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.

A marriage shaped across borders and sustained through early adulthood now comes to its formal reckoning in Cook County. Thomas Dean Barrett filed a petition for dissolution of marriage on December 1, 2025, asking the Circuit Court of Cook County, Domestic Relations Division, to legally end his marriage to Ashley Marie Barboni, citing irreconcilable differences that have left the union beyond repair.

The petition outlines a marriage that began on April 18, 2018, in Chatan, Okinawa, Japan, registered through a U.S. military base—an origin that hints at movement and distance long before separation became official. No children were born of the marriage, and the filing states that Ashley Barboni is not pregnant. The parties have lived apart as husband and wife for more than six months, and reconciliation, according to the petition, has already proven futile.

Through his attorney, Nina Kelly of Sterling Hughes, LLC, Thomas Barrett asks the court to dissolve the bonds of matrimony and to bring order to the financial matters that remain. The petition requests that both parties be barred from receiving maintenance from one another, asserting that each is capable of self-support. It further seeks an equitable distribution of marital property and an equitable allocation of marital debts and liabilities, while awarding each party their respective non-marital property.

The filing also asks the court to require each party to bear their own attorney’s fees and costs, noting that neither requires financial contribution from the other. With no other litigation pending between the parties, the petition closes by requesting any further relief the court deems equitable and just—an appeal not for drama, but for fairness and finality.

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