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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

Grounds for Divorce and Same-Sex Marriage - AIBU?

162 replies

JeanneDeMontbaston · 24/03/2016 12:14

I've been quietly pondering this for a while, but a recent conversation made me want to put it on MN.

As you might know, when you get divorced, you have to provide grounds for divorce. There are various things you can say, and to some extent, these are a bit of a fig leaf. For example, you can claim 'unreasonable behaviour' when all you really mean is 's/he seems quite nice but is driving me up the fucking wall and we're not compatible'.

What slightly surprises me is that, according to the Government website, you cannot cite same-sex adultery. It just doesn't count.

Same-sex marriage is legal, obviously. But the site claims adultery only applies if "your husband or wife had sex with someone else of the opposite sex."

I thought it must be an error, that they'd just not updated since same-sex marriage came in, but actually, that doesn't make much sense either, does it? And presumably we're long beyond the period when adultery was an issue purely because people expected marriages to produces biological children?

Can anyone understand the reasoning here? And can anyone tell me if it is an error, or if this is really law? If it is, it actually seems quite homophobic to me really.

The site is here, btw:
www.gov.uk/divorce/grounds-for-divorce

OP posts:
mummytime · 27/03/2016 12:20

Do you think being divorced for Adultery would make you seem a better person (overcome by passion) or the whole thing more understandable? Do you prefer to be an Adulterer rather than Unreasonable?

MammaTJ · 27/03/2016 12:27

I really get what you are saying but I don't know how it can practically be changed.

In my younger days I had a BF who was bi-sexual. One of his friends commented that I must be very open minded to be with someone who fancied both men and women. I replied that it was more that I was close minded to my BF cheating on me with anyone, either of the same or opposite sex. Had the relationship progressed to marriage and children, I would have wanted to be able to divorce him for adultery if he had cheated on me with a man!

Original poster
JeanneDeMontbaston · 27/03/2016 13:32

I just think it would be 1) more honest and 2) better for both of us than drawing it all out for two years, which is actually pretty unpleasant.

If you think about it, it is a bloody odd situation to be in, when we've separated, but the law still requires us to hash all of this out.

OP posts:
Original poster
JeanneDeMontbaston · 27/03/2016 13:33

blue, they've already defined sex. This defines same-sex relationships as 'not sex', IMO.

OP posts:
mummytime · 27/03/2016 15:54

The thing is the "law" doesn't define what happened between Monica Lewinskye and Bill Clinton as adultery (at least in the UK), even though most people.

Goingtobeawesome · 27/03/2016 16:39

This has made me wonder. From a religious point of view, if adultery is committed are the couple still married? Stupid question of the year day.

Italiangreyhound · 28/03/2016 03:57

Goingtobeawesome yes, unless they get divorced.

Bumbledumb · 28/03/2016 04:27

My ex doesn't think I am unreasonable to have started a new relationship (and it is extremely easy for him to get evidence of it). But he does feel - reasonably! - that it is grounds for divorce, not something he's ok with. Neither of us wants to pretend the other has been unreasonable in some other, fake way - and it does seem to make a mockery of serious marital issues people have.

I don't understand why he cannot submit the fact that you have started an extra-marital relationship with another person as unreasonable behaviour. In terms of the marriage it sounds totally unreasonable to me. Why do you have to pretend that the other has been unreasonable in some other way?

Scarydinosaurs · 28/03/2016 06:23

You can use your relationship as grounds for unreasonable behaviour, you don't have to make anything up.

You need seven examples:

  1. You begun the relationship
  2. You withdrew emotionally from the marriage
  3. You continued the relationship
  4. You left the marital home
  5. You moved in together
  6. You introduced new partner to friends and family
  7. You no longer have a romantic relationship with your husband

I agree it should be updated though

Original poster
JeanneDeMontbaston · 28/03/2016 09:58

bumble - well, we have to 'pretend to be unreasonable' because that is what current law requires. That's what I'm saying. It's a bit daft.

And I do think it's different from saying 'a blow job doesn't count either, so ...'. What's odd about the law is that it's saying only straight couples could possibly commit something that counts as adultery, which is really odd.

scary - well, actually, I left him (asking for a divorce), moved out, told him I was going to start seeing other people, and then met my new partner. Apparently, if we were straight, he could count that as adultery and move on. It does feel absurd to call it unreasonable.

OP posts:
Scarydinosaurs · 28/03/2016 10:00

Jeanne, if you left him first and then started the relationship, then just use the reasons for leaving him? Your adultery wasn't the reason for the breakdown of the marriage if you had already left. No need to wait two years or fabricate reasons.

Scarydinosaurs · 28/03/2016 10:02

Not recognising same sex infidelity is ridiculous, but I do think you're seeing a problem in your own personal situation where there isn't one.

Original poster
JeanneDeMontbaston · 28/03/2016 10:02

But I don't have any reasons really. Not ones I think count as 'unreasonable behaviour'. He's a good person. He won't cite unreasonable behaviour against me, and I hate the idea of saying 'ooh, well, sometimes he pissed me off when he washed up wrong' because it's so shitty. It did piss me off, but the point is that we were wrong for each other and there is no way in law to say that.

OP posts:
Original poster
JeanneDeMontbaston · 28/03/2016 10:03

Cross post.

Sorry, scary, I should never have mentioned my personal situation because (very understandably) it's skewed the thread. When I started it, I really just wanted to say 'look, this is daft' about the law in general.

OP posts:
Goingtobeawesome · 28/03/2016 10:07

Thank you ItalianGreyHound.. I do know it was a stupid question but emotionally it was crucial to know.

Scarydinosaurs · 28/03/2016 10:08

I completely agree it's daft.

I 100% think your husband can petition you for divorce using the fact you left the marital home and are now in a relationship with someone else as grounds for unreasonable behaviour. It doesn't have to sound petty.

I divorced on grounds of reasonable behaviour- it was a matter of being 'incompatible' but it wasn't reduced to a list of mild irritants.

Read the guidelines closely and if your relationship with your ex is good then write it together.

Then make a change petition to change the wording of adultery and I'll sign it. Personally I feel it adds to the 'othering' of homosexuals and contributes to the heteronormative attitude of society, thus making it harder to be openly homosexual.

Original poster
JeanneDeMontbaston · 28/03/2016 10:11

Yes, I know he can scary - but he has to wait two years. We checked. If you are divorcing because you left the marital home, you have to wait. We could probably scare up something else, but I do think it's genuinely unpleasant raking over 'well, we could say x, couldn't we? X wasn't very nice. Oh, wait, you're upset, are you ...'.

Anyway - yes, absolutely that is what I felt about it, that it's othering, and daft, and really all-round stupid that the current wording is written like this.

OP posts:
Scarydinosaurs · 28/03/2016 10:16

Are you absolutely sure? I divorced only three years ago and I'm sure it can't have changed? I petitioned for divorce and definitely used the fact he moved out as one of my reasons? I just linked it to the subsequent withdrawal of attention- he couldn't give affection or attention if he wasn't there.

Divorce is horrid, I hope you get yours done quickly and easily.

Original poster
JeanneDeMontbaston · 28/03/2016 10:19

Thanks for good wishes.

Yes, I am sure - because what I'm saying is, it can be a reason in your list, but you had to include others, too. Which is the bit that is the problem.

OP posts:
mummytime · 28/03/2016 11:44

But as someone has shown you easily have 7 unreasonable behaviour reasons. And judges don't turn down unreasonable behaviour reasons as far as I know even if they don't add up to much.

I think the government is unlikely to change the grounds for adultery, as ideally it would get rid of adultery or create a combined adultery & unreasonable grounds. However any government that did this would be liable to be attacked by certain areas of the press with headlines like "Adultery no longer grounds for divorce".
Yes the law is anachronistic and muddled. But in your personal circumstances there is a very valid and normal way through it.

SylviaWrath · 28/03/2016 12:16

If you're waiting 2 years its because you choose to. You can cite anything at all as unreasonable behaviour: you could put doesn't wash up properly, or hangs the loo roll the wrong way around. Or she slept with someone else, in your case. Nobody asks you to prove it or justify it.

You're being silly. The law isn't against gay people, its an old law that essentially legitimises the notion of mens ownership of women, which doesn't need to be updated just so you can feel a bit better about your divorce. It needs radical change for everyone.

Original poster
JeanneDeMontbaston · 28/03/2016 12:55

I know it needs radical change for everyone, sylvia. I've said that several times in this thread alone. I really shouldn't have mentioned my circumstances (though I think you've misread if you think I could cite 'she slept with someone else'?!).

I know that ex-H and I could cite unreasonable behaviour. But I also understand why he feels the way he does about it. And it does seem to me it's something that ought to change.

OP posts:
SylviaWrath · 28/03/2016 13:05

You are separated and have a female partner...so presumably he can cite you sleeping with her as unreasonable behaviour. Unless you mean something different by partner than I understand, I don't see how I misread anything?

You say on the one hand that I'm correct and it needs to change for all, but then you go back to "its not fair to same sex couples". They aren't two competing pov's, but one encompasses both.
Your complaints just don't make a lot of sense.

Original poster
JeanneDeMontbaston · 28/03/2016 13:10

Yes, he could, but as I explained upthread a couple of times, he feels fairly strongly it's not 'unreasonable'. The thing is, divorce is fairly emotional at the best of times. I think it is probably worse if you feel as if there's pressure on you to make things up.

I don't see why you have issues with me having two connected points (1, that it should change for everyone, and 2), that it's a particularly odd bit of law give same-sex couples exist). Is there something wrong with that?

I'm sorry if it doesn't make much sense to you. I might be explaining it in a confusing way, and I probably should have stuck to a non-personal 'AIBU to think this is generally outdated and specifically really oddly homophobic', shouldn't I? But I was thinking about it from a messy personal perspective and so that came into it all.

OP posts:
GooseberryRoolz · 28/03/2016 13:30

I haven't RTFT so apologies if this has been said already.

Apparently there was an attempt to arrive at a definitive definition of same sec adultery before civil partnership was introduced; the relevant parliamentary committee discussed various sex acts in detail for a long time before concluding a single legal definition was unachievable. Apparently Hmm

I'm pretty sure there was a R4 documentary about it a couple of years ago.