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.
The final days of a year often carry the weight of reckoning, a sense that unfinished matters must be faced before the calendar turns. That gravity hangs over the petition for dissolution of marriage filed on December 29, 2025, in Jackson County, Missouri—a moment chosen not by chance, but by necessity, when continuation no longer seems plausible.
Jean M. Langwell’s filing describes a marriage that began on March 31, 2012, in Hannibal, Missouri, and endured for more than a decade before reaching its breaking point. By early November 2025, the parties had separated, and by late December, the conclusion was put into formal words: the marriage, she states, is irretrievably broken, with no reasonable likelihood of preservation. Unlike the hopeful petitions of a new year, this filing belongs squarely to the accounting season—a deliberate act of closure before the year’s end.
The petition sets out the practical consequences of that decision. Two children were born of the marriage, and Langwell asks the court to place them in joint legal and joint physical custody, with their primary residence with her and parenting time allotted to McIntyre. She seeks child support, requested retroactively, along with maintenance, asserting that she lacks sufficient employment and property to meet her reasonable needs while the respondent is capable of contributing. The division of marital property and debts, though largely agreed upon in principle, is asked to be carried out in a fair and equitable manner by the court, with each party retaining their non-marital property. She also requests that the respondent contribute toward her attorney’s fees.
Represented by attorney Kevin Hoop, Langwell’s petition reads as a sober inventory of obligations and endings—a reminder that some years do not resolve with celebration, but with the quieter discipline of final decisions made before the clock runs out.
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