Divorce
What a weird life we have. My last update was in 2017. Five years from now and ten years from the post before it. I left the State Police in September of 2020. I was finally admitted into the Indiana Bar in February 2020. Following the 2020 COVID pandemic, I had difficulty finding a job as an attorney. I interviewed with the only firm I could find that seemed to fit, Banks and Brower, and I was turned down.
In September of 2020, I met Shiva Latify on Tinder after a wild weekend in Cincinnati for Cory Martin’s bachelor party. We had coffee at the quirky feather confectionary at the corner of Guilford and 116th Street in Carmel, IN. She almost forgot to show up, so she said. I thought her profile was too good to be true. It seemed like a catfish profile. She showed up a little late but we had a great conversation. Later, she would tell me that she told her mother that she would marry me when she came home after meeting me. I intentionally didn’t kiss her the first night I met her. She told me it made her remember me. We had a first date the next weekend or so. We went to Bravo in Castleton. This restaurant and the quirky feather both closed shortly after we went there. I invited her to go line dancing with me within the first couple weeks of meeting her. She agreed. She showed up wearing flannel and cowboy boots, she looked like she felt stupid but threw her hands in the air like she tried her best to look the part. I reassured her that all she needed was two feet.
After law school she invited me to move in with her and her parents. I turned her down after learning that Steve couldn’t come with us. Soon after she changed her mind and Steve and I moved in with her and her parents late 2018. I told her it would be for a couple years, but she thought it would only be a couple months. It wouldn’t be until February 2021 that we would move out. May of 2020 I proposed to her. I couldn’t afford a lavish ring and proposal so I got a ring from Grandma Hull and sold a couple guns to pay for a cabin in Tennessee for the proposal. I invited her “soul mate” and best friend Sasha and her new boyfriend Mitch to join us for the proposal.
In September of 2020 she convinced me to leave the state police and start my own business. Strater Law, LLC became my job on September 11, 2020. The first couple months were rough due to us purchasing a house in December of 2020. We spent the first few months of 2021 remodeling our new home. I wasn’t able to return to work fully until March of 2021. We started talking about kids and marriage. We agreed that a spare bedroom in our house would be reserved for “Lilly,” our unborn daughter.
We were married in September of 2021. She decided she didn’t like grandma’s ring so she bought herself a bigger diamond. She didn’t want to take my name and she didn’t want a wedding. She conceded to a small ceremony and reception at the house for 30 or so people. Even that took some convincing. We had a little honeymoon October 2021 in Cancun, but I had to work the whole time. At one point she and I got in a fight and she said she was going to fly out the morning before. In the morning she apologized and it was soon forgotten.
Our one year anniversary was one of the best days of my life. We struggled with some stuff in the first year but overall I was pretty confident in our relationship. I had not felt as stable in other relationships as I did in our relationship. It came as a complete shock on October 30, 2022, when she told me “we made a mistake getting married.” I knew we didn’t have a perfect marriage but I didn’t realize it was that bad.
I was immediately overwhelmed with emotion. I didn’t know what to say, I felt as if a bomb had exploded in our kitchen. My mind started racing. I knew she had just come home from dinner with a friend, I assumed she had put a bug in her ear. The next day she asked me to leave for a couple days. I couldn’t believe it. She had previously told me that I was never allowed to sleep on the couch during a fight and now she was asking me to go to my moms. Reluctantly, I went to moms. I would stay there for the next three days. Only after talking to her brother and her brother talking to her mother did she let me come home. She apologized and felt she had been in the wrong. I came back and hoped to get things back to normal. She had brought up some valid concerns and she had some serious complaints that I hoped to redress. I had already been working on my own stuff before she told me we were having problems. I kept working on my stuff.
She asked me to leave on Monday, I came home on Thursday. The following Tuesday she asked me to leave again. I told her that I would not be leaving but that I would do my best to be gone before the end of the year. I moved my stuff into the guest bedroom. She left that night and went to stay in a hotel. I had told her that I would draft the divorce paperwork myself. She kept bringing up a postnuptial agreement. She wanted me to sign it because she was afraid I’d try to take her parents house. I told her before we were married that she would have to get a postnuptial herself and that I couldn’t write it for us. She dragged her feet and never got it done. Now, she was being insistent on me signing a postnuptial agreement. I told her that it would be unenforceable if she intended me to sign it so she could file for divorce. Repeatedly, she kept trying to get me to sign a postnuptial even though I told her that me signing it would mean nothing because I knew the only reason she wanted me to sign it was so she could divorce me. I told her I would sign something and that I was as concerned about her being protected as she was but she needed to do it the right way. She ignored this advice and kept trying to get me to sign a postnuptial that she got for free off the internet.
She left late on Monday November 7, 2022, to stay in a hotel. She finally turned off her location data for me to see. The next morning, Tuesday November 8th, she came home. I was reading Daron Earlewine’s “the Death of a Dream.” She asked if we could talk and she apologized for what she was putting me through. It was like talking to a completely different person. I became concerned in that moment that she may be suffering from bi-polar syndrome or some other acute mental health concern. She acknowledged the shocking bizarre nature of her behavior and said she would seek help. I got her a list of counselors from my pastor but she wouldn’t make an appointment until the last week of the month.
On November 21, 2022, she told me, matter of factly, in bed, that she did not want to be married to me anymore. She said that she was no longer in love with me. She did not see me in a romantic fashion anymore. This was something I feared. We made love on November 13, and before that it hadn’t been since September. She has never been a very sexual person, but that hasn’t been a big deal for me. Now knowing how she feels about me, obviously, it is a much bigger deal. Her and I discussed the fact that she did not want children. This was surprising, coming from a person who bought a house with a spare bedroom with the intent of it becoming a child’s room.
I don’t want to write this like she is the only problem. I was suffering from some substance abuse issues and depression for a couple months prior to this all happening. I wasn’t living up to be the best man I could, but she has taken this as some form of justification for leaving me. I reminded her of her vows and she said she never “wrote” any, like I did. I told her that even though she did not write her vows she still said the standard vows, to love and to hold, sickness and in health… etc. etc. She said she didn’t realize that and didn’t know she said those things. She said that regardless, she was done with our marriage. I can recall a handful of times where Shiva felt suicidal or where she had creditors knocking on the door. I helped her negotiate a debt settlement with a creditor and helped her get rid of the car by having her ex-fiancé take over the payments. She’s been depressed since we met, I took that as an opportunity to show her how much I loved her. I used that as a moment to show her my devotion and dedication to her.
She encouraged me to start a business and when it wasn’t making a ton of money 18 months later, she became fed up with me. I’m sitting here in what used to be her office. There’s this ugly lamp she ordered that I installed. It was a pain in the ass and every time I walked into her office I’d hit my head on it and it would take a clump of my hair out. Now it is the main light in my bedroom.
Even though we have been going through this stuff her and I decided we should still get a Christmas tree and decorate. I made plans for her and I to go cut down a live tree together. We had agreed that we would do that and then decorate for the holidays. While we were there we got a tree for her parents as well. We went and dropped the tree off and set it up. While I was doing that, Shiva asked if I wanted to go to Top Golf. I was confused at first because I thought we had plans to decorate our tree. I was also concerned that her invitation was not sincere, that she was inviting me because she knew she was bailing on our plans. I was worried she was only inviting me as an act of pity. I told her I didn’t want to go if that was the case and she started to throw a hissy fit and said, “you know what, never mind.” God forbid if I were to do anything of the sort to her, there would be hell to pay. But, for her, its perfectly acceptable.
I told her I would go and we kind of put this disagreement behind us. I was waiting for her to get ready when I went to send myself the pictures she took when I was cutting down her parent’s tree. I entered in her passcode but it didn’t register. I said, did you change your passcode? She said, no. I said, its xxxxx, correct? She said, yes, well, it was, but I changed it when I got a new phone. So she basically lied to my face and when called out about it had to think of an explanation. She started acting all playful, making jokes, knowing that what she did was wrong. Then she started getting defensive, asking if I even wanted to go with her. Now, I wanted to go more than anything because I was concerned she may be seeing someone. She had previously asked if I was dating someone else. She accused me of using Tinder. I told her that I thought I’d be completely justified doing so if I wanted to but that I wasn’t. She told me she would not be upset if she knew I was sleeping with someone else. This makes me think she is seeing someone else or at least trying to date someone else. She has a habit of accusing me of the things she does.
We went to Top Golf and her friend Ashely brought a guy, Vick Ballard, a former Colts player. I was growing concerned that Shiva knew Vick prior to this and was playing a game but I’m not so sure now. He seemed like a good guy and he seemed more interested in Ashley than Shiva. Another weird thing, Shiva said her mom told her she should start wearing more makeup. I find this to be a lie and her justifying wearing makeup while going out because she rarely does. Which, is the dumbest thing in the world. I couldn’t care less if she wore makeup or not.
While we were playing, I started telling Vick I wasn’t a big sports fan and that I only got excited about professional fisherman. I was trying to tell him I wasn’t a fan boy but it came off kind of rude and I knew I put my foot in my mouth. On the car ride home, Shiva made sure to tell me about this. I told her I was aware I put my foot in my mouth but judging by the fact that he asked me for free legal advice shortly after, I don’t think he was too upset by it. I basically bit my tongue the whole ride home. When we got home, I played with the dogs some and went into my office. Shortly after, Shiva started calling the dogs to go to bed. She had asked if I wanted to put the tree up. She was basically telling the me she was going to bed by loudly calling the dogs to bed. When she went to bed I went up there and acknowledged what she was doing and told her I was basically fed up.
Here I am, ready to divorce my wife. I can’t fucking believe this. I thought I had someone I was going to spend the rest of my life with and now I’m ready to divorce her dumb ass. She is a liar. I cannot trust her. I have no idea what is true and what is not. I’m going to confront her about her lying about her password. We’ll see how it goes.
I hope I update this in 5 years with a wife that loves me and kids that are embarrassed by me.
In September of 2020, I met Shiva Latify on Tinder after a wild weekend in Cincinnati for Cory Martin’s bachelor party. We had coffee at the quirky feather confectionary at the corner of Guilford and 116th Street in Carmel, IN. She almost forgot to show up, so she said. I thought her profile was too good to be true. It seemed like a catfish profile. She showed up a little late but we had a great conversation. Later, she would tell me that she told her mother that she would marry me when she came home after meeting me. I intentionally didn’t kiss her the first night I met her. She told me it made her remember me. We had a first date the next weekend or so. We went to Bravo in Castleton. This restaurant and the quirky feather both closed shortly after we went there. I invited her to go line dancing with me within the first couple weeks of meeting her. She agreed. She showed up wearing flannel and cowboy boots, she looked like she felt stupid but threw her hands in the air like she tried her best to look the part. I reassured her that all she needed was two feet.
After law school she invited me to move in with her and her parents. I turned her down after learning that Steve couldn’t come with us. Soon after she changed her mind and Steve and I moved in with her and her parents late 2018. I told her it would be for a couple years, but she thought it would only be a couple months. It wouldn’t be until February 2021 that we would move out. May of 2020 I proposed to her. I couldn’t afford a lavish ring and proposal so I got a ring from Grandma Hull and sold a couple guns to pay for a cabin in Tennessee for the proposal. I invited her “soul mate” and best friend Sasha and her new boyfriend Mitch to join us for the proposal.
In September of 2020 she convinced me to leave the state police and start my own business. Strater Law, LLC became my job on September 11, 2020. The first couple months were rough due to us purchasing a house in December of 2020. We spent the first few months of 2021 remodeling our new home. I wasn’t able to return to work fully until March of 2021. We started talking about kids and marriage. We agreed that a spare bedroom in our house would be reserved for “Lilly,” our unborn daughter.
We were married in September of 2021. She decided she didn’t like grandma’s ring so she bought herself a bigger diamond. She didn’t want to take my name and she didn’t want a wedding. She conceded to a small ceremony and reception at the house for 30 or so people. Even that took some convincing. We had a little honeymoon October 2021 in Cancun, but I had to work the whole time. At one point she and I got in a fight and she said she was going to fly out the morning before. In the morning she apologized and it was soon forgotten.
Our one year anniversary was one of the best days of my life. We struggled with some stuff in the first year but overall I was pretty confident in our relationship. I had not felt as stable in other relationships as I did in our relationship. It came as a complete shock on October 30, 2022, when she told me “we made a mistake getting married.” I knew we didn’t have a perfect marriage but I didn’t realize it was that bad.
I was immediately overwhelmed with emotion. I didn’t know what to say, I felt as if a bomb had exploded in our kitchen. My mind started racing. I knew she had just come home from dinner with a friend, I assumed she had put a bug in her ear. The next day she asked me to leave for a couple days. I couldn’t believe it. She had previously told me that I was never allowed to sleep on the couch during a fight and now she was asking me to go to my moms. Reluctantly, I went to moms. I would stay there for the next three days. Only after talking to her brother and her brother talking to her mother did she let me come home. She apologized and felt she had been in the wrong. I came back and hoped to get things back to normal. She had brought up some valid concerns and she had some serious complaints that I hoped to redress. I had already been working on my own stuff before she told me we were having problems. I kept working on my stuff.
She asked me to leave on Monday, I came home on Thursday. The following Tuesday she asked me to leave again. I told her that I would not be leaving but that I would do my best to be gone before the end of the year. I moved my stuff into the guest bedroom. She left that night and went to stay in a hotel. I had told her that I would draft the divorce paperwork myself. She kept bringing up a postnuptial agreement. She wanted me to sign it because she was afraid I’d try to take her parents house. I told her before we were married that she would have to get a postnuptial herself and that I couldn’t write it for us. She dragged her feet and never got it done. Now, she was being insistent on me signing a postnuptial agreement. I told her that it would be unenforceable if she intended me to sign it so she could file for divorce. Repeatedly, she kept trying to get me to sign a postnuptial even though I told her that me signing it would mean nothing because I knew the only reason she wanted me to sign it was so she could divorce me. I told her I would sign something and that I was as concerned about her being protected as she was but she needed to do it the right way. She ignored this advice and kept trying to get me to sign a postnuptial that she got for free off the internet.
She left late on Monday November 7, 2022, to stay in a hotel. She finally turned off her location data for me to see. The next morning, Tuesday November 8th, she came home. I was reading Daron Earlewine’s “the Death of a Dream.” She asked if we could talk and she apologized for what she was putting me through. It was like talking to a completely different person. I became concerned in that moment that she may be suffering from bi-polar syndrome or some other acute mental health concern. She acknowledged the shocking bizarre nature of her behavior and said she would seek help. I got her a list of counselors from my pastor but she wouldn’t make an appointment until the last week of the month.
On November 21, 2022, she told me, matter of factly, in bed, that she did not want to be married to me anymore. She said that she was no longer in love with me. She did not see me in a romantic fashion anymore. This was something I feared. We made love on November 13, and before that it hadn’t been since September. She has never been a very sexual person, but that hasn’t been a big deal for me. Now knowing how she feels about me, obviously, it is a much bigger deal. Her and I discussed the fact that she did not want children. This was surprising, coming from a person who bought a house with a spare bedroom with the intent of it becoming a child’s room.
I don’t want to write this like she is the only problem. I was suffering from some substance abuse issues and depression for a couple months prior to this all happening. I wasn’t living up to be the best man I could, but she has taken this as some form of justification for leaving me. I reminded her of her vows and she said she never “wrote” any, like I did. I told her that even though she did not write her vows she still said the standard vows, to love and to hold, sickness and in health… etc. etc. She said she didn’t realize that and didn’t know she said those things. She said that regardless, she was done with our marriage. I can recall a handful of times where Shiva felt suicidal or where she had creditors knocking on the door. I helped her negotiate a debt settlement with a creditor and helped her get rid of the car by having her ex-fiancé take over the payments. She’s been depressed since we met, I took that as an opportunity to show her how much I loved her. I used that as a moment to show her my devotion and dedication to her.
She encouraged me to start a business and when it wasn’t making a ton of money 18 months later, she became fed up with me. I’m sitting here in what used to be her office. There’s this ugly lamp she ordered that I installed. It was a pain in the ass and every time I walked into her office I’d hit my head on it and it would take a clump of my hair out. Now it is the main light in my bedroom.
Even though we have been going through this stuff her and I decided we should still get a Christmas tree and decorate. I made plans for her and I to go cut down a live tree together. We had agreed that we would do that and then decorate for the holidays. While we were there we got a tree for her parents as well. We went and dropped the tree off and set it up. While I was doing that, Shiva asked if I wanted to go to Top Golf. I was confused at first because I thought we had plans to decorate our tree. I was also concerned that her invitation was not sincere, that she was inviting me because she knew she was bailing on our plans. I was worried she was only inviting me as an act of pity. I told her I didn’t want to go if that was the case and she started to throw a hissy fit and said, “you know what, never mind.” God forbid if I were to do anything of the sort to her, there would be hell to pay. But, for her, its perfectly acceptable.
I told her I would go and we kind of put this disagreement behind us. I was waiting for her to get ready when I went to send myself the pictures she took when I was cutting down her parent’s tree. I entered in her passcode but it didn’t register. I said, did you change your passcode? She said, no. I said, its xxxxx, correct? She said, yes, well, it was, but I changed it when I got a new phone. So she basically lied to my face and when called out about it had to think of an explanation. She started acting all playful, making jokes, knowing that what she did was wrong. Then she started getting defensive, asking if I even wanted to go with her. Now, I wanted to go more than anything because I was concerned she may be seeing someone. She had previously asked if I was dating someone else. She accused me of using Tinder. I told her that I thought I’d be completely justified doing so if I wanted to but that I wasn’t. She told me she would not be upset if she knew I was sleeping with someone else. This makes me think she is seeing someone else or at least trying to date someone else. She has a habit of accusing me of the things she does.
We went to Top Golf and her friend Ashely brought a guy, Vick Ballard, a former Colts player. I was growing concerned that Shiva knew Vick prior to this and was playing a game but I’m not so sure now. He seemed like a good guy and he seemed more interested in Ashley than Shiva. Another weird thing, Shiva said her mom told her she should start wearing more makeup. I find this to be a lie and her justifying wearing makeup while going out because she rarely does. Which, is the dumbest thing in the world. I couldn’t care less if she wore makeup or not.
While we were playing, I started telling Vick I wasn’t a big sports fan and that I only got excited about professional fisherman. I was trying to tell him I wasn’t a fan boy but it came off kind of rude and I knew I put my foot in my mouth. On the car ride home, Shiva made sure to tell me about this. I told her I was aware I put my foot in my mouth but judging by the fact that he asked me for free legal advice shortly after, I don’t think he was too upset by it. I basically bit my tongue the whole ride home. When we got home, I played with the dogs some and went into my office. Shortly after, Shiva started calling the dogs to go to bed. She had asked if I wanted to put the tree up. She was basically telling the me she was going to bed by loudly calling the dogs to bed. When she went to bed I went up there and acknowledged what she was doing and told her I was basically fed up.
Here I am, ready to divorce my wife. I can’t fucking believe this. I thought I had someone I was going to spend the rest of my life with and now I’m ready to divorce her dumb ass. She is a liar. I cannot trust her. I have no idea what is true and what is not. I’m going to confront her about her lying about her password. We’ll see how it goes.
I hope I update this in 5 years with a wife that loves me and kids that are embarrassed by me.