divorce?

[kali1967]

So, how long would a divorce take in America? Would the two people actually have to see each other or could she just mail him some papers or something? They split amicably, and he doesn't want any of their things nor do they have any kids, which I think would make things easier?

Comments

[penknife]

It depends on the state; divorce laws vary widely between states, so you'll want to look up the information for the state where the characters live. It varies between no waiting period (although it will still take at least a few weeks to actually get papers filed and schedule a court hearing) to a year or more.

In almost all cases, they would both need to attend a court hearing, even for an uncontested no-fault divorce. There are a handful of places where you can do it by mail, but that's rare.

[florahart]

Varies by state.

[florahart]

For instance, in Oregon, both don't have to show up, though both do have to have signed stuff. For me, the process (yes kids, but no arguing about stuff and we did the papers ourselves) was pay a filing fee, go stand in a courtroom with 20 other people doing filing of things, take the papers up to one of the two judges working next to each other, watch him flip through, and say "yep" a couple of times, and then he signed off, and I went downstairs to turn in the forms and go get breakfast. We did have to wait 90 (? I think 90) days between filing separation and this, unless we wanted to do a hearing to get things done faster, which, why pay.

[conuly]

Varies a LOT by state, I'm sorry to say :(

Where, exactly, do they live?

[kali1967]

Uh, anywhere? He doesn't have a canon location but right now he's living with his boyfriend in Missouri. Also, I've just realised that he's going to be deployed in the next few weeks which might screw things up?

[emrinalexander]

You really need to decide what state one of the parties is considered a legal resident of, and then you have to figure out what county of that state they live in, and go by that state's divorce laws and what their local county filing procedure is. There is no one set standard for all 50 states, so while you might be able to get a divorce in 30 days in Pennsylvania or Missouri if it's not contested and there's nothing to split up, it might take six months in Illinois or Alabama.

[aiffe]

When my parents got divorced in Brooklyn, New York, my mom pretty much got a letter in the mail saying, "You are now divorced! :D" (They'd been separated for three years already.) But she was always a little suspicious of it, because she thought the law required that, y'know, she at least sign off on it or something. There was apparently a rash of not-so-legal divorces going around in Brooklyn then, so she always wondered...but didn't look into it that deeply, because she didn't want to find out she was really still married to him. D:

She may have also exaggerated it--I was pretty young at the time. There was a slight bit of back-and-forth with the papers, and a judge, as I seem to recall he tried to get custody of me that way, and the judge nixed it. So assuming that divorce was legal, mailing papers would be valid.

[transemacabre]

When my brother got divorced in Mississippi, the process took a few months. I know they hired lawyers. He signed the papers as a Christmas present for his ex-wife.