Grounds for divorce

savgeax

Good morning,

I hope someone can help me out with a question?

Summary:
I have been together with my wife since July 2011. However within a couple of years we had already been to a marriage counsellor and I felt my wife was becoming more unreasonable as time went on. Counselling did not help. Although no physical abuse, mentally I would be put down, shouted at for things as insignificant as taking a different junction on a motorway to save time etc. This led me to feeling like not wanting to go out with her, dreading our days off together and not wanting to come home from work.
I walked out on her in August 2015. House is sold in two weeks time and no complications around money, its all 50/50. No children.

Where do I stand on divorce? By that I mean, will I have to wait 2 years from separation or would I have enough grounds to go down the line of "unreasonable behaviour"?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Browntoa

depends how quick you want to divorce , if its just a case of getting divorced then wait

tea_lover

Is she likely to agree to unreasonable behaviour? You'll need her to sign the papers either way, unless you can wait 5 years.

savgeax

I would like like to move on as quick as possible and now have to revisit it all after 2 years.

SquirrelSmall

I was in a similar situation and, like you, was nervous about going down the "unreasonable behaviour" route - mainly because ex-husband had a tendency to fly off the handle when challenged.

As it transpired, rather than waiting two years, as we'd originally planned, he changed his tune late last year and asked me to divorce him.

Using advice on Wikivorce (a great resource) I very carefully drafted the grounds for unreasonable behaviour. There's a specific formula to follow and you have to give dates, and examples.

I then sent them to ex-husband for him to "approve", so there would be no tantrums when he received the court papers.

This seemed to work well, and my decree nisi comes through in a couple of weeks.

My advice? Play it calmly and carefully.

pigpen

I went with unreasonable behaviour too.. and his 'counter' was that he didnt agree with my reasons but would agree to the divorce.. and it still took a year to get the absolute through!! I never had to give dates or examples.

tea_lover

My ex husband used dates and examples of things he'd done but stated they were me. I was way past caring by that point so happily signed to agree with it.

TBagpuss

'Unreasonable behaviour' is subjective. What is required is that your spouse has behaved in such a way that you personally feel you cannot reasonably continue to live with them. It doesn't have to be "bad" behaviour such as violence or abuse, it can be a 'drip, drip, drip' of lots of little things rather than one big thing.

Typically you would give 2 or 3 examples - you don't ned a lot of detail, just to say what the behaviour was and how it affected you - e.g.
"1. The Respondent was constantly critical of me, and would shout at me or become verbally abusive for minor issues. This made me feel that she no longer loved or respected me

2. The respondent would frequesntly subject me to verbal abuse and put-downs, to the extent that I felt scared of how her, and dreaded returningto the house after work or spending time with her for fear of further abuse"

It is good practice to give her the chance to see the petition before you issue it but it is *not* a requirement that she agrees with what you say. All that is necessary is that she does not actively defed the divorce. If a divorce is defended then the person defenidn it is saying that the marriage has not, in fact broken down. This is extremely rare - as I recall, less than 0.1% of divorces are defended.

Hpwever, if ou are able to word the details in such a way that she can accept them then this is likelyto make the divorce easier. It may be worth telling her (if you are on speaking terms) that agreeing to the divorce does not imply agreement with th reasons you give, it simply means that she agrees that the marriage has broken down. It is very common for people to put on the acknolwegment for what they agree that the marriage has broken down but do not accept that their bhaviour was the main, or the only, cause of the break down.

DigForVictory

Phrase it canny - wikivorce as others have rightly said & lock a financial settlement down at the same time. The calmer & more pragmatic you can be, the better the odds of cooperation.
Just ensure the money stays no complications by getting it formalised.

savgeax

Wow thank you for all the advice. This is a massive help and most certainly goes along way to helping me put together what I need.

I get my money in two weeks, then it's one less thing to worry about.

Mojisola

savgeax wrote: »

House is sold in two weeks time and no complications around money, its all 50/50. No children.

DigForVictory wrote: »

Phrase it canny - wikivorce as others have rightly said & lock a financial settlement down at the same time.

Just ensure the money stays no complications by getting it formalised.

It's really important to get the financial settlement in writing as well as the divorce to prevent claims in the future.