: Re: Writing a book that involves an ex husband I'm new to the writing world (other than writing a lot as a child). I want to write my story to help empower women in similar situations but it

@Deb2945533

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Is your goal to publicly shame your ex-husband, or to provide advice and warning to other women?

You seem to indicate (b). In that case, I'd advise you to avoid naming names. Write a fiction story with a character who does the bad things your husband did, but give him a different name and make him different in other ways. Like if your ex was a short, bald white coal miner, make your character a tall, long-haired black office worker. If the only thing your ex has in common with the character is the abusive behavior, than for him to sue he would have to admit to the abusive behavior. He'd have to say, "This character is obviously modeled after me, because he's a drunkard who beats up his wife and patronizes prostitutes, just like me!" He's unlikely to want to do that, and even if he did, he'd be in the position of having to say that the character is just like him in doing all these bad things, and then that you are libeling him by saying he did all these bad things.

Or write a non-fiction book where you are vague about individuals. Say "this has happened to some women". Or "this happened to a woman I know" -- presumably you know yourself very well. Maybe even "this happened to me" but without being specific about who the perpetrator was. If you've only had one husband, don't say "an ex-husband", just say "a man with whom I had a relationship" or some such. The tail end of my previous paragraph applies just as well here.

If (a), then there's no way to accomplish this without naming him or making it obvious who you're talking about. If you publicly accuse him of doing terrible things, he has grounds for a law suit. I am not a lawyer, but my understanding of libel law is this: He'd have to prove in court that, (a) you're talking about him, and (b) your claims are false, and (c) your claims cause him harm. If you accuse him of breaking the law, that's "libel per se". He automatically passes condition (c). If you accuse him of something scandalous but that isn't illegal, than he has to prove that it caused him some harm. (Like if I wrote, "My neighbor Bob wears blue shirts", he'd have a hard time suing me for that, even if it isn't true, because it's difficult to see how he would be hurt by people thinking he wears blue shirts. Of course many real cases can be much more borderline and debatable.)

Even if you are absolutely in the right, you will likely have to hire a lawyer to defend yourself, and that will cost money. And let's be realistic: Even if you are absolutely in the right, that's no guarantee that you will win in court. One doesn't have to be a hardened cynic to say that sometimes our courts make wrong decisions.

If you want to pursue naming names, I'd second other posters here who say you should probably talk to a lawyer. A lawyer could, hopefully, give you a realistic idea of your chances of being sued and your chances of winning if you were, and an idea of what it would cost to defend yourself and the consequences of losing. People have lost tens of thousands, even millions of dollars in law suits. An exploratory session with a lawyer typically costs somewhere from nothing to one or two hundred dollars. I think that's a good investment when everything you own is at stake.

Perhaps you've gotten the clue that I'd advise not naming names unless you really, really want to hurt your ex-husband and don't care about the consequences.

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