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.
Every dissolution begins long before the paperwork. On May 30, 2025, Khoa D. Phan-Howard filed a petition in the Circuit Court of the City of St. Louis, requesting the formal end of his marriage to Adam R. Howard. The formality is essential—not for the unraveling itself, which seems to have already quietly occurred, but for the narrative that will remain: a story reduced to lines on a docket, signatures on affidavits, a seal pressed into paper by a notary’s hand.
The marriage began on May 19, 2020, in the ragged romance of Ouray County, Colorado, and disintegrated almost precisely five years later, on May 15, 2025. There are no children, no pending claims of need or dependency, and no ongoing performance of conflict. Both parties, according to the petition, are employed, self-sustaining, and in possession of their own truth, their own property, and now, their own lives. The legal request is simple and clinical: divide the accumulated property and obligations fairly; deny maintenance; let each pay their own legal fees; and, finally, restore the petitioner’s name—Khoa Dang Phan.
This petition, authored and submitted by attorneys Allison R. Gerli and Lucy D. Weilbacher of The Center for Family Law, is less a declaration of grievance than a document of closure. Its tone is restrained, almost antiseptic. But beneath its order lies the quietly shattering acknowledgment that something once chosen, perhaps even loved, has turned irreparably silent.
Please contact VowBreakers for access to documents related to the case.
