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 courthouse becomes the final ledger of years lived and undone. In St. Louis City, on September 18, 2025, Leo E. Cotton Jr., through his counsel Ben Aranda of The Aranda Law Firm, placed into the record his petition to dissolve his marriage to Althea G. Mitchell. What began with vows spoken in October of 2013 unraveled to its formal end twelve years later, when the couple separated in June of 2025.
There are no children to bind the story to future obligations, no cries of custody or support lingering in the background. What remains instead are the quieter divisions of property and debts, the kind of arithmetic a court must complete when the sentiment has burned itself out. The petition acknowledges both marital and separate property, to be divided and set aside, along with the debts that stand as the residue of shared life. Neither party asks for maintenance, and each is left to carry their own attorney’s fees and costs, the petition insisting on a final symmetry that matches the tone of its dissolution.
The language of the filing speaks of an irretrievably broken marriage, a phrase that has the sound of permanence and inevitability. Yet between the lines, in the blunt listing of dates and addresses, a life together flickers—the home once shared, the promises made on a fall day in 2013, the quiet agreement that nothing here can be preserved. The court will weigh the property and debts, but the substance of what is gone lies beyond its reach.
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