A 59-year-old woman has lived with her husband for the past two decades — or at least she thought they were married. Her 90-year-old husband apparently filed for divorce just months after the wedding.
The couple spent the last 20 years dividing their time between France, New York and Massachusetts. They also had a son together. When a tax bill showed up for the condo in Manhattan and her name wasn’t on it, she began to wonder why and had an attorney investigate. That’s when she found out that her husband filed for divorce in the Dominican Republic in order to protect his assets.
Instead of appearing in person, each side was represented by attorneys the man had hired. The divorce papers said that the couple suffered from an “incompatibility of temperaments” and that his wife was “unbearable” to live with. The secret divorce came as an utter shock to the woman. It doesn’t appear as if the divorce is legal, though, since neither one appeared in court and news of the dissolution was not published in a Dominican newspaper.
The woman said, “I realize now that during all these years of joy and happiness, and of difficult moments we shared together, my husband lied to me and had the Dominican divorce on the back of his mind. It’s what is hurting me the most.”
She is seeking to have the divorce nullified and to stop him from selling the Manhattan condo. He reportedly wants to sell that condo to his adult daughter.
Those who have been living under the premises of a lie throughout their relationship should have a right to seek compensation. It’s an important consideration to allow an attorney to provide with the advice you need.
Source: Opposing Views, “Husband Secretly Arranges Divorce, Wife Finds Out Twenty Years Later,” Reve Fisher, Jan. 25, 2016