Preamble: My Partner (masc NB) and I (cis M) are Poly, which I understand will be a dealbreaker for many people here. If you are one of them, please move on and do not add to the dogpile that is our lives, thanks. And thank you to everyone for reading my late-night ramblings and inquiries.
Background: Partner and I met our Beloved (MTF) almost a year ago—this Thursday would have been our one-year anniversary. At the time, she had just started working again, was just coming off of her probationary period, and was still shackled to her spouse (joyless cis F).
We (Partner, Beloved, and I) proceeded carefully and discretely with our courtship, because for the first months Beloved was still wholly dependent on her spouse’s insurance to cover prescriptions and procedures, but once Beloved was secure, recovered from surgery, and cleared to WFH full time we started seriously considering our futures together. Beloved ultimately agreed that the honest thing to do would be to divorce her spouse, so with the help of some of Beloved’s friends Partner and I broke the news to her spouse, served her with papers, packed up her things in the nicest suitcases she had, and helped her move out and move us in.
I wish this were simply a catty story with a happy ending, or even no ending at all. But life and love are never so easy, as I’m sure all of us here know firsthand.
Beloved’s spouse refused to agree to our terms, refused to even sign the papers Partner hand-delivered to her. I am grateful we had so many people with us when she came to our house, because I fear she would have turned violent without them, and those are both just from the first day. She hired a lawyer to fight the divorce—a “no fault” divorce, at that—and demanded Beloved buy her own house back from her (blood money). This was after she had abandoned it, let me remind you!
Beloved’s spouse refused to budge, refused to settle, refused to negotiate, barely restrained her contempt in talking to us, and I’m sure it was no coincidence that whenever her lawyer deadnamed Beloved, she very begrudgingly corrected him, as if to claim she was some woke AF Princess of Power rather than the frigid soul who had hired that troglodyte to begin with. Her virtue signaling didn’t end there either; as the months wore on, she held every mortgage payment she made above us, as though it were some kind of moral victory or virtue signaling rather than her paying for the house she supposedly wanted us to buy from her so desperately.
Beloved did not handle the stress well. At all. I suspect, but cannot prove, that this is what her spouse had intended all along. On Friday, May 1, while Partner and I were making another trip to move our things over from the old apartment, Beloved died by suicide. Before her body was even scarcely cold, her spouse had swooped in, claimed the body, and had her burned. A week later, she snuck to our house and taped a "Notice to Quit" to our door claiming that she was suddenly our landlord now and that we owed her rent—for a house she had previously demanded we buy from her. While Partner was on hold with legal aid, I checked the mail and saw an identical notice in a certified mail envelope. We burned that one; it seemed fitting.
My friends, Partner and I find ourselves in a terrifying limbo. Beloved truly despised her hateful spouse and absolutely intended to divorce her, but nothing was ever finalized because her spouse dragged her feet. Beloved clearly intended to change her will to provide for Partner and me, but never lived to do it. We are now apparently, if legal aid is to be believed, the tenants of Beloved’s would-be ex—which cannot be legal or ethical given her animosity and prejudice towards us—and we must either pay the exorbitant, usurious rent she demands or be evicted from our own house.
We are counting our small blessings that our state has put a moratorium on evictions. It isn't much, but we will take what crumbs the system throws our way. Sadly, it is due to expire on the first of the month, which mean one day we will have to face this woman in court and be her punching bags for all the world to see, because she is still so furious at a woman who is already dead.
Questions: I hardly know where to start here, but given all of the above I suppose tI have five questions, in relative order of importance:
Do we have a cause of action against Beloved's spouse for stealing and burning her body and keeping the remains from us, given that they were on an inevitable path to divorce and Beloved absolutely would not have wanted her spouse to be anywhere near her (as evidenced by initiating the divorce process)?
If Beloved's spouse is truly our landlord now, how can we prevent her from evicting us or charging us an unconscionable rent? Even granting that she somehow became a landlord, should she not honor the "implicit contract" we had with Beloved, which stipulates that we may live in and use the house as we see fit?
Is it legal to demand that your "tenants" buy their own house from you?
What would be the best way for us to challenge and defeat Beloved's will, given that she intended for us to live in our house and that her spouse abandoned it?
Do we expose ourselves to retaliatory charges if we file an ethics complaint against Beloved's spouse's attorney for deadnaming her?
Thank you all for your assistance and for keeping an open mind.