Advice on divorce proceedings. Your experiences?

Siouxie_2

My boyfriends marriage broke down at the end of last year... after many years of him putting up with his wifes verbal/mental abuse to him. He only stayed with her because of his young daughter...but at the end of last year he found the situation unbearable ...and had no alternative but to move out of the marital home and into a rented a flat by himself. His wife was very pleased this happened and commenced divorce proceedings against him and continued to put him down etc. However she has since found out that he is seeing me... and now says that she still loves him, and wants him back! She has now stopped her divorce proceedings against him too! He has now said that he will divorce her...but i was wondering how this can happen as she wont co-operate, and is trying to make things as difficult as possible. We want to get engaged but not untill hes divorced.

misswig

Hi

You can divorce after 2 years after seperation with consent from the op involved, if she is going to be uncooperative then it is 5 years.

I'm not sure but it may be that if you divorce someone on the grounds of unreasonable bhaviour, then if the courts agree then it may not need the OP consent. Worth looking into

Siouxie_2

Hi Misswig...thanx for the advice...i will look into the unreasonable behaviour grounds. Hopefully we wont have to wait 5 yrs!

SSB

Hi
It does not matter what grounds you proceed with. Without her consent, you still need to wait 5 years since she can just refuse to co-operate and allege that she does not wish to get divorced.

benb76

has his ex had any relationships since the split? If so, you could also do it on the grounds of her adultery, this would be harder for her to contest if there was reasonable evidence, e.g. if she was living with her partner, or regularly spent nights over.

SSB

Hi
I forgot to add that if he petitions on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour ( and she disputes this), he will need to gather evidence such as statements from friends, family, evidence of physical abuse (photos , doctor's statements etc.).
If she remains unco-operative, you need to prepare yourself for rather a long process.

benb76

SSB wrote: »

Hi
It does not matter what grounds you proceed with. Without her consent, you still need to wait 5 years since she can just refuse to co-operate and allege that she does not wish to get divorced.

This is wrong!!! The five year timescale is for divorce on the grounds of separation without consent. You can proceed on grounds of adultery or unreasonable behaviour at any time, she can defend the divorce but that is almost always futile and expensive (legal aid not given to contest divorces).

SSB

Sorry, benb76 is correct. How old is his daughter? How co-operative will the wife be when it comes to custody/visitation? How wealthy is she, can she afford to defend the divorce?

Siouxie_2

My boyfriends daughter is now 9 and he originally left then went back to his wife when the little girl was 2 and a half...because he missed her too much. His ex has often stopped him from seeing his little girl... but is ok at the moment. When he left her originally... his wife harassed my boyfriends mother and his sister. She has seperate convictions for harassing them both and i also have had an 'harassment order' given to her by the police as she kept turning up at my house being abusive/threatening etc. As far as we know shes not seeing anyone. It would be much easier if she was...but poor bloke!!! lol:rotfl:

SSB

Ohhh, she sounds lovely..... It is better if your boyfriend petitions asap, as benb76 pointed out, it is expensive to defend the divorce. Looks like there is lots of things to use as examples of unreasonable behaviour.

misswig

In that case it sounds like he has plenty of evidence to back him up if he files for divorce on the grounds of unreasonable behaviour

It may get alittle difficult though if she retaliates by being difficult with regards
access tohis daughter. Is this likely to happen?