Marriage of Mary and Randall A. CA2/5

BACKGROUND

This is a marital dissolution action. Randall and Mary married in 2013. They have two children, Ethan and Emma, who were six and two years old respectively at the time of the hearing on the DVRO requests. Long before the events that led to this action, Randall committed physical violence against Mary on two occasions. In 2015, Randall stepped on her ribs and shattered her cell phone into pieces. In 2017, he headbutted her. While Randall and Mary have had marital problems from the beginning, the discord in their relationship accelerated in 2019 after their family home burned down. By 2020, Randall was regularly sending belligerent and often profane text messages to Mary. In these texts, for example, he called her a “pathetic cunt” and a “fake bitch lying disgusting manipulative piece of trash.” Randall also threatened to wage a “war” on Mary that she would “never forget” and warned she would “regret” dodging her responsibilities.

2 Randall frequently called and texted Mary to ask her where she was and what she was doing. Mary believed this was an effort to control her. In response to Randall’s controlling and abusive behavior, Mary often stopped communicating with him.…