In any divorce proceeding the marital assets and liabilities are divided among the two parties so that the parties can move on to their separate lives. Things get complicated when one spouse has donated a vital organ to the other in their time of need. This is what Samantha Lamb, from the United Kingdom, is currently dealing with. She explained to the Sunday People, a U.K. newspaper, that she donated her kidney when her husband was dying, only to have him leave her once he recovered.
Lamb, a 41-year-old mother of one, underwent the kidney transplant operation for her husband Andy back in 2009. In preparation for the surgery, which was documented by the BBC, Lamb had to lost weight to lower the chances of complications during surgery. Both husband and wife recovered well, which she thought would mean a long healthy life together. But a few years after the life-saving surgery, Lamb learned that Andy was planning on leaving her and now she says she wants the kidney back.
Lamb told the Sunday People that she believed Andy was cheating on her, which she believes lead to his decision to leave her; however, Andy intensely denies those allegations. She explains that the she underwent the surgery so as to give her ex-husband a second chance to live so that he may see his grandchildren grow up. She told the newspaper that she could not believe she underwent major surgery for him and yet he decided to leave her. She stated that she would go through the operation again but would not give anything to him, “I hate him. If I could I’d take it back and give it to someone else.”
This is not the first time that a story like this one has surfaced. Back in 2009 a New York doctor asked his estranged wife to return his kidney that he donated her or he would settle for $1.5 million dollars in compensation. The man told reporters that he gave his wife the kidney in 2001 and she filed for divorce in 2005 after having begun an extramarital affair about 2 years after the transplant. In a very different story in August 2012 a woman donated her kidney to her ex-mother-in-law, nearly 10 years after the marriage ended.
If you do not want your PA divorce to turn as bitter as these couple’s divorces, consider using mediation or collaborative law to get through the dissolution process. Contact our Pittsburgh divorce attorneys at Taybron Law Firm, LLC so that our attorneys may help you through the divorce process. Our Pittsburgh family law attorneys are skilled in litigation, mediation, and collaborative law.