Crash Course for Dummies: Filing for Divorce and Facts

The dictionarys sophisticated meaning of a divorce is “a legal dissolution of a marriage by a court or other competent body,” and to put it simpler it’s when a couple who have been married want to end the marriage and go their seperate ways. Divorce is a very common thing that people go through these days, for all different reasons like getting married to young, eloping in Vegas when they’re drunk or many other reasons. Back in the day the way a couple would seperate was only when one spouse died, and also in some religions it is frowned upon to divorce, for example catholics frown upon it in their religion. But since we are in a new era people should know the steps of filing for a legal seperation. It has been stated by some researchers that marriage and divorce rates are decreasing, so the less people who marry means the less likely there will be a divorce between spouses. Though it is a big thing for domestic abuse and that is a big issue in which why couples are splitting, that and the fact that people cheat. Those are a few reasons why in my opinion I think people should seriously be educated on this matter, especially young couples. The beginning of divorce starts with someone filing a divorce petition, a formal complaint on ones marriage done up by one of the spouses and a divorce lawyer. The petitioner, the person who files the divorce petition, must file it with a divorce court and then have it served to the respondent, the spouse the petition was filed against, the roles of the petitioner and respondent will not change throughout the whole process. The divorce petition is basically a way that the petitioner asks the divorce court to allow the divorce to be brought to an end or in some cases, terminated. In the divorce petition, there has to be certain things stated such as the two spouses and the children. When filing for divorce the petitioner has to also state their wishes on the child’s custody, child support and etc asking the court for an order. When the petition is done and put through the court they then have someone, usually the sheriff’s office, serve the papers to the respondent. The respondent then has about thirty days to respond to the petition, this is when the divorce process begins. If the respondent fails to answer, he or she then gives up their rights to fight any issues such as the child custody, and failure to respond the court takes it as an agreement to the petition and grants the requests the petitioner wants. But when the respondent answers the petition they have a chance to either agree or disagree to what the petitioner wants, then they have to let the judge decide the outcome. After this period of time the couple has to wait a certain amount of time, which is different depending on what state the petition resides, and with in this time period it is to make sure that the couple is positive they want to end their marriage. Some people will change their mind, and the courts just want to make sure their time is not being wasted. Before you try to go through with a divorce you need to go through everything and decide if it is really what you want and make sure you don’t put everyone, including the kids, through all the stress and trouble that follows with divorce. These are the begining steps for filing for divorce in which everyone should be aware of if they plan on cutting loose their spouse. So remember these steps:

1) File a divorce petition to the divorce court.

2) State what you want to happen, pertaining to custody or alimony.

3) Have the papers served to the opposite spouse.

4) Wait for an answer from spouse.

5) Wait to see if your minds have changed during the cool off period so you don’t waste the courts time.

These are just the first few steps, there are other things that the spouses will go through. They have to go through things like the divorce settlement and a divorce trial when the spouses can’t agree. When the two spouses can’t agree on what they want to come out of the relationship they have to go to court and have the judge decide who gets what. That usually happens when it involves splitting the money, housing, and etc.

Here is a little line graph that researchers have made which shows that couples are was more likely to get a divorce now and days rather than in the past.  As you can see, between 1900 and 2010 the lowest point is 1900 and the highest is around 1980.