In the 90s, could one person divorce if their spouse didn’t want to?

[90sQuestion]

My DM has always said that she would have divorced my DF, but she wasn’t able to as ‘he wouldn’t sign the form.’ I’ve always wondered if that were true or if she could have gone ahead with it without his agreement.

She (falsely) accused him of some rather horrendous stuff so (if it were in fact possible to do so), I have wondered why she didn’t do it.

I'm pretty sure if you were living separately for 5 years, then you could.

Not really - "no fault" divorce only went through a couple of years ago based on a similar case law where the husband refused to divorce his wife:

https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/topics/family-and-children/no-fault-divorce

But why are you trying to discredit your mum? She is probably telling the truth in this case

I think both parties had to agree that they had been living separately for 5 years with no intention of getting back together. I guess your dad could have refused to do that. But I don't know for sure. It was certainly harder to get divorced and more unusual in the 90s.

If you had lived separately for 5 years you could do a one sided divorce, from memory. If you wanted to divorce within 2 years there had to be a fault, after two years you both had to agree to divorce. It wouldn’t necessarily have been well known though.

Yes you could.

This is my reollection ( I divorced in the 1990s). I also recollect that this was widely known, specificall that you could divorce someone against their wishes.

Yes, my then husband refused to divorce and I was too scared to attempt fault for DV. Eventually he wrote to me telling me that despite having slept with a huge number of people I was all he wanted so I sent it to my solicitor as prove of adultery. (grounds for divorce)

Was she able to live separately to him? If not, she wouldn't have been able to do the five years' separation if he refused to move out/she was financially dependent upon him so couldn't do it herself.

Thank you all. Yes, she did live separately to him at various points, but not for a five year block. In theory, she could have done so though. She owned her own, separate property.

To the PP, I’m not trying to discredit her. It’s something I’ve wondered for a while. It’s all a very sad story. She was a drinker, and at times this caused her to think, say and do some awful things.

Thank you all. Yes, she did live separately to him at various points, but not for a five year block. In theory, she could have done so though. She owned her own, separate property.

She could have still divorced him if she wanted. You can be separate but living in the same house it's just harder to prove you are separate.

Also I doubt he would have refused to sign the divorce papers if he was going to get some money out of it if she there was a separate property. (Remember the financial order is separate.)

Over the years I've known various people including my DP who had to get divorced using 5 years separation.