10 Divorce Stories Too Strange to Make Up

Nothing can bring utter insanity to the lives of otherwise reasonable people like a nasty divorce. People in that situation suddenly find within themselves untapped wells of pettiness and crazy, leading to the kind immature behavior that would embarrass the average 10-year-old.

How bizarre do these cases get? Well...

Last year, in Cambodia's rural village of Phnom Penh a couple ended their 18 years of marriage because Moeun, the husband, has suspected for years that his wife was screwing around with the local cop. So like a reasonable couple they talked over their differences and then at some point Moeun decided to fucking cut their house in half.

"Actually, I'm gonna need something a little bigger."

Moeun and his relatives showed up equipped with lots of saws, and we're guessing even more alcohol, and cut the bastard neatly in two. We're guessing if you were to rewind about two hours you'd find said man and relatives in a bar, just sort of drunk, when one of them says, "You know what you should do... " There's laughter, but then about 15 Cambodian beers later, the idea comes up again. This time, less laughter and more angry agreement. We figure about an hour later, they were loading up their chainsaws.

"This is such a great fucking idea!"

And once they got started they really couldn't quit without looking like even bigger assholes, so they completed the job and carried Moeun's share of the house--which, should be noted, is utterly useless without the other half to keep the rain out--back to his parents' place. We can only thank God the couple didn't have kids.

Wow, something this insane can only happen in Cambodia, right, guys? Oh, wait, a guy in Germany did the exact same thing.

So is there an American story that tops them both? We believe so.

While filing for divorce, citing physical and mental abuse, the aspiring-to-be-ex Mrs. Chana Taub hit a roadblock when the judge dismissed the entire case, based on what appears to be the fact that the couple were already living out an 80s sitcom plot device. You know, where the feuding couple decides to draw a line down the middle of their house, then a series of wacky hijinks ensue while they try to sabotage each other?

Only in this case instead of a line, it was a wall built down the center of the three-story home. And we don't mean some kind of temporary thing to teach them a lesson, but an actual wall of plywood and sheetrock through the middle of their Brooklyn residence.

See that white separation wall in the back? Yeah. This is retarded.

What's more, it wasn't even their idea. An earlier judge had ordered the wall built, after both husband and wife refused to move out (this was presumably the first case in U.S. history to cite an episode of The Facts of Life as its basis). We note that the judge gave the wife the kitchen and the husband the dining room, which would seem like he was trying to set up some kind of wacky/romantic reconciliation dinner. You know, except for the big goddamned wall separating them.

In a spine-chilling case of betrayal, revenge and murder, an unnamed Japanese woman may face serious jail time for the murder of her ex-husband which occurred last year... inside an online role-playing game called Maple Story.

Whoa, this looks pretty serious.

Having come home one day to find that her online avatar had been dumped by another online avatar was apparently enough to turn this jilted divorcee into black-hearted machine of nerdy feminine vengeance.

Allegedly using some illegal software to hack into her ex's account, the 43-year-old piano teacher proceeded to destroy his character on which he worked for over a year. A year of battling monsters and buying clothes, gone, like that. Needless to say the man contacted the police immediately. We're going to guess he was hung up on in mid-sentence, and then the embarrassed officers had to call him back when they looked it up and realized it was a real crime.

"Thank you, Grinning Mushroom Monster, you may step down, now. The Defense rests."

The ex-wife may be looking at 5 years in prison or a $5,000 fine for her in-game crime, which we're thinking sets the precedent for Call of Duty war crime tribunals next year. Ha, only in Japan, right?

Right?

Laura Skye, a local up-and-coming DJ in the U.K., was devastated to one day find her husband, the ruggedly handsome Dave Barmy, cuddling with a strange woman in his apartment. And this was after she forgave him for having a fling with a prostitute a couple of years ago.

Now she has filed for divorce. This would be quite a sad story if not for the fact it all happened on-line in Second Life.

Skye is the alter-ego of Amy Taylor and Barmy is the character played by David Pollard, her currently-ex husband, who seems to have took the divorce well. According to Dave, their marriage was a joke for some time, because Amy spent long hours playing World of Warcraft and ignored all the important stuff, like their dinner date in Second Life.

Also, holy shit has anyone made this observation before?

Dave would often spend lonely nights at his virtual studio apartment not being able to understand why his wife left him for a silly fantasy online game. After which he shelled real money to see two computer avatars humping on his computer screen. The couple is now divorced both on-and off-line.

When, in 2007, Karen decided to divorce Joe, her husband of 26 years, she did not count on just how crafty her soon-to-be ex could be. Joe's defense in the case was so simple, it was beautiful: He claimed that they cannot get divorced because their marriage was already dissolved over three years ago... when Joe "died."

Apparently Joe claimed that after his heart stopped in 2004, this temporary death was enough to annul their marriage on the legal binding clause of "Till Death Do Us Part." If that wasn't enough, he cited two additional examples of his death, one more time in 2004 and once again in 2005. Three temporary deaths? What the fuck? Is this the guy Crank 2 was based on?

Unfortunately for Joe, he failed to provide evidence that he was... well, dead, probably due to the fact he actually showed up in court and everything. So his motion was dismissed.

It's all for the best though. If Joe got his wish, he would be technically and legally a dead person walking among the living a.k.a. a zombie. And hunting him down for sport would be too big of a temptation for us.