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I got divorced, after 26 years of marriage, when I walked in on my ex-wife making out with the son of our kid’s piano teacher in a hospital waiting room. Shortly thereafter, she moved in with the guy, leaving me to take care of our 3 kids who remained at home on my own.

We had been married 26 years. During our marriage, I had trained as, and then started working as, an attorney. She stayed at home to take care of the kids. So I was fine with the idea of paying alimony for a reasonable period of time, until she could retrain to prepare for her own employment.

She could have obtained a much better settlement in our divorce than she actually got if she had just been willing to talk. But, because I was a lawyer (who had never handled a disputed family law case), she completely refused. Indeed, for quite a while, she would only communicate with me by e-mail, in haiku.

So in addition to paying her, I had to pay an attorney to get our case ready for trial.

Her attorney then failed to adequately prepare the expert her attorney had hired to testify about the value of my law practice. So, she settled on the first day of trial for quite a bit less than she would have gotten if she had just been willing to talk at the start of the case.

She took the position that she wanted to retrain to start working as a nurse, taking care of aged/end of life patients. So, after the divorce was finalized, I got to pay for several years of college, in addition to child support and alimony.

Although she was in a “permanent” relationship with the piano teacher’s son, she made a point of not getting married so as not to cut off the alimony. They got married the working day after the end of the month when I paid my last alimony payment. To make a statement to me, I think.

After she graduated and got her nursing certificate, she tried working as a nurse for about 3 months. At that point, she decided that she really didn’t want to work, apparently because working required, you know, work. And she hasn’t worked since.

I am still working, and will be at least until I turn 68.
Both she and her now hubby now live on the money they got from me, and money from inheritances. She is expecting to receive at least a million dollars in further inheritance when her aging father passes (but since she recently fell out with him, that may now be in question).

She has recently moved to a different state, leaving me as the principal support person for our (now adult) kids. Which is fine, as they all think she is crazy.