Yesterday, an AskReddit thread asked divorce lawyers to share the craziest things they’ve seen couples do to get revenge on each other. Hundreds of people (some lawyers, some simply folks with divorce experience) chimed in with their tales of former spouses who have gone to huge lengths for vengeance. Some of the people in these stories are admirably creative in their revenge plots, while others seem simply deranged and, honestly, terrifying.
Messed With Her Thermostat
"Wife cheats on her husband during his frequent travels for work. She files for divorce and gets to keep the house." Husband is PISSED--then remembers she forgot to change the password to the NEST thermostat.
For the next year he messes with the thermostat. "In the middle of summer when they're sleeping in HIS bed he turns the heat on to 90 degrees. Middle of winter? Time to shut off the heat and hope the pipes freeze."
Returned DVDs
My ex-wife returned my “Star Wars” DVDs. A year later, I realized she removed one DVD from each of the boxed trilogy sets.
Named A Dog After The Ex
My uncle represented this guy getting a divorce from his wife of 15 years. Super toxic breakup and they split everything 50/50, even the land that the house they lived in sat upon. Well she decides to build a house right behind the other house, mind you this was a lot of land probably 200 yards separating both home sites, so that the back of the houses faced each other. The house gets built and my uncle gets a call from his client asking about the legality of a situation he had gotten himself into. Apparently his ex-wife would spend a lot of time in her backyard, so he saw her all the time. What he did was buy a female dog and name it the same name as his ex-wife. Anytime he would let his dog back in from letting her out he would yell "Susan you bitch! Get in here!" He would also yell if she was peeing on the flowers, "Susan you bitch! Quit pissing on the flowers!" or "Susan you bitch! Quit digging in the dirt!" The ex-wife called the cops on him a couple of times, but there was nothing they could do because the dog was registered under the name of Susan, and it was in fact a bitch so there you go.
Hid Smelly Things In The House
Had a client hide Ziploc bags of ground meat throughout the house (in air vents, the attic, behind water heater etc.) I think it was at least 20-30 bags that took months to find all of them.
Killed The Dog
My ex and I separated before the divorce. She agreed to watch the dog while I found a new place. She had the dog put down instead.
Racked Up The Credit Card Bill
I had a co-worker once where the wife racked up well over 150k in credit card debt right before she divorced him! He worked overtime for literally the rest of his life just to be able to survive. Unfortunately he died from a heart attack, probably due to all the stress that she left him with!
She Took The Bike Shop
Not a lawyer but my two bosses were married and opened a bike shop together. He was the brains and the backbone since he was a former Olympic mechanic, she just sort of balanced the checkbook and worked a couple days a week. Unfortunately, he had no credit and she did, so when they opened everything was in her name.
All he wanted in the divorce was the bike shop and was willing to buy her half. She wanted the bike shop too, but didn't want to buy him out for his half.
He lost the bike shop and I think he got a little bit of money for his share. What she didn't expect was that all of the high-paying customers would stop going there. They were all his friends or they only wanted him to work on their bikes (so I don't know why she would have had that notion). So he opened up his own bike shop and all of the "regulars" have become regulars at the new bike shop.
Quit Job As A Nuclear Physicist
A friend of mine in high school worked at a pizza place. One of the delivery drivers was just ridiculously smart when I talked to him. Later I found out that he use to be a nuclear physicist. His wife was also a nuclear physicist, but left him for her lawyer.
He got screwed out of his kids, most of the assets, and had to pay a lot towards alimony/child support. He did the math, and figured out the tips he didn't get taxed on plus his minimum wage delivering pizza was more than keeping his job as a nuclear physicist. Plus he got a little satisfaction not having to pay her as much.
Ruined The Wine Collection
Heard a story about a nasty divorce where the husband was the wine aficionado, not the wife, but the wife was pissed off about getting divorced. The husband got all the wines in their extensive cellar, but before he was able to collect them, the wife soaked every bottle to remove ALL of the labels. So technically the wine was not damaged, but the husband had no way to know what he was drinking for aging and pairing purposes (which is a huge deal to wine drinkers).
Devalued The Car
Story from my parents who are lawyers. So throughout the divorce proceedings, there was a car that was a huge point of contention between the husband and wife. After months and months of saying he would never let the wife have the car, the husband concedes in exchange for something great, like one of their summer houses. It turns out he had been driving the car for 3 hours everyday in a big loop around the city, putting thousands and thousands of miles on it basically making it worthless. The amount of planning and spite that went into that was amazing.
Left Her Ex’s Car At The Airport
Heard a story about a woman who left her ex’s car at the airport and racked up $105,000 in parking fees.
Restraining Order On My Apartment
Not a lawyer but got divorced. During divorce proceedings, when we didn't live together anymore, my wife filed a frivolous police report saying that I 'threatened' her. In the police report, she wrote my apartment's address as her place of residence. A court immediately issued a restraining order against me, prohibiting me from being in my apartment (that I rented).
While the restraining order was active (several months) I had to live in hotels and Airbnbs, which of course is 2x-3x of normal rent, without having access to my clothes and other stuff. I also was paying the rent for the apartment that was empty all that time (she never actually went there during that restraining order, even though she claimed it as her residence). The restraining order was lifted as the case was dismissed after she never provided any evidence or even testimony to DA.