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 is marketed as a reboot button, a month that insists the future can be edited clean. But paperwork has its own memory. In the Family Court Division of the Circuit Court of Jackson County, Missouri, at Independence, a petition for dissolution of marriage was filed on January 21, 2026, and with it came a record of what renewal cannot erase.

Kristine M. Williams and Dylan J. Williams were married on October 14, 2016, in Kansas City, Missouri. They separated on or about April 1, 2025, and have lived apart since. The petition states plainly that the marriage is irretrievably broken, but it goes further, alleging a pattern of domestic violence inflicted by the respondent upon the petitioner and the minor child throughout the marriage. This is not the language of drift; it is the language of reckoning.

One minor child was born to the petitioner and adopted by the respondent. The child has lived with Williams in Jackson County for the six months preceding the filing. Represented by attorney Linda King Steele, Williams asks the court to grant her sole legal and sole physical custody, with her address designated for educational and mailing purposes, under a proposed parenting plan filed with the petition. She seeks child support calculated under Missouri law, retroactive to the date of filing, including medical support, and payable by wage withholding. She further requests law enforcement assistance to enforce custody and visitation rights.

Williams asks the court to dissolve the marriage; to make a formal finding of domestic violence; to divide marital property and debts fairly, taking into account marital misconduct; to set aside her separate property; and to restore her maiden name, Kristine Michelle Johnson. She is not seeking maintenance. Court costs, she asks, should be split evenly. January promises beginnings; the petition insists on truth.

Please contact VowBreakers for access to documents related to the case.