthday, I'm sitting in our lunchroom when I hear "hey, isn't that your grandpa?" From a buddy of mine. I look over and see my grandpa and a cop making their way across the lunchroom toward me. They told me to grab my stuff and in the office I found my sister there as well. We rode home with them, where we were also met by my little sister and that's where they told us that our dad had killed himself, shortly after I left the previous night.

To make matters worse, it all happened so quickly that nothing had been finalized. My mom dropped all her paperwork and legally became a widow and got everything - house, retirement and his insurance policy. She also got social security benefits for us, a fact we didn't find out until much later. She basically took all the money and moved across the country with her new man, leaving us to care for ourselves for the most part.

And to this day, when asked about raising us, she'll spin this story of a young widow, doing her best to raise three kids on her own..

ATLAS schrieb:

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