The Weirdest Thing They Asked for in the Divorce
Your Friday Challenge is to tell CN about the weirdest thing your ex asked for in the separation or divorce. We’re not talking children, time, or real estate here. We mean WEIRD.
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I’ve heard some bizarre divorce stories as Chump Lady.
Like the cheater who walked out on his wife, but not before divesting their freezer of all of her homemade soup.
Or my friend whose freaky ex kept insisting on collecting an old box of vinyl floor tiles. It wasn’t enough floor tiles to actually tile a floor. They were spare, ancient vinyl floor tiles, moldering in the basement. He was passionate in the defense of HIS floor tiles. (They matched the house SHE was living in.) WTF?
Or my cheater ex who kept hoovering for odd things he insisted I had. His tome on West Virginia coal-mining. (A book club favorite, I’m sure.) His uncle’s Bakelite fountain pen. A grill brush. My lawyer asked incredulously: “Is it a gold-plated grill brush?”
Who does this? Clearly, your marriage and family didn’t matter much, but hey, that grill brush is SACRED.
To anyone going through the nightmare of dividing stuff in a breakup, or stealthily moving out on a cheater, I recommend taking photos and making inventory lists. You don’t want your freak circling back accusing you of having things that don’t exist. Or did, but they have no idea where they left them. (Have you tried Schoompie’s. Or up your butt?)
So, CN, what is the weirdest thing your cheater asked for in the divorce?
TGIF!
Mine isn’t what they asked for in the divorce, it’s what the AP asked me when I got remarried.
She is a trained baker and chef.
She emailed me a ridiculous paragraph about how she “communicates through food”. Then she offered to….wait for it….BAKE MY WEDDING CAKE.
Then….then she got offended when I said no!
It’s been years since this happened. The audacity of someone who knowingly helped trash my first marriage thinking it was perfectly normal and sane to want the centrepiece at my next wedding to be something she, of ALL people, made with her two hands.
These people are insane.
She was 100% wanting to poison your wedding party.
Thank God you said it, marissachump!🤣 That was right along with my thinking. What the ever-lovin’ fuck was that idiot thinking NMC was going to say?
Probably something like this:
Yes, please, bake and serve my wedding cake for me, AP! And hey, to make it easier for your possible plan to reenact the scene from The Help, make it a special chocolate cake! Yeah, that’s the ticket.
She was probably pissed NMC didn’t give her an opportunity to wreak some havoc on her (hopefully) happy day.
What a maroon.🤦♂️
This just proves to me that, once people cheat, they progressively start devolving into apes. By most accounts, cheaters themselves seem to rapidly become more knuckle dragging, primitive and aggressive during affairs but then so do affair partners.
Take the the territorial expansion gesture of Betty Crocker encroucher-poacher above. It seems like we hear about this all the time– APs and OWives/OMates showing incredible brass neck in trying to insert themselves in the lives of chumps or squat on chump territory. While it seems like most chumps are completely avoidant of crossing paths with APs as if they could contract neurosyphilis by breathing the same air or touching the same objects, it’s very weird how a lot of APs go to the reverse extreme and seem compulsively driven to get into the homes and beds of chump rivals and encroach in other ways as if marking territory with bodily discharge.
It’s all so similar to ape dominant-egotism behavior and it’s actually funny to read up on chimpanzee aggression and intimidation strategies because the parallels are pretty telling. Regular chimps (as opposed to bonobos) are apparently violently and elaborately territorial and are said to even have a kind of egotism about it, sometimes dominating for its own sake and showing rather sophisticated planning to expand territory. For instance, chimps will use hilltops and high ground for stealth reconnaissance on other troops in order to plan the safest routes of invasion, often encroaching in stages by creeping further and further into enemy territory and then picking off lone rivals over time to send an intimidating message before attempting a full scale invasion. Troops will also gather piles of rocks over time in the hollows of trees in preparation to guard their own territorial borders and also to have on hand when they want to make a territory violation gesture against another troop as a shot across the bow and one of many ways of “taunting.”
Sometimes especially aggressive females will participate in expansionist campaigns and intimidation campaigns. Though most chimp females are pretty beaten down and subjugated, a token few will grovel for amnesty from male aggression and earn a few extra perks by engaging in typically masculine status-seeking behavior like committing aggression to promote the dominance of alphas, participating in hilltop reconnaissance of rival troops and border patrols, joining raiding parties, maiming and killing rivals or punishing troop members who fail to make the proper subordinate gestures to higher ranking males. These token females are also more prone to aggression and dominance gestures towards other females within the same troop, sometimes even killing the infants of other females. Though it’s usually thought that female chimps commit infanticide to cut down on competition for resources and females don’t typically compete in order to mate with dominant males, token aggressive females seem to be more defensive of this marginal “favored” status than most females so mating competition may also be a motive to commit infanticide.
Anyway, this sounds like a lot of OWs. If they started eventually sprouting hair on their foreheads, eating termites and throwing feces, it wouldn’t be a surprise.
I’m saving this, you’re so right. The parallels are undeniable.
NMC– Don’t take my word for it when you can go to the sources. 😉 Evolutionary scientist, field researcher and Jane Goodall successor Richard Wrangham (here in a video interview about human and ape sexual violence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hj5QAIjDulQ) has written and edited a lot on this subject from a decidedly feminist perspective, starting with his groundbreaking Demonic Males: Apes and the Evolution of Human Violence which includes observations about token violent female chimps and relevant human parallels.
The above book is very accessibly written, sometimes even funny and has mind-blowing parallels throughout. Wrangham isn’t merely armchair speculating since he literally hid behind palm leaves observing chimps in the jungle for more than a decade. The book I’m reading now is collaboration edited by Wrangham: Sexual Coercion in Primates and Humans. It’s a heavier read but even more packed with parallels.
I read Demonic Males when my parents gave me the book years ago. The information in the book has been so incredibly helpful in clearing up confusion and self doubt in responding to negative behavior in various people and making me feel mentally resistant to bs cultural messages that I carried on the tradition by having all my kids read it. Now I’m reading the other book partly for my kids’ sakes because they slam me with 1001 philosophical questions about why humans sometimes do weird and awful stuff. I’ll read it first and then assign it so we can blather about it over dinner.
The interesting thing is that my sons are even more intensely interested in issues related to human and primate sexual violence than my daughter because so many of their peers are getting sucked into the sick Incel/Andrew Tate cult which uses all sorts of evolutionary junk science claims to lure in dopey young dudes. Consequently, my kids like to fight fire with fire by getting better science and better data.
In other words, my sons may be especially interested because they’re trying to “resist the draft” into the whole rapey ape bro trend that’s going on these days. I think Wrangham is urgently aware that his work is an antidote to the extremist manosphere bs and it’s heartening to see others attempting the same in different mediums so I have more tools to bolster my kids’ resistance. Chilean filmmaker Pablo Larrain has always woven similar themes into his work (very obviously in Postmortem and El Conde and more subtly in Spencer and Jackie). And I’m currently watching the new series Adolescence created by Stephen Graham. Graham quite consciously squares off against extremist brainwashing in explaining why he created the series (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_EUmsR41cU).
It’s heavy stuff but it’s such a relief to feel fortified and armed with factual observations to counter the ugly retrograde spin and abuse apologism dominating media these days that it makes us all oddly cheerful. So, er, um happy reading and viewing? 🙂
Thanks for the recommendation. I seriously considered writing this same theme. I can’t wait to see how he covered it.
Don’t let me hog the theme, write away! 😉
😄
Total kook.
As others said, I’d be worried about what she would DOto the cake.
but another possibility is that she would make you the most beautiful and delicious cake she’s ever made, and you’d spend your wedding day listening to people tell you how amazing your cake is while askingfor the baker’s info.
Oooh. That would be a very subtle way to ruin things. Very interesting point/strategy.
My FW XW might be capable of something like that. She definitely leans towards the subtler twists of the knife.
For example, she texted me a few years ago that she and her AP, now married partner (ha!) were going on vacation for a couple of weeks to ITALY. I didn’t need to know where she was going. I could’ve cared less. But, she wanted to make sure I knew where she was going. A place we had both wanted to visit when we were together in our mirage.
Insert knife; twist here! But subtly. No overtures about it. But still, had to let me know WHERE they were going.
The only time I felt obligated to tell her where I was going after D-day and the divorce was if I was taking our minor son somewhere. That was it. Period.
Ugh. Why won’t they just leave us chumps alone, now that we’ve figured them out?
But, did I mention that the reason she texted me this info was so I could be there for our son, since she clearly wouldn’t be? Yeah, us chumps are useful for picking up a fuckwit’s slack.
Which was fine by me. I was going to be there for my son. Which is all that really mattered.
It is all so transparent.
Mine once spent the day sending me rude texts. picking a fight, blame gaming etc. I had not replied to a single message. So at 630pm, he sent a final message “If you are going to respond do it now because we are going out for our 6 month anniversaty dinner and I don’t want you to ruin it”
This dinner was with a newer, non-AP gf, but still, he had to make sure I knew where he was going. In the meantime, HE had started the text conversation with me and spent all day adding to it, I had not replied to a single one of his texts that day. There was ZERO risk of me reaching out while he was at dinner and “ruining it”. (Ok, there was a 1% chance because once I knew a properly timed text from me could ruin his romantic dinner, I was certainly tempted, but I didn’t do it)
That is just Bat Shit Crazy
I’m convinced these people have brain damage.
My God, the audacity! That really takes the cake! Pardon the pun. Every time I think I can’t be shocked by their behavior anymore I hear something like this and my opinion of these people just sinks to new levels.
Not really. It’s their monstrous egos on display, being central in something, and most importantly, in this instance, the spiteful and vicious desire to taint your second marriage with a reminder of how your first ended. Fucking bitch. What did she say to express her ‘offence’? Let me guess, she’s demonstrating magnanimity, and you’re a bitter bunny? May she get a dose of the clap, shingles, and unpleasant vaginal discharge. All at once.
I got the Bitter Bunny lol. I should “move forward” for my kids.
The same kids she knew all about for nearly two years that she was fucking their father while he was still married.
Both of them are trash.
Hmm, maybe she planning to lace the cake with just enough emetics to turn the wedding into the mass nausea scene from The Triangle of Sadness?
My guess was a laxative.
I’m imagining whatever substance she planned to use relates to whichever orifice she relied on the most for her poaching and homewrecking proclivities. 😛
I shudder to think what the OW communicates through your food. Probably arsenic.
Exactly, Gah.
Actually, this smacks of Gwyneth Paltrow woo woo conscious uncoupling, we are all one big happy family, and look at me the “bonus mom” narrative. “Yes, I fucked her husband behind her back but I also baked her this fabulous cake!” 🙄
That’s exactly what it was. I’d like to think it was something as transparently spiteful as trying to poison me lol, but it was a whole lot more manipulative than that. Both OW and FW wanted us all to be one big happy family after the divorce. They wanted to whitewash history and expected me to play along with their narrative that what happened was for the best and the divorce was just two people who “fell out of love”.
The divorce absolutely was for the best, but there was no need for me and my kids to be traumatised and put through hell for it to happen. They had choices if they wanted everyone to be friends.
I wasn’t having a bar of being manipulated into compliance with their narrative.
If that makes me a bitter bunny, idgaf 😉
Haha, but how fun to completely side step their preferred narrative by telling people you simply didn’t want the entire wedding party to come down with the runs. 😀
Besides, after reading several peer reviewed studies which found consistently high rates of psychopathy and aggression in “mate poachers,” it doesn’t sound so far fetched and I think anyone sane would rather err on the side of caution by refusing to eat anything prepared by a psycho.
Bottom line is that no psychologically normal person would hook up with a still married/committed person. Even the frantic efforts of some cheaters and poachers to create a narrative that absolves themselves of aggressive motives and especially their attempts to coerce victims into playing along with that absolution absolutely reek of protesting too much. No one genuinely innocent or well-intended ever tries to force their friendship on someone they inadvertently harmed so that alone should raise suspicions of underlying malevolence and a capacity to act on it.
Personally, I think it’s a sign of criminal mentality and I say this from first hand experience while working in the notoriously creepy, rapey, harassment-laden media industry prior to #MeToo. Like every other female with a pulse in that arena, I dealt with some very serious harassment several times, including violent attempted sexual assaults and I even prosecuted two of the perpetrators. What I learned is that it’s the most violent and dangerous types who go on these mega-audacious hoovering crusades to force victims into playing along with this “friendsy” ruse as part of their general “narrative coups.” Consequently, any time I see anyone attempt it I presume the absolute worst about them.
Right? She’d probably put ex lax in the cake or something. No way I’d risk that.
Yes, it is so weird. My ex is clamoring for two old empty file cabinets that are rusted to the floor as well as a 30 year old refrigerator that is rusted over that he never let me get rid of. What is wrong with these people?
Check the things he wants for hidden cash – like the scene in Breaking Bad (or was it El Camino?) where the guy finds mega cash in the refrigerator panels. That’s what I remember anyway.
WOW. I hadn’t even thought of that. Totally possible! Wouldn’t that be a hoot?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUfhFGRKn_Q
Let him be the one to have to take them to the dump!
We had moved 6 months before dday after living in the same home for 9 years. It was everything. He wanted specifically everything he wanted. Then he wanted to come look because he forgot everything we had. He kept asking for my kitchen aid, that I bought on a Black Friday sale in my favorite color. But he wanted it. Therefore he should have it (eye roll). Nope. I made an inventory list and did a tit for tat with it to make it look fair and gave it to my attorney. What a douche. I gave him everything he bought himself or someone in his family gave us, the kids, everything. Get you and your shit out of my life. 2 years later he’s still asking for our family photo albums that I paid for. Wtf?
Mine asked for any photos i could give him. Saying, I know I don’t deserve any. He remarried immediately after our divorce. Ran and kept his life hidden from all of us. Kids included. I asked why would you want pictures of a family you are running from. He said, there is nothing left of my life??? I replied, by your choice.
I had sent school pictures of the kids I did in a photo album, but any private pictures we took I did not send any. He even wanted our wedding pictures. No wY was he going to sit around with his new wife and compare an old life and new. F that!!
There is always some hiden agenda
The photos really get me.
After my best friend split with her abusive, alcoholic ex, he took every single one of the photos and videos of her kids and refused to give her copies. He even kept their birth videos.
They destroy a family and then want to keep the photos?
FRO.
Actually, just as a kindness, in this situation I’d get a representative batch of photos digitized (or otherwise copied) and send them to him.
I happen to be on the other side, in the context of a family rift where my sisters, just out of spite, may not end up sharing with me the old family photos (which happen to be in their possession). And it’s quite painful not to have copies of these photos.
It only seems fair, when there’s a divorce or a different kind of rift, just to share the photos and be done with it.
As I got ducks in a row, I knew he would be wanting to take all the photos. I copied them all to external storage and made photo books filled with photos of only our son and me. If he wants to try to take them, he will have to see my face on every page with our child and no photos of him. I am fairly certain he will not want them as a result. Ha!
Yes, that’s what I did. Anything his ghastly family gave him or me, thrown into bin bags. Come and get them arsehole.
A meat thermometer..
He actually made the request through our attorneys.
..
I’m not making this up..
What the ….?
For the win!
They don’t actually *want* any of these things. It’s just another way of harassing and trying to control the chump, and drag out the divorce process.
💯 when they wanted out of their marriage so badly prior to D-Day, why did they give us such a hard time when we let them out? ( that is rhetorical I know the answers, still it baffles me)
100%
Not so much what she demanded, but when she demanded it.
Between the time that she left to be with her AP and our Divorce being finalised, I asked Ex-Mrs LFTT on multiple occasions whether there was anything that she wanted from the house and never got a response. I also went out of my way to drop off things that were evidently hers (clothes, books etc) that she had left behind when she left. Our Divorce agreement stated clearly that anything that she left in my rental property would become my property as soon as she signed it. She signed the agreement, cashed her cheque from the sale of the house that we owned and I transferred a big chunk of my pension pot to her, as per the agreement.
And only then did she start to demand to come to my rental and take her half of all of the white goods (a 10 year old dishwasher, a washing machine on its last legs and a clothes drier that had seen better days) and our childrens’ christening gown that had been made out of her wedding dress. She also demanded that I take good care of the wedding photo album. She threatened to take me to court when I explained (very respectfully) that this stuff was all mine now and that she had missed the boat ….. she claimed that she hadn’t understood the Divorce agreement and therefore she wasn’t bound to abide by it, although she clearly understood the bits about how much was due to her from the house sale and from my pension.
Anyway, she never did take me to court, as I understand that the Solicitors who represented her during our Divorce wouldn’t take on her case. I still have the clothes drier and the christening gown, but the dishwasher and washing machine died years ago ….. and the wedding album went to landfill just before the kids and I moved into our “forever home.”
I guess that the lessons here are that both timing and tone are important; but I doubt that she learned either.
LFTT
“our childrens’ christening gown that had been made out of her wedding dress”
This idea and image brought a tear to my eye. All of the hope and love of family life in a piece of fabric, yet none in her heart. Heavy sigh.
I had an expensive, timeless silk wedding dress that hasn’t dated since I wore it in 2003. My daughter told me the other day that she was adding “ruining her chance to wear it to her wedding” to her list of reasons she’s pissed off with her dad lol.
I may have that kind of scenario in my future.
When he moved out, he barely took anything. Just some small kitchen appliances and all his clothes. He bought a LOT of new stuff, fancier versions than what we had together. (And what we had wasn’t exactly shabby) I offered over and over to split up furniture, linens etc, so he didn’t have to buy so much at once. It took me awhile to catch on that he WANTED the upgrades. He bought a $7000 flat screen tv, for example. We had 2 TVs. They were less than $300 each and perfectly decent TVs. Why take one of those when he can get himself a $7000 TV. (I think that price tag included a fancy sound bar etc)
He did leave stuff that he would *eventually* want. But he was moving into an apartment and for example, there were “garage type ” things that he’d have no use or room for in an apartment. Power tools, a workbench, skis he hadn’t used in a decade but wouldn’t get rid of. That kind of stuff. He also left books and that kind of thing in other parts of the house. I was so relieved that he was moving out that I was FINE with him leaving the stuff behind. It was all stored in places that I have plenty of room.
But here is the funny part. All that leaving of the stuff happened a year before we even started the divorce process. And then during that process, all he cared about was not giving me a dime more than he had to. He was so hyper focused on that, that he signed a decree that said everything in the house had been split already and that anything left is mine.
Now, I would never hold him to that in regards to the items that we both agree are “his”, that I told him he could leave here until he was ready for. Like all that garage stuff. But I am just saying that by the letter of the contract, he has agreed that everything here is MINE. And it just makes me laugh that he was too stupid to even consider that when signing the agreement. It is also comforting to know that if he ever thinks of doing what ex-Mrs LFTT did, coming back to ask for random items out of the blue? He hasn’t got a leg to stand on. I don’t think he would though,as again, he’d prefer to just go buy it brand new and upgraded.
I think these freaks are telepathic and get some kind of psychic memo the very instant you’re close to meh, have maybe gone on your first good date since whenever, are feeling light and hopeful, etc. Then he may suddenly show up like doom on a stick demanding the crap he left, even things he’s since “upgraded.”
SoOI,
There should come a point when you no longer feel responsible for storing stuff that was formerly his but is now yours and you have no need for.
LFTT
He used things to control me. We decided early on that we’d leave joint stuff until later. Then I discovered he had take. Some pictures that belonged to both of us grr… And I’d asked him not to go scrsrringbgbrough a pile of things of mine which I left on the bed, covered with a blanket. He did, I came up to find the blanket off and the duvet on the floor. No more Mrs nice lass.
He was a hoarder, so much stuff. I started on the mammoth task and started out by taking stuff that was his round. Mostly junk but not my say so to chuck. I got to ‘jkjnt’ junk, again mostly stuff he wouldn’t let me throw away, things like old music centre’s. So I gave them to him, renounced my claim and took them round.
Apparently he told our son that I brought all sort of junk round, well yes it was mostly junk but it was his beloved junk that he didn’t want to throw away. I’m not a storage unit for his junk
The thing he wanted to do as part of the divorce in mediation was to discuss the rest of the stuff in mediation. £200 an hour each.
I said I wasn’t gojng to spend money discussing 20 year old fridges and 12 year old washing machines, old chairs etc, tell me what he wanted and come and take them.
Honestly I could pick up new to me stuff on freecycle, marketplace and in charity shops for £200, which would have been more because he prevaricated and longed it all out.
He had nowhere to put it, I knew he didn’t really want it, the woman he was with had a small fully furnished house, she didn’t need rusty old appliances. It would be just to upset me
Surprise he never gave me a list, and never took anything. I replaced the washer with an almost new one off marketplace for £50, my gas cooker for a free one, , and later when the house was renovated, most things went.
LOL.
She sounds delusional.
That’s so crazy. She didn’t want the wedding photo album, she wanted you to keep it and take good care of it… Wow. That has to be a personality disorder, that is just beyond the pale.
She cared more about the wedding album than she did about the marriage! I know these people are insane but I just don’t get it.
KP,
You jogged my memory about something.
When the kids and I moved into our new house 18 months ago, we decided to downsize as well as replace all of the beds and almost all of the furniture. This entailed a lot of trips to charity shops (we donated everything that still “had life in it”) and to the Recycling Centre for everything else.
When Ex-Mrs LFTT got to hear about this via one of the kids, she rang up our youngest daughter to tell that “she must make sure that Dad doesn’t throw away anything important.” Youngest daughter (who is now more than a match for her mother) simply responded with “Mum, everything in this house belongs to Dad … he can do anything that he wants to with it.”
I couldn’t have been prouder!
LFTT
Good for your daughter! I love it when the kids get it. I had a similar moment when my ex was whining to our son that “She still has access to MY money so she should still be buying me groceries!” My son told me about this later and said he was shocked by his father’s behavior and told him, “Dad, you divorced her. You have to buy your own groceries now.” LOL
They throw away the marriage and want YOU to “not throw away anything important”?
The fucking nerve of them does my head in.
NMC,
The trick to dealing with sh*t like this and not letting it drive you crazy is to understand what is really going on and what the FW is really trying to achieve.
I was pretty sure then (and am certain now) that this was never about the “important stuff that I might throw away” …. it was really about the fact that the kids and I were exerting control over our collective destinies (a destiny that does not include Ex-Mrs LFTT) and taking a huge step towards building our future based around a house that I own and which the kids had a huge influence in deciding what we filled it with.
Her actions were in part driven by being upset that we had really left the past behind us (and her with it) and in part by sheer jealousy.
F*ck her!
LFTT
Good on your daughter, that’s a shiny spine. I’m always so thrilled to hear kids developing good boundaries at a young age, it’ll take them far in life.
Brilliant
KP,
“Disordered” is one of the nicer ways of describing her.
LFTT
My cheater died, so he took nothing with him. The odd thing about all that is I found myself with a never ending supply of coats. He bought a lot of coats then he worked for a big brand coat maker (you would know it) then he started a coat company so he had samples and prototypes. He sold his company to an eccentric investor who ended the company as quickly as she bought it and ALL the recently manufactured coats were shipped to my house. Hundreds of mens coats…coats everywhere. I gave them away to anyone who came near me. I gave them to high school groups, long ago friends of his, janitors at work – everyone got a coat. Even after I thought it was done, there were days I opened sealed boxes trying to go through stuff and yes, they were full of coats.
My “the ex got that in the divorce” story is that of my now husband. He divorced 12 years before we started dating and had a fully appointed dwelling but he had 2 sore spots about things his ex wanted and took but then sold or gave away. There was an antique coffee grinder from Europe and a ginger jar lamp. He would mention them every now and again so I set out to heal the spot. I encouraged him to buy the lamp and then we were in Prague, we set out on a quest to find an antique coffee grinder. We came home with 3 and the good memories of having the adventure finding it. The lamp ended up in my office and the armoire of hers he somehow got in the divorce is in my bathroom.
All I can think of (he took all his special shit with him when he left, including his desk).
All I can remember right now is at the 9 month mark, I bought my own car and turned his caddie back over to him. After a few days he came back saying the emblem was missing. I said you are living in a complex with a high theft rate, I have no reason to think it wasn’t there when you took it. I also said you notice everything, if it had been missing you would have noticed it. He said it cost 100 dollars to replace. I said I am not paying for the emblem, as I didn’t steal it.
He never said anything else, but it is very true that if that emblem had been missing he would have seen it. He was a police officer and he noticed everything. I wouldn’t have noticed, but he would have.
Mine was weird about his stuff. He left so much behind for me to deal with. He didn’t need it as he was starting his wonderful new life! He was weird though. I remember asking him which TVs he was taking, we had 3 (besides my son’s) and I assumed he would take 2. He got all nasty and yelled at me that he was taking the biggest one because it was his father’s day gift. News to me. I never got a mother’s day gift that in any way compared to that but ok.
He took a Starbuck’s cup that one of his APs got me for Christmas. You know, from when I invited her to spend Christmas with us because she had no family and was recently divorced.
Other than that, he was weird about taking his things. I had to pack his shit because he wasn’t doing it and I wanted him the hell out. I let him come back once while I was on a weekend trip to take whatever else he wanted. When I came home, I had to scrape a weird substance off the doors of my shower. It was kind of like dried glue. You can form your own opinions on what it was. He had still left some things behind. Like in a little bin with a couple razors and his soap. Like a little game so he’d have a reason to come back and violate my space again. I threw it the fuck out and was done giving him anything or allowing any sort of contact after that. When I found some important paperwork, I fucking burned it.
You’ve never achieved Greatness until you’ve had a lawyer demanding the return of a Strawberry Shortcake metal lunchbox. Good thing it wasn’t a Dukes of Hazzard….I’d have whooped ‘Ole Matlock’s ass to keep it.
That is so completely random! I just googled them to see if maybe they were worth a lot. They are listed on ebay in the range of $40-$400.(Hard to know the actual worth, someone could list it for $65k but if no one pays that price it doesn’t matter what it’s listed for. ) But let’s say his WAS worth $400. IF he was lookin to get it back to sell it? The cost of the lawyer to demand it back would be more than he’d get. Unless he wanted to use it to bring his lunch to work everyday?
He wanted me to divide several decades of photos. It was in the agreement. Boy, that was hard, but I dutifully packed them up in ziplock bags and sent them via UPS, multiple boxes. I told him exactly how I was doing that to protect them if the boxes got wet. One of my college kids helped me. It took a week in between everything else to go through them all. I also made him a flash drive of the electronic ones.
My ex emailed when the last one got there that he had put all of the boxes “safely” in his garage. He lives in the southern U.S. and very likely the garage was not air-conditioned. If they stayed there, those photos are going to degrade.
Yes, all that work. He really didn’t care about those photos.
Mine asked for *his* childhood photos — not for any of his children. This was corrected in the next iteration to a request for pictures of the kids, no doubt by his lawyer.
And do they ever look at those pictures of their kids? My kids were in college during the split, so there was a lot of family history. They never did see him again after he left. I can’t imagine that he’d enjoy going through those pictures.
Oh, Elsie, of course not! I mean, his lawyer is the one who forced him to ask for them, it didn’t even occur to him.
He left with the clothes on his back and his Dodge Ram hookup truck.
Yet, I learned he was coming into the yard when I was gone and taking things without talking with me.
He took two Italian terra cotta planters from the potting bench, which I had bought years before dating him. I saw them on his deck one day when I dropped our daughter off at his place. I asked for them back. On my own, I decided to go to the local garden store and I bought him two very nice similar made-in-Italy counterparts. When presented with the replacements, his only comment was, “They’re plastic.”
And five years after he left, he called me asking for a five dollar bike tool from the workbench.
Please please trust that they have serious issues which prove an absence of healthy relationship skills. They are finding their own lower level when they take off with the equally disordered side piece.
I read a news story about a divorcing couple fighting over a Beanie Baby collection. There was an image accompanying the article
showing the collection on the floor of the courtroom, the divorcing couple crouched over them sorting them out, like the small children they most likely still were….
Yes, the lack of relationship skills. I’ve shared before that my attorney coined a phrase as a summary of my case, “no empathy and no regard for the law.”
A few months post-divorce, my ex wanted me to send an old pair of gloves. I weighed it because the closeout was going badly and sent them the cheapest way possible. Likely, he couldn’t buy them there. I knew exactly where they were, and it took almost no time.
Later he wanted something that he very likely could buy where he was living. It would expensive to send. I looked a little and nothing. Several years later, we found it and something else he might have wanted, but I just gave them away.
Here it is….
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/beanie-baby-fever-in-1999_n_58af7d12e4b060480e0661fe
His stupid Emmy statuette. But nothing to do with his kids. Priorities!
At first mine said he didn’t want any old photos, including those of the kids. “No one looks at them anyway,” he said.
That was before he demanded them during the divorce.
A photo album of snaps he took during high school and college of women who didn’t know they were being photographed with a telephoto lens. Cheerleader types and such. Creepy beyond creepy when I found it after we were married. I left it outside.
That is so creepy! You reminded me of something. My ex had a portfolio of his art from the time I met him. He had some really impressive drawings in it. I encouraged him to draw many times over our marriage. He was ok, but never at the level of those drawings. I figured he just had been practicing more than and could get back into it if he had time.
While taking his things, I mentioned, don’t forget your art, he picked up the portfolio (which he had for over 20 years and had moved numerous times with us, all over the country) and said “Oh yeah, that guy was really talented.” I said wut? He said, “the guy who drew these, he was really talented. He was a guy from my art class in high school. I never actually told you that I drew them.” Except he did tell me that.
It felt like the scene from the Ted Bundy movie where he writes hacksaw on the glass and confirms to his girlfriend that he is the monster they say he is. Later, I watched a movie where a woman’s husband murders her with an axe. He has a set of paintings he did that she loves and you find out he didn’t paint them, his cousin did. He just passed them off as his own. I had nightmares after watching that.
Ewwwwww! Serial Killer Vibes. EWWWWWWWW.
As I’ve written here before, the court allowed him to come multiple times to inventory and photograph joint property. He sabotaged electrical, plumbing, etc. which could have started a fire or electrocuted someone. Make sure you have supervisors to stay with them every minute. He also went through my drawers.
Despite supervisors, several times to inventory and photograph joint goods, and during one visit, he stole the little lamp my grandfather gave me at age 13. He denied taking it, then I saw it at his apt. during an online court hearing. He had to give it back.
Some will steal, so give them as little opportunity as possible. Through an organization, I got several teams of volunteers to come in, photograph and inventory his stuff, pack it up and put it outside on the porch for his friends to pick up. I had a military officer friend do the same with his bathroom. (It turned out Mr. ED had a stock of alternative Viagara and porn photos, some in emails from his online catfisher.)
Decades before, he moved to this house 6 months before me while I remained, so he furnished it with household goods he bought. I sent all those back to him–the linens, kitchen gear, etc. He picked it, so he couldn’t complain about the division.
I collected Oriental rugs, and although he had chosen two large ones, he didn’t ask for those. He wanted one I picked and bought for Mother’s Day, and my all time favorite. During separation I discovered it had carpet moths and put it in the shed to be thrown out. I put in another one I didn’t care for. When he came with the mediator, I told them to also check the shed. In his list of demands, he crowed (all caps, underlined, exclamation points) that he “found” where I’d “hidden” them and demanded them. I didn’t tell him about the moths, and consider them my parting gift.
“Mr. ED”
At first I thought your FW must look like a horse, but then I got it – much needed laugh this morning!
I saw this challenge and my first thought was “oh,I don’t have anything to add here” He mostly didn’t want to take anything with him when he moved out because he wanted to buy new upgraded versions of everything. My friends cackle at the stories of how he was putting together his new bachelor pad with all these items meant to impress his future dates.
But so much craziness has gone on that I forgot something he did. After moving out, as Christmas approached, he demanded that I give him the family ornaments. You know those custom ceramic ornaments that some people collect where it’s say 4 elves, and you have your family names and the year added? He wanted those. He did not have a tree. Was he planning to hang them at his girlfriend’s apartment on HER tree? Ornaments with my name and his kids? (Not that the gf didn’t like the kids, she was nice to them and she was NOT the AP. But it’s just WEIRD)
I didn’t give them to him. I simply ignored the request.
He never asked for those to be made. He never ordered them. Never helped pick them out. Never checked to make sure I hadn’t forgotten one year. They would just show up on the tree after *I* did all that. I am not hanging them now. But some day my kids might want them and he’s not known for his skill at safekeeping things.
Not gonna lie, the temptation to knock “his” head off every one of them and pack them up, and send them to him was there. But these are the kind of things that 15 years down the road my younger child may want,or if the older one eventually reconciles with their dad, the kids may want to split them.
My ex moved out with sheets, towels, beach towels, silverware, plates, glasses, mugs, the entire living room (couch, lazy boy, coffee table, tv), a full bedroom, virtually all of his “stuff,” even took plastic cups, plastic ware, paper plates, tp, paper towels, you name it!
He literally came to court demanding, among other inanities, “two beach towels.” The man walked away from a 38 year relationship and his three kids, to bang the town pump (fondly called cumbucket in my home), and felt like he just needed more…We literally paid two attorneys, a court reporter, a judge, a bailiff, and whomever had to write the Final Judgment of Dissolution, to hear and adjudicate his complaint that he just didn’t get enough of the family beach towels! The man earns well over $150K per year; make narcissism make sense?!
Klootzak makes over double that and he wants the coffee maker a friend gave me as a gift 15 years ago and the salt and pepper grinders my mother gave me as a gift. He can well afford to buy these items. They just want to try to hurt us and stir up drama.
Did the court look at him like he was crazy? I would have if I’d witnessed this.
The judge acted as if it was completely normal to go through his list of demands, which took about 20 minutes, which included things like lug nuts, my pt scooter boards (he liked using them to move heavy stuff around), a camping spade, “leftover sheets -“ what even does that mean?!, 1/2 of the clamps I was using to make cabinets, a bicycle lock (each kid’s bike had one), a 27 year old sleeping bag I bought for $25, and so much more…She got to the end, and said, “do you want anything?” I asked to get back the present I had custom-made for his birthday before I figured out what he was up to behind my back and served him with the divorce suit; he shouted at her that it had “immense sentimental value to him.” The judge awarded it to me with an Order on Valentine’s Day. It is a necklace and was returned covered in what looked like hash tar. I cleaned it up, cleared it’s energy, and I wear it proudly, at every pick-up/drop-off 🤣🤣🤣
An old grill pan and HBC towels. 🤦♀️
FW didn’t ask for anything. He didn’t even want any family photos, including photos of his side of the family. He has no real emotional connection to the people, so of course he wouldn’t want pictures of them.
He was the one who cleaned out the family home and he dropped everything off at my place, with one exception. He kept all my old record albums and the albums he apparently “borrowed” (without asking) from my brother twenty years ago and never returned.
He does not even have an LP player. Yeah, that’s weird.
A cheap, 3/4 scale student violin.
She had this before we were married, but never learned to play it. Neither of us had seen it for at least a decade. I didn’t want it, but couldn’t find it anywhere. Her attorney included it in property request. She badgered me for it, even after the divorce was final and she signed quit claim on the house and contents. I think she gave it away earlier and just forgot.
Half of the cloth grocery bags. Exactly half! He would count them and make sure!
My parents and I packed up at least half of the grocery bags for him, rolling our eyes the whole time.
He also insisted on half of the kids toys…which he never unpacked, they just didn’t have toys at his house for the longest time. 😔
Our nightmare divorce came down to this: my XW refused to sign unless she got my Lazy-Boy chair. That is correct.
I was appalled. This was a Father’s Day gift from her and our children (5 and 9) and it was known as “Daddy’s Chair.” No way could I tolerate AP siting in that chair.
My attorney prevailed upon me (from an infuriatingly logical perspective) and I gave in. Whatever. Take the chair. It’s just a chair. Just sign the paperwork.
A few weeks later what had she put on the sidewalk as trash? Yup, my chair.
I should note that after I agreed to her cruel demand, with screwdriver and wrench I carefully removed every nut and bolt so it would be unusable. Immature, I suppose, but necessary. I do not know if she realized prior to throwing it out (or possibly she threw it out because of this) that should her AP ever attempt to sit in it, it would collapse—as her relationship with AP inevitably did.
” I carefully removed every nut and bolt” Genius!
Ex FW wanted me to buy him out of marital home and he would pay me rent to store all his junk and project (non-running) cars.
He thought he’d pack a suitcase full of cash and just leave. Nope.
All of these finally spoken aloud plans reveal just how little they care for chumps or marriages. It is an insight into where they put their mental energy.
He wanted copies of all my photos and albums – including my childhood photos. When I asked him why he claimed “Because you are the love of my life!” WTF. How do you treat the people you don’t love???
I said no.
More prosaically, he also wanted to keep all our rental properties, and wanted the court to order me to stay on the mortgages (which were obtained based on my income and my credit). That didn’t work out.
When mine called to say he wanted a divorce (real classy, that), he also said I was the “love of his life” and that he would never, ever date or remarry.
It was then that I was glad that it was a phone call. I muted it and laughed.
The last time I saw my ex he said that he wasn’t going to date or be in a relationship for a long while because it felt “too icky”. I laughed in his face and said that being married hadn’t stopped him from dating, so being divorced shouldn’t slow him down at all.
A big pyrex mixing bowl. The kind they started making in the 50s, with a white interior and a colored exterior. We had two of them, one (yellow), probably from the 50s or 60s that he’d inherited from his mother, who died the year before we were married, and one (orangish exterior) that had been given to me by my aunt as a wedding shower present. He had already said he wanted everything of his mother’s that had come into the marriage, and insisted both of these bowls had been his mother’s. I didn’t fight him on it.
When my mom died in 2022, I inherited her yellow pyrex mixing bowl–which I used just
yesterday to make a batch of oatmeal cookies.
Rhubarb.
He, who has never baked or cooked a thing in his life, couldn’t live without half the rhubarb plants.
My decree included me staying in the family home until the youngest graduated high school, with FW paying half the mortgage and expenses. The home was costly and within a month of the divorce being finalized I realized it gave an unwanted avenue of communication and control to FW over me so I quickly moved to sell it. My lawyer missed that the decree allowed him to pick over household items at the time of sale so that was super fun. But the weirdest fight we had was over a hand truck.
After everything was divided and being moved he asked to borrow what was now my hand truck to get his furniture out. I lent it to him but never got it back. When I asked for its return it set off the stupidest fight and his offers to “share” the hand truck going forward. I told him to KEEP. IT.
Other weird thing he asked for prior was an antique swan figurine my grandmother bought me before she died when I was ten. When she knew she was terminal she took me to an antique store, gave me a ten dollar bill and said I could get whatever I wanted. I have treasured that swan every day. FW was convinced it was his. He had a cheap swan figurine from his great aunt and I always displayed them together. It meant nothing to him but I thought it was meaningful that we both had swans. The things they try to rewrite!!!
I use a basket when I go to the farmers’ market and had just bought a new one as the old one finally died on me. When I came home from work I saw he was loading stuff up in his car and that he had taken my Jamie Oliver cookbooks (he doesn’t cook) AND my brand new basket. I marched straight up to the car and took them both out. I’d also bought myself a beautiful patchwork bedcover and realized sometime later that he must have taken it. I’m guessing Schmoopie took it with her when she left him a couple of years later, BUT I had the matching pillowcases! He was also ADAMANT that he take a picture of my mom as a young girl, swearing blind that it was his mom. My brother had found it and made copies for all us brothers and sisters! So I had him hold that picture up to the camera when he was on the phone with his mom and she confirmed that it wasn’t her! He really is such a dipshit!
“He was also ADAMANT that he take a picture of my mom as a young girl, swearing blind that it was his mom.”
Oh mygosh…this just cracks me up. These utter MORONS.
And your new BASKET? WTH is wrong with them?
I didn’t want any of our house’s contents because for me it was all tainted by the dessecration. Of course she’s had to take fuckboy in to screw her all over our home because it is soooo sexy to get porked by a stranger while staring at your family photos and your kids toys! Sick, perverted, depraved monsters… I refurbished my new home from scratch, and had to buy new toys for our kids, because she is not a huge fan of sharing. Even some of our kids’ collectible toys I had been buying for some years then remained in her possesion. Same for the kids’ clothes. This is something of an annoyance even today, because she is very prickly about clothes that sometimes stay in my house (because dirty and I had no time to do laundry as per the hostage drop). I have been accused a number of times of being hoarding our kids clothes and one time was called a thief in front of them. Bless her heart. Oh, and she always sends back the clothes the kids are wearing when I drop then at the viper’s nest with a passive-agressive twist. The clothes I buy are garbage, because I think Calvin Klein undewear not to be a must-have for pre-adolescents. In fact, I am frequently accused of not buying clothes for our sons because the brands I choose apparently don’t count as proper attire. But she manages to have brand clothes donated to our sons by her slightly older nephews that live in the US and whose parents are well-off, so it’s her that doesn’t buy clothes. Talk projection.
All the more absurd, she’s got herself a very advantageous settlement, as I refrained from mentioning adultery in the proceedings, didn’t push for financial disclosure in order to reclaim monies diverted for the affair’s sake (and I know by her own admission that fuckboy extorted her) and she also breezed away totally off the hook regarding any of our children school and health expenses. Nevertheless, she fought to the very end for something not material: my family name. She wanted to keep signing my name, whatever the fuckedup reason she concocted for it in that precious mind of hers.
She pestered me for months into giving in, and so I did. Oddly enough, at the last minute of our divorce hearings she drop the claim all by herself and uttered this nonsense: “congratulations, *, you have your vengeange”. In front of the judge and both our attorneys, mind you. Go figure.
After the divorce she asked to keep our wedding rings (I bet she pawned them). Years later, when she’s got wind that I had a girlfriend (she stalked the living shit out of both of us and ultimately used the kids to triangulate), she demanded all our family photos and the artwork our children painted depicting our intact family when they where younger. She said my girlfriend and I were going to destroy them (what the fuck?).
These people are sick, demented, ridiculous and frankly hilarious. Someone said the difference between tragedy and comedy is just a matter or time. Thanks God the time has come to laugh my ass off from this shit.
I am still trying to make sense of the things that she took when she left.
She took some of MY wall art and left some of her own.
She took random gifts back from me and left other ones that I got her. I never did get my ring back (was just going to chuck it into the ocean-pretty sure she lost it though)
She left appliances she was adamant that we should have but never actually used much (I think there are like 3 mismatched blenders?)
She demanded a new living room set. It was my last Christmas gift to her. She left that behind. (So much the better-I love that chair).
I have not gotten any “things are missing”s from her or demands for same-all lost and mostly replaced on my end. As I stated in a previous post I found something from her childhood that I am going to mail to my ex-mother-in-law and be done with it.
And as recently stated-it got back to me (got some Switzerland activity I wasn’t aware of…) that she regrets not taking the cat and misses him terribly. I love the little beast, so one more for the Bad Guys!
Have a Fuckwit Free Friday!
I’m glad for you that you got the cat!
Kegel weights.
She insisted that I had them and her exercise ball.
Nevermind that she blew up in Victorian fan fluttering vapors when I got her the kegel weights “you’re disgusting! How dare you, how dare you!”, they suddenly were all the rage when her cousin was plugging related meat into holes.
But the exercise ball and kegel weights were together, she constantly mocked me for locking doors, and when she moved an entire tub of her things got stolen at the place she went.
So I returned her mockery of locked doors.
Missing tub, and voila: Matt MUST have the exercise ball and kegel weights.
Oh, and she asks for things that I know she threw out.
I’d asked her a few times “you sure you want to throw those out?” and she’d say yeah.
Then she’s asking if I have her puzzles.
The same puzzles she threw out.
Glassware she not only threw out but broke on purpose when she threw it out.
Oddly, she left her deceased daughters watch and has never asked for it.
That one I don’t understand.
Guess her child accessory wasn’t as important to her as she claimed.
What he wanted was not a material thing, and maybe not even weird, but so sad. During negotiations he wanted it stated in the MSA that i be required to facilitate communication between him and our adult children. I refused on the grounds that he could call them his damned self. That poor bastard.
A little history: when I met FW, he was driving his mother’s car. After we married, he took over my car. He always wanted to be the driver. Every car thereafter was bought by me, driven by him. After D-day, I bought a car just for me. I needed it for work. Well, in the settlement negotiations, he said he wanted my car. I said no way. He refused to sign the settlement unless my mom gave him *her* car. We were sitting there, the clock ticking on two lawyers and a mediator, and I had to call her and ask her to give him her car.
Of course, I got to hear my mom complain about that every single day for the rest of her life. The irony is that he couldn’t register it. He contacted me and said my mom had some special registration for old people, her car had been grandfathered in, and it wouldn’t pass the new emissions standards.
I told him it wasn’t my problem.
I don’t understand how he can ask for your mom’s car and the lawyers let that even be on the table?
It was a settlement mediation, not the actual divorce. He had also refused to move out, and I had no legal recourse to get him out, because he was on the deed. So moving out was part of the settlement.
Wait, I don’t understand, how the hell did he claim ownership of your mother’s car? Am I reading this right?
He refused to sign the settlement until he got her car. I wanted him out of my house asap, and it was the only way.
He’s insane and I can see why you wanted to get rid of him! I didn’t know you could randomly ask for a 3rd party’s property in a divorce mediation, that’s crazy.
The champagne glasses we received as a wedding present.
It’s not that these flutes reminded him of me or of our beautiful mirage (thanks, VH). Just days before he’d tossed our wedding album in the trash—a literal metaphor for what he did to our mirage.
I can only imagine that he and the AP had used those champagne flutes to share a loving toast while I was out of the house. That’s what those glasses meant to him: a symbol of their love. And he wanted me to know that he intended to use those to celebrate with her–just one more sadistic act as he walked out the door.
Cruelty was the point.
These FWs really do suck.
P.S. My therapist at the time suggested that an errant elbow might knock those glasses over.Tempting—but I’m glad I kept my side of the street clean. I tried to stay beyond reproach during the divorce, even when it came to dividing the household stuff.
P.S.S. He (a person who never cooks) also wanted our wooden cutting board 🤔. I claimed it. This confirmed for him that I am a very bad person.
Sparkle Dick had stolen various sterling silver items that were given to me by my grandmother (I had video proof of their existence — thank you Lord for experienced attorneys). And my baby cup given to me as an infant by my godmother. I understand the $$$ value of the items, but why would the man want my tiny baby cup? It was all tarnished, dented from when I was teething and engraved with my name and birthday. WTF?
Mr. Sparkle Dick was found to be in contempt of our separation agreement.
I got the holloware and my baby cup back. Plus he had to pay court costs and attorney’s fees. What an idiot.
This is not about what she asked for, but about what she tried to give me. When we were separated but living in the same house, with no verbal communication (which is hard to manage, but encapsulates the state of our relationship at that point), she left a pair of earrings on my desk. Now, I never gave her a pair of earrings at anytime when we were together, although I did gift her a ring with the same type of stone. I suspect she mistook the earrings for the ring.
I did try to give them back to her, by putting them back in the safe they had previously been in, making sure to hide them behind some other stuff, but leaving a note stating that they were hers and I didn’t give them to her. It was her safe, so she was going to take that with her, and I figured she wouldn’t notice them until the dust had settled, so to speak.
A few weeks later, I noticed them in a pile of junk by the trash, so I guess she still believed that they were a gift from me, and she wanted to dispose of anything that I gave her, much like she wanted to dispose of me and our marriage.
Makes me wonder if some AP gave them to her and she forgot.
That’s super petty of her!
Ever wonder if the earrings were actually a gift from the AP? That she purposely put them there to throw it in your face?
Mine basically just took his clothes and his phone.
The only other thing he wanted was a bottle of whisky he bought for our son before he was born (he’s now 6). I guess he’s not content with passing on a strong genetic predisposition for alcoholism. I guess you’ve really got to really bake the dysfunction in.
And people wonder why I keep a dry house…
My cousin’s first husband left her just days before Christmas. He had been cheating; something I and everyone else in the county knew because he’d been bragging about how many women he’d “bagged” and how he’d gotten away with it at the local tavern/convenience store/gas station another cousin owned. Small town; everyone knew and/or was related to everyone else. When he left her, Gordo emptied out the apartment SHE had furnished. He took everything except the walls and the fixtures. He took the furniture, the cooking stuff, the dishes, the canned goods and dry goods in the pantry. He took the baby’s clothes, diapers, toys. He took my cousin’s clothes, personal items, shoes, etc. He took the Christmas tree and the wrapped presents underneath. He even took the crockpot on the counter, cooking that night’s dinner.
My cousin said the only good thing about the situation was that the dinner he took was something he didn’t like.
That was 50 years ago. When Facebook started, my cousin’s mother joined, and friended Gordo. And my cousin still talks to her mother!
He took her clothes???
He took literally EVERYTHING that was in their apartment.
“He even took the crockpot on the counter, cooking that night’s dinner.”
He sounds mentally ill. I hope your entire county joined hands around a tree and sang “Welcome Christmas” to celebrate his leaving.
Weirdest thing FW asked for in the divorce? Probably months after everything was settled and done, he had the balls to ask me for the weed wacker for AP’s house (that he moved into the minute he left me). Yeah sure. I’m worried about her garden — like wtf? I think it wasn’t even $50
Prior to that, when we were finalizing meditation, we had to waste time and money over a ridiculous list he gave to the attorneys that included his “Scotch collection.” My response? “What collection? We had bottles of liquor in the house. I asked him if he wanted any when he left and he said no, so I donated all of it to our synagogue.” The judge who served as our mediator laughed and said “He’s an idiot.”
mine asked for use of his office in what is now my house. Moving all his stuff to Schmoopie”s was too hard, because there is no space for him to have an office there. Haahaha that was a hard no. His old office is now a nice big extra closet .
He expected to come over and work in his office in your place? The absurdity!
It isn’t really such an unusual item that the Ex asked for, it was more how I spun it that gave me a little spark of satisfaction. But first you must know the back story.
We were driving home from church (oh, the irony), and I reminded him—yet again—that I needed his massive, manly snowblower moved out of the shed so I could winterize the yard. I had followed the unwritten rules to get him to do things–I told him a week ahead, then reminded him the night before, and then day of. When I brought it up, he said he wasn’t going to do it, he was going to fighter practice. Because obviously, pretending to be a medieval warrior was far more urgent than helping his wife. I pleaded, “But it will only take you 5 min.” He flat out refused. I said, “Well I guess I could ask the neighbor.” That sent him into a full-on rage, “You F*CKING B*TCH, you always get your way, don’t you!” He stomped down to the shed in a full blown tantrum, throwing anything that was in his way out of the shed and moved the snowblower into the garage. Without a word, he then stormed off to play swords.
At that point, it was like the scales had been removed from my eyes. I had been in this abusive relationship for 45 years. I was done. When he got back, I told him calmly, “I think we need to separate.”
He fired back with what I’m sure he thought was a mic drop: “Then it’ll have to be a divorce.”
And without missing a beat, I said, “You’re right. It should be a divorce!”
As part of the stipulations in the petition, he demanded my wedding ring back, and he would give me his. His petty attempt at “punishing” me. His ring however, was mangled. He’d taken it off to play softball (again with the sports), lost it in a parking lot, and it had been run over. Found it later, never fixed it, just tossed it in a drawer. Much like our marriage.
When he handed it to me, I really wanted to say, “You should keep it—it’s the perfect metaphor for how you treated our relationship.” But I knew it would go straight over his narcissistic little head.
So instead, I took that twisted symbol of neglect to a goldsmith, had it melted down, and turned into a charm that reads FB—a subtle reminder and a tribute to the moment I finally saw the truth.
I wear it on an anklet, just beneath my phoenix tattoo. A charming (literally) way to carry the truth around without saying a word. Because I didn’t just leave—I rose.
“At that point, it was like the scales had been removed from my eyes”–good for you for seeing abuse for what it was, and for immediately moving to talk of separating.
My own ex was abusive in exactly the same way yours was (alongside, of course, being a cheater): any request for him to do anything around the house, however small, had to be couched in the same anxious preambles and still might lead to an explosion of yelling, swearing, and name-calling. BUT unlike you I didn’t frame this horrible treatment in terms of abuse–until, at last, D-Day opened my eyes to the person he truly was.
I left on D day but went to the house to collect my personal things when he was out of town. While there I made sure to take photos of his personal things which were right where he had left them. And I did not touch them, I only took photos. Then I get an email from my lawyer telling me that (my now) eX was demanding that I return the expensive personal items that I took (implying theft) from the house that belong to him. I showed my attorney my dated photos of his untouched items, and we both had a good laugh.
I had to comment here because I went through a breakup in the early 90s with a manbaby who is the major villain in my life story. Yes he cheated on me but that isn’t even the tip of the iceberg and i didn’t know about it until much later. I was so done with him when it happened that i wouldn’t even have cared. I was not good at setting boundaries back then and it was a lot of work to get rid of his needy disordered ass. Anyway his last request: he wanted me to promise him that i would never have a threesome. WTF. Nope. Like i am so sure…entitlement…blah blah blah. Fast forward no i have never been part of a threesome though oddly enough i had several opportunities including when a childhood friend invited me to dally with her and her FW. YAWN! Blah! Thanks but i have to clean out my closet tonight.
My ex was working a rotation schedule where he lived at the workplace for 2 weeks at a time, then flew home for 1 week. And helped himself to fucking his coworker during those 2 weeks. After D-day, he would message me to remind me to feed his fish and water his plants. No sir, that love fern can die for all I care.
My BPD mild hoarder took… almost nothing. It was weird. She didn’t even take any pictures of our kids. The list of stuff she took was tiny.
Though her clothes and her toiletries were on the list, she didn’t take all of them. I have no idea why. She probably left $100 in makeup and half her clothes. I have no idea why. I donated the clothes and threw out the makeup. Was she trying to spite me in some way? I never found out.
Months later, she did ask for… a box of stuff that were apparently mementoes from her first affair partner. I kid you not. Fortunately, I had found those months earlier in her closet under all the clothes she didn’t take, and burned them.
FW didn’t take any of his clothes, either. Throughout our marriage, he would drone on about being a minimalist and not needing possessions, yet he left all of his stuff for me to deal with.
My cheater dad tried to get his name back from my mom! Yes, he asked the judge to require her to change back to her maiden name. The judge refused.
They had been married for 25 years, and her diplomas, car title, credit history, etc. were under her married name.
For the 30 years we were married, he insisted every anniversary was special. We planned away trips no matter what. We did B&Bs All over and took pictures. I made a giant photo album filled with love letters and photos. My husband asked for that book, saying he wanted to remember all our good times??? I said no but kept it in storage for the year of our divorce process. After that was over and I saw how awful he was and .realized there was had been nothing but horror in those final years…I went to the house I had left behind to him and OW, added our wedding certificate to the pile and left the album in a box on his trailer outside. We were no contact so I have no idea what happened to it.
LOL
When my FW moved out, the smoopie didn’t have much room, so he left a lot of garbage behind. I started cleaning the basement once a week, the night before garbage pickup, putting out as much as I could in one night.
His attorney contacted me to tell me to stop throwing out his “intellectual property.” Which was packing boxes, full of mostly empty file folders, with the occasional newspaper clipping.
I contacted him and told him I considered this a murder attempt, because I almost died laughing.
I also repeated that the garbage was going out at night, and he was welcome to try to beat the 7 am garbage pickup.
On the bright side, I found about $80 US in coins in the basement. It covered my public transport for months.