My Big, Fat Crazy Divorce

Maureen Cooke
3 min readDec 6, 2024

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Pool With Dead, Smelly Things. Annie, the Heeler, to the Side. (Photo by Author)

Oh please please please let me tell you about my divorce — my big fat crazy divorce.

Let me tell you about being in my mid-60s, out of the work force for 10 years, and being forced into an early retirement and food stamps…

About being accused of not consummating my marriage, not having a “real” marriage — whatever the hell that means …

About my forcing my ex to marry me…(Yeah, right)

Let me tell you about the house imploding — the gates falling down, the pool springing a leak, the garage flooding…

The disconnect notice from PNM…losing the A/C when it was 90 degrees…and something dead had set up residence outside my bedroom window…

Or the two dead squirrels in the middle of summer stuck in a garbage can and me without trash service…

And having no money, no standing to take care of any of these issues.

Or I could tell you about the property manager who told me to look at my flooded yard as “free water” (I was on a well, hadn’t “paid” for water for over 10 years and that “free water” was ankle deep)…

And please please please let me tell you about non-disparagement agreements and Donald Trump and Ivana and my ex-father-in-law and his no-good, downright creepy lawyer who resembled the Nazi whose face melted away in Indiana Jones & the Temple of Doom…

Yes. Please let me tell you about that lawyer — the one who accused me of blackmailing his client, who filed a 39-page injunction against me (evidently the man was getting paid by the word).

And let me tell you about my ex-husband’s lawyer who complained my writing was hurting her client’s feelings…

Or I could tell you about my three lawyers or my stint as a pro se client…

Or any number of things.

Yeah, sit down. Take a load off. Get comfortable. This’ll take a while.

Start to finish, my Big Fat Crazy Divorce took three years.

Three years, and I was “protected” by a prenup. Should have been a walk in the park, a slam dunk or any other overused cliche you can think of.

Should have been…it wasn’t.

And I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was.

Interesting.

My level of naivete was astounding. I thought, since I hadn’t initiated the divorce, the whole thing would go smoothly and quickly.

When I realized the divorce was anything but smooth and quick, I told myself to duck, get out of the way of the crazy people, and I’d be fine.

And, yeah, I’m fine. Now. Now, four years later, I’m fine.

Still that divorce should never have been so nasty, so crazy, but really what had I expected?

My Big Fat Crazy Divorce was just another chapter in my Big Fat Crazy Marriage.

Unlisted

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Maureen Cooke
Maureen Cooke

Written by Maureen Cooke

I'm a writer, editor, former college instructor, hot walker, factory worker. I write about disastrous relationships, generally tongue-in-cheek.

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