I wouldn’t want to stay married to anyone who would play these kinds of mind games.
To be fair, it doesn’t have to be mind games, she could have been in a bad place and somehow figured out for herself that the best thing to do was to end the relationship, but realised that she was wrong. There are people who genuinely believe that they can make other peoples lives better by leaving them (a kind of “you would do better without me, I’m only pulling you down” mentality), that could do something like this not to manipulate the other person, but because they actually care about them, but are in a bad place themselves.
Emotional abuse detected.
I mentioned it in another comment, but I’ll repeat it here: This doesn’t necessarily have to be emotional abuse. It can well be a result of the wife being in a bad place, having little self-worth, and convincing herself that anon would be better off without her. Perhaps anon’s response caused her to re-think and reconsider, hence the subsequent breakdown.
So… if anon took those papers and just taped them back together, would they still be legally binding if submitted?
Would this depend on the jurisdiction/country? I’ve never thought seriously about whether tearing up signed legal documents constitutes a refutation after they’re signed. (a pile of torn-up papers doesn’t carry any proof of which, either or both, parties agreed to the tearing-up). And thankfully never been in a situation where this question would arise. Also assuming ‘tearing up’ wasn’t enough to prevent taping them back into a mostly-complete state.
