Disclaimer: All facts gleaned from the filings stated hereafter are only as truthful as the petitioner. The tone of this article expresses a style of writing historically employed by America’s greatest writers and, as such, is for opinion purposes only. No intentional harm is due. Do not read if the topic of divorce (even your own) causes you emotional distress. Continue at your own risk.

January often arrives with the quiet insistence that time can be reset—that years can be folded neatly back into order. But in Cook County, Illinois, the month took on a more sobering weight when a long marriage reached its formal turning point. Filed on January 16, 2026, a petition for dissolution of marriage brought Susan Muldoon and Terrence Muldoon’s more than five-decade union into the measured language of the court.

Married on March 4, 1972, in Oak Lawn, the Muldoons built a shared life that spanned generations, raising three children who are now emancipated adults. Both parties are retired and living apart—Susan in Western Springs, Terrence in Chicago—each sustained by Social Security, each standing at a late chapter that no longer holds the promise of reconciliation. The petition states that irreconcilable differences have led to an irretrievable breakdown of the marriage, with past attempts at repair exhausted and future ones deemed impracticable.

Through her attorney, Vincent J. Stark of Davis Friedman, LLP, Susan Muldoon asks the court to dissolve the marriage and to order both temporary and permanent maintenance to be paid by Terrence, while barring him from receiving any maintenance in return. She seeks assignment of her non-marital property as her sole and exclusive property, and an equitable division of the marital estate, which includes the marital residence in Western Springs, financial accounts, retirement assets, personal property, and shared debts.

The petition also requests that marital debts be divided fairly and concludes with a call for any further relief the court finds equitable and proper. In a month symbolic of beginnings, the filing marks an ending shaped not by urgency, but by inevitability.

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