[RKDinOKC]

I got one for ya...

My older brother married for the 3rd time. To keep the X's at bay she insisted they put everything in her name completely. His employment was even arranged so he was legally a very low paid employee of her company and her company was getting paid for his work. As far as he knew they were struggling to stay afloat and often borrowed money from my parents to pay their mortgage.

First thing that happened, is that she found the paternal father of her kid. After everything she had done to pay the least amount of child support to my brothers X, she completely went ape throwing the dead beat dad book at her X to get as much money as she could.

My brother came down with Multiple Sclerosis, MS when our Dad passed. My Mom stayed with them to help 6-8 months out of the year, again often making their house payment and buying ALL the groceries because his wife claimed they were not making enough to cover their bills. At my sister-in-laws request my Mom helped clean up her home office. Mom found she had kept receipts from eating expensive lunches out every day to write off on her company who's only employee was my brother. That would not be so bad except every one else was eating peanut butter and baloney because they could not afford expensive meals. After finding that Mom looked a little deeper and found his wife had $280,000 in the bank. And yet they just couldn't afford to pay their mortgage.

By this time my brother's MS had gotten to the point he was in a wheel chair and couldn't walk more than two or three steps. When his wife realized what my Mom had found she told my brother she wanted a divorce. Her reason was that he wasn't the man she married any more. She wasn't the woman he had married either, she was a model and had gained about 150 lbs gotten ugly. Anyway, he decided to just cut and move on. He and Mom packed up as much as they could get on a plane and flew from Atlanta to Dallas. I picked them up in Dallas and brought him and his stuff to OKC.

Here is the really interesting bit. MS is hugely affected by stress. In just the drive from Dallas to OKC, as the relief of not having to deal with her any more sank in, he went from being wheelchair bound to being able to walk with a cane.

When I found out about all that money and the $30K she had basically stolen from our parents I asked him about it. He said it is better to just completely cut it off and move on. And that even if he got half, it would not be worth going through the stress it would create to get it.

About 5 years later she called. She had gotten audited and owed back taxes because of the creative money management she had done to put everything in her name only. She said that since they were married he would be responsible $25,000 in back taxes. He laughed and said just take it out of the $280,000 we had when you divorced me, then hung up. Haven't heard from her since.

There has to be a lesson in there somewhere.