After 26 years of marriage, she could forgive his philandering, the expensive toys he bought for himself with their money, and the countless other subtle hurts he brought upon her ego and pocketbook.
But Annie, a resident of Belcamp who did not want her last name published, couldn't forgive her husband for keeping a secret house on the Eastern Shore for 10 years. When she asked him for a divorce and demanded ownership of their marital home -- and nothing else -- he gladly complied.
It wasn't until the divorce was final and she tried to sell the house that she learned about the $100,000 lien on it -- the result of a business loan her husband took out years before, never mentioned and never repaid.
"There are givers and takers in this world," Annie says now. "I guess that's my problem. I'm too much of a giver."
While divorce may force difficult questions about children, it's the house that often gets caught in the middle. Neither spouse may wish to part with a home. Or both husband and wife may need the equity from the house.
With so much emotion and money at stake, arguments are almost a certainty.
"It seems like it ought to be cut and dried. If there weren't a lot of emotions involved it probably would be that way," said Stacy LeBow Siegal, an attorney who practices domestic law on her own and formerly with the firm Siegal and Sugar in Baltimore. "The only thing that's black and white is nothing is black and white.
At a recent meeting for divorced and widowed men and women at the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, participants spoke for about an hour about their divorces and their homes. There were 15 women and two men, most of them divorced.
Women seem to be more vocal about their divorce horror stories than men, but plenty of men have been burned, too. One tells of the wife who left him with the house, children and dog but forgot to mention the drawer full of unpaid bills charged in his name. Another man describes the wife who agreed to let him have the house he'd lovingly refurbished if he wouldn't argue about her taking his son to live in another state -- he refused, and is still fighting with his wife.
Under Maryland law, all marital property has to be distributed equally between husband and wife if they divorce. Marital property is the property acquired during the marriage, no matter whose name is on it.
When a house is part of the marital property, the obvious solution for the divorcing couple is to sell it and split the proceeds. But that's not always practical or desirable. And divorce lawyers say divorce settlements are rarely predictable.
Courts can't transfer ownership from one spouse to another in a divorce, Ms. Siegal said. But if neither spouse can agree on who gets what, a court can order the house sold.
"It's a real tragedy," Ms. Siegal said, when a house has been put up for auction by the court and both spouses are on the front lawn trying to outbid each other to get it back.
Some spouses attempt to sell their houses without the other spouse's knowledge. A girlfriend or boyfriend stands in for the absent spouse, unbeknown to the real estate listing agent, and forges their name on documents.
While that's not easy to get away with -- a title search usually reveals who the real owners are --it is a concern, said William Cassidy, a real estate agent with Long & Foster Real Estate Inc. in Baltimore.
"All parties on the deed have to be signing the listing agreement and contract of sale, but when you go to take a listing and you're meeting them for first time, you don't know if it's the wife sitting there," or a girlfriend or sister, Mr. Cassidy said.
"It's becoming more common, at least at the settlement table, to ask to see identification."
Rational move gone wrong
During a divorce, what sounds right can turn out to be regrettable later.
Consider Mary, a resident of Fallston and divorced in 1981. She says her lawyer talked her into giving up alimony for her husband's share of the house. "I didn't want to leave the kids without a home," she says.
Mary re-entered the work force, struggling through entry-level jobs. The children have since moved on. She still has a mortgage payment.
Sometimes, divorce can cause some sticky money situations.
Dolly, a Harford County resident in her 30s, is a widow and dates a divorced man. She received full title to her house when her husband died. Her boyfriend got full title to his house in his divorce. But because of a capital gains tax rule imposed by the Internal Revenue Service, neither can sell their house and buy another house of comparable size together without each getting slapped with a hefty tax.
Not until they are 55 may they sell their properties and get a one-time exclusion to the capital gains tax rule. "It will be a long romance," Dolly says.
Men and women seem to agree that no one profits in a divorce, except, perhaps the lawyers.
Mary says the day the judge declared her divorced from her husband 13 years ago, her lawyer handed her a box of tissues with one hand and his bill with the other before they were even out of the courtroom. The cost: $5,000.
"I've spent $3,000 for a lawyer and all I've got is a Christmas card from him," said Pat, a Forest Hill woman who has yet to see a separation agreement, let alone a divorce decree. "He called me and told me he was going into the hospital, and he billed me for it."
Gail, whose husband refused to give her a divorce but agreed to a permanent separation, says she knows women whose lawyers worked hard to make sure the woman would get the house in the divorce, then insisted they sell it to pay the lawyers' tab when the case closed.
Equity nightmare
"Most women can't afford divorce," Gail says. "About the only thing they have is the equity in their home. It can get brutal."
When equity dissolves in a real estate market that goes soft, divorced couples can be left with nothing. Take the case of Colleen and Bill. Calling it quits on an unhappy marriage, the couple began the separation process amicably enough. Living in Southern California at the end of the 1980s, they wanted to sell their expensive place by the beach and each move on to new lives.
They agreed to put the house up for sale. But neither could agree on a sale price. He disputed the appraisals. She became angry and pushed him, through her lawyer, to get on with it. He retaliated, through his lawyer, by suddenly demanding custody of their little boy.
While their friendly divorce turned south, so did the value of residential real estate. Between arguments, the couple watched the value of their house plummet from the $300,000 they paid to slightly more than $220,000.
In the end, Colleen kept custody of their child, Bill kept profits of his business, and their attorneys gave each of them a schedule to pay the thousands of dollars of legal fees.
Alice, who has been in divorce proceedings for the past two years, says she knows of other couples who have considered divorce, but give up the idea when they see how their finances will look during and after the ordeal.
"The house is keeping them together. They can't afford to do anything else," Alice says.
Forget marriage, says a woman in her 60s who asked not to be identified: "The best advice is to just live with 'em."