The lessons I learned in this chapter of my journey reinforced earlier themes.

I. The Right Lawyer

The most important reinforcement was to trust my lawyers. Of course, I wanted to understand their trial strategy. They respected me enough to be clear (and not condescending) about the best approach to get what we wanted, which was the best financial outcome for me. It was difficult but in the end, I had to leave it to their expertise to get us over the finish line. This included taking their advice and settling on the dissipation amount right before trial, an amount lower than the total I had uncovered. It was justifiable given the legal expenses of going after all of it at trial.

This also highlighted the importance of picking the right lawyer. Marianne and Patrick were well liked at the court house by our judge, bailiff, clerk and others working at the courthouse. They were plugged into court house gossip, which helped them to get a sense of where things were heading. They were both really good trial lawyers. Their competence was even more obvious when contrasted to Duff, who was deficient in the courtroom and as he related to Scott. Duff was not well liked by the judge or any of the courtroom staff and worse he was incompetent as a trial lawyer. Duff was Scott’s lackey, which showed clearly in Scott’s frequent interruptions of Duff in negotiations and in front of the judge. Moreover, despite his grandious self image, Scott’s legal chops were non-existent. It was embarrassing to watch.

There is no way of knowing if this increased my chances of a favorable outcome. However, I believe it did for the following reason. Because my lawyers were good trial lawyers, they could clearly and effectively present my case, which itself was a strong one. This included preparing me as the key witness. I was knowledgeable and convincing about Scott’s philandering, the financials, my needs and most of the other issues related to the case. Scott and Duff were never able to present a clear counter argument on any of the core issues in the case. Further, their Fifth Amendment strategy regarding Scott’s behavior didn’t pass muster with the judge.

II. Creative Googling

I continued to appreciate the power of creative googling as I uncovered the new stack of dating profiles. It is almost impossible to hide your on-line footprint and particularly so for a sex addict like Scott, who had enough on-line dating profiles to fill a filing cabinet. I certainly benefited from the quirk in SuccessfulMatch allowing me to find the MillionaireMatch profile. It helped I was curious and poked around in websites like SuccessfulMatch and Ashley Madison to see if there was a way to get in. Having a “trial and error” approach to getting more information was successful for me throughout my divorce process.

With a profile in hand, creative googling continued to be easy and effective. Googling usernames in quotes (“wdboyfriend1” “GentlemanScottB” and others ), text strings (“A fun, fit, easy-going, educated, non-possessive and positive energy gentleman,” and others) and his profile pictures all produced hits uncovering additional profiles. Did I find them all? Probably not. I believe Scott’s addiction was as much about the dating site and app ritual as it was about the actual sex. As a result, there is no telling how many dating sites and apps he actually used. Even he couldn’t remember when asked.

At a certain point, I determined I knew enough and mostly stopped looking. Anything he did after our separation was not going to help my court case. Sure I could have gone on to exercise my morbid curiosity. Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that more dating profiles were not going provide any additional explanation of Scott’s psychology or sexual preference.