The end of my marriage.
I knew it was coming, I just didn’t know how, or how fast.
One night my wife left without telling me, then came back an hour later. She came down to my basement study to tell me that I had 5 minutes to pack and get out. That I would not be allowed to take anything but one suitcase. None of my other property, not my cats. That I would not be allowed back in the house or access to my cats or property until I’d gone through a several month long anger management course AND had satisfied all her other demands and fears (which obviously wasn’t ever going to happen - that was an open ended “whatever I decide to demand next” statement.) Naturally, I refused. Turns out her parents were waiting upstairs to escort me out. I refused to budge.
Later, she told me all sorts of lies about what our marriage counsellor had allegedly told her about me (quite different from what he told me) and how she had been preparing for this day because she was afraid of me.
A few days later, she sat down (once again) with her address book and started going down the list, alphabetically, calling up each and every person to tell them how I was physically abusing her, refusing help and refusing to leave. Only problem there was that it was SHE who was physically abusing me and refusing any and all help.
Then she got stupid, called my sister and told her the same shit. My sister dropped everything and came over to talk to her, then came down to see me. Told me what my wife was saying (noting very carefully that there were NO specifics to any claims of abuse and despite being repeatedly asked for examples, was unable to give any!), then took me out of the house to go call a friend of hers who worked for the County Family Court. The next day, we went downtown and I filed an Order for Protection against my wife. Three days later it was served and SHE was the one given five minutes to pack a bag and be escorted out by the police.
When the court date came, her attorney (her step-father’s attorney, paid for by him) followed me around the waiting room and restroom harassing me to the point where my sister went to the county deputies and advised them of the situation. He’d been told by my wife that I was a violent psychopath, and thus he was trying to provoke me into violence in front of the law. Didn’t work, I’m neither violent nor a psychopath. When it didn’t work, he gave me one chance to drop my charges against her, or face a large stack of their own (false) charges against me. When I refused, I was handed divorce papers.
In court, the judge refused to hear their charges against me because they’d been thrown at me just before we got in the door and I hadn’t had time to find an attorney. Then SHE (female judge) refused to throw me out of our house just because my wife wanted me out (admittedly, it had been her house, but I’d sold mine and paid off over $40k in her debts, more than half of it arrears in her mortgage to her step-father.)
Within a couple of days, I’d found a divorce lawyer. We agreed to mutually drop charges and proceed with the divorce if I was given 10 days to get out of the house.
The divorce took 8 months. Primarily because she refused to negotiate anything while telling everyone else that I had filed for divorce, had “abandoned” her, was trying to steal her house and defraud her of tens of thousands of dollars that I allegedly had stashed away. Eventually, when I finally told the truth to her mother and step father (she filed for divorce, I paid her debts, etc), they threatened to disown her and stop paying for the attorney if she didn’t stop fucking around and settle.
At the end of the day, we agreed on a settlement of $27,500 that she OWED ME, $25,000 of which was paid by her mother and step-father.
Told this story many times here. Six years it’s been. Still the most pitiable event or sequence of events in my life and frankly, I hope it stays that way because I don’t need to experience anything worse.