Brandy Corbell Holland v. Michael Samuel Holland

── Brandy Corbell Holland v. Michael Samuel Holland ── Court: Court of Civil Appeals of Alabama Date: April 24, 2026 Author: Matt Fridy Category: General Rel: April 24, 2026 Notice: This opinion is subject to formal revision before publication in the advance sheets of Southern Reporter. Readers are requested to notify the Reporter of Decisions, Alabama Appellate Courts, 300 Dexter Avenue, Montgomery, Alabama 36104-3741 ((334) 229-0650), of any typographical or other errors, in order that corrections may be made before the opinion is published in Southern Reporter. ALABAMA COURT OF CIVIL APPEALS OCTOBER TERM, 2025-2026 _________________________ CL-2025-0210 _________________________ Brandy Corbell Holland v. Michael Samuel Holland Appeal from Walker Circuit Court (DR-21-900314) FRIDY, Judge. Brandy Corbell Holland ("the wife") appeals from a judgment of the Walker Circuit Court divorcing her from Michael Samuel Holland ("the husband"). In the judgment, the trial court awarded the wife rehabilitative alimony, divided the marital property, awarded the parties CL-2025-0210 joint legal custody of their minor children and awarded sole physical custody of those children to the husband, subject to the wife's visitation, and ordered the wife to pay child support. For the reasons set forth herein, we affirm the judgment in part and reverse it in part. Background The parties married in 2004; three children were born during the marriage, but the oldest, S.H., had already reached the age of majority when the trial began in June 2024. The two younger children, E.H. and H.H., were sixteen years old and twelve years old, respectively, when the trial began.1 The husband commenced the current divorce action in October 2021, and the trial took place over five days in June, August, and November 2024. At the trial, the husband testified that, in the years leading up to the commencement of the action, he and the wife had each filed divorce complaints but then had dismissed those complaints. The wife testified that, just before the husband had commenced the current 1The wife also had an adult child who was born before the parties married and who the husband said that he had raised and considered his own child. 2 CL-2025-0210 action, they had a conversation during which they agreed that "they just [could not] do this anymore." The wife said that she did not have the financial means to pursue a divorce, but the husband said that he did, so he commenced the present divorce action. It is undisputed that, when the first two divorce actions were commenced, neither the husband nor the wife moved out of the marital residence. When the husband commenced the present action, it appears that, at first, the parties again maintained the status quo. Both remained in the marital residence. The husband said that they continued to have sexual relations; the wife said that they rarely had sex. They celebrated Christmas and a child's birthday together, but, the wife said, "everything was different after that divorce filing." The wife testified that, in the year leading up to the commencement of the present divorce action, the husband did not regularly give her money and that, at times, she had had to use her father's check card to make purchases. The wife's father died in January 2022, and she began receiving his pension check. The husband said that he added the wife to one of his individual bank accounts in February 2022. The parties agreed that some of the pension money the wife received was used to pay for a 3 CL-2025-0210 family beach trip in the spring of 2022. The husband said that, at that time, he still