26 Weeks My Elbow!

[TheChipsAreOnFire]

Just letting off a bit of steam!
Applied to divorce at the beginning of the year - non-fault and all fairly amicable. Everywhere online says "in as little as 26 weeks" which I knew was optimistic, but as the process goes on I have come to realise that it is completely fucking impossible.

20 weeks on, this morning I have finally been allowed to apply for the conditional order. I have received an email saying that I should receive a date for the conditional order to be confirmed by 31st July.....then I have to wait for it to actually be granted, which could be several more weeks. Once the conditional order is granted I have to wait for 6 weeks +1 day to apply for the final order, then I have no idea how long it takes for the final order to actually be granted.

So it can't take only 26 weeks, can it? Because you have 20 weeks waiting between divorce application being accepted and applying for conditional order, then 6 weeks +1 day waiting between the conditional order being granted and being able to apply for the final order, then the final order isn't granted immediately.
It isn't a big deal really, but don't tell me that something could only take 26 weeks when it is completely impossible. Especially when that thing is as important as dissolving my fucking marriage.
ALSO what the fuck is the 20 week cool off period for? I am an adult, the law trusted me to get married in the first place, why can't I be trusted to think about whether I actually want to be divorced BEFORE I apply. Who applies for divorce, pays the fee and THEN takes 20 weeks to consider whether it is what they really want? FFS

Just curious, has your conditional order been granted yet?

My divorce took A YEAR. No children, late 20s,.finances completely agreed. Purely due to delays from the courts (this was 2017, not Covid related delays).

It's horrible, isn't it? You've made up your mind but you have this piece of paper hanging over you.

Mine didn't take anywhere near that length of time. 🤯

The 20 weeks waiting is horrendous. In the UK we have to wait 4 weeks before marriage, but 20 weeks before a divorce application can slowly move forwards. I'd like to know the thinking behind that.
It does pass, eventually. I'm divorced. Unnecessarily protracted and upsetting process, in my view. It's already a whole maelstrom of emotions. I'd prefer a clinical and easy exit, I think waiting 4 weeks to exit should be standard.

@BumpkinLife I am so happy to say that it has! Last Wednesday (3rd July) it was pronounced in court, so I can apply for the Final Order on 15th August. I can't make any sense of whether that means I am finally divorced on 15th August, or I have to wait an untold amount of time for the Final Order to actually be issued. I am however having a small celebration with a couple of friends on 15th August 😁

Why are you paying extra for a company to apply on your behalf when you can just apply via .gov.uk? It's a total waste of money.

The 26 reference is based on the 20 week waiting period between issue and the first date you can apply for the conditional order. The 6 weeks is the minimum period between the conditional order and the final order application. Anything else is entirely within the power and control of the court, not the applicant nor any company making the application on their behalf. Sometimes the conditional order is granted after a couple of weeks, sometimes longer, sometimes the final order comes minutes after application, sometimes longer.

If you have an issue with the 20 week period then your MP is the person to speak to but good luck getting any more divorce reform squeezed out of parliament when it took 20 years to get no fault divorce.

Oh thats good news!!! I applied for mine in the early hours of this morning! (By 4th september for a response) so i was hoping it would be sooner… did you supply a financial order? The more i read the more nervous i am getting i need to do more for this process to just be over… my husband (ex) and i dont actually have anything to split and arent at all bothered about splitting money so i am hoping it will be smooth sailing… is that too ambitious? Haha….

@BabyFedUp445 @DidILeaveTheGasOn
It really is bollocks isn't it?
At least there's now the non-fault option - we are both happy to accept our part in the breakdown of the marriage but would resent the other if we had to take the "full blame".

@Crazycatlady79
How long did yours take?
Given the possible massive delay I actually feel like I have gotten away with things lightly as it will be 31-32 weeks by the time I can apply for the Final Order (assuming that is the end of things).
It is still ridiculous that they say 26 weeks, when that timescale doesn't seem possible though - I think I am just a stickler for numbers being accurate though!

Can I ask what the urgency was?
Was it just an urgent desire to be legally unmarried?
You can redo your will to sort out that side of things.

I haven't paid anyone any extra money, I have done it myself. Not sure where you got that information from?
Also, I understand how they calculate the 26 weeks. My point is that it is wholly inaccurate. As you have said, there are processes that need to happen outside of those 26 weeks and the length of time that those processes take are out of everyone's control. So the waiting periods total 26 weeks, the length of the divorce is actually anyone's guess. Saying that non-fault divorce takes only 26 weeks is an outright lie.

Good question - there's no particular urgency other than the strong desire (on both sides) to be legally unmarried. Once you have decided to divorce I don't think anyone really wants the process to take a minute longer than it has to.

The main gripe is that 26 weeks is billed as the timescale but it is not possible. It isn't just optimistic - it is actually impossible. I wouldn't go around saying I could do something for a client within a certain time period if it wasn't possible, and my line of work is nowhere near as important.

@BumpkinLife I was so relieved! The email with the Conditional Order date came in 2 weeks after I applied and the wait for it to be granted was only another 2 weeks.
It does seem like there's more and more waiting to the process - I kind of wouldn't be surprised if there's another unexpected wait for something when I apply for the Final Order on 15th August, but apply I shall!
As for the finances. My ex has instructed a solicitor and I have signed a financial consent order stating that we are not legally entitled to eachother's current or future assets and not liable for each other's debts. We have nothing to divide at the moment, but ex is due to inherit a huge amount sometime soon and doesn't want me to make any sort of claim on it. I have signed it because I know that the elderly relative in question would be spiteful enough to disinherit my ex if I didn't, but it rankles because I was the elderly relative's main carer for several years... anyway, that is (and has been, under various usernames) a whole other bunch of threads....

@Andthereitis no one makes the decision to divorce lightly. Once I was done, I was fucking done. I thought about leaving my piece of shit husband for a long time and I was DONE. I moved out, filed the paperwork. Mentally I had been out of the marriage for a long long time. I made huge financial concessions to get exH to agree to it too. To then have to wait A YEAR to get the divorce through was mentally horrific. I wanted to start dating, live my life, but had this horrible man hanging over me. Luckily I met my still current DP who didn't care about my marital status but it was embarrassing as fuck to have to explain it to every guy I went out with. How many times do women on here get told not to date a man if he's still married??? The relationship was OVER.

I am unsure why you were embarrassed to explain to men you were getting a divorce and it was not yet final.
I assume you had separated physically and that you weren't having regular contact with your ExH, or sleeping with him.

Less than a year on you have found your next DP, that's fine. I assume you're not rushing into tying yourself to a man again soon so I am not sure what you are bothered about. If you're thinking about moving in with your new DP then I would advice caution.
You sound very angry about not being able to free yourself instantly from your ExH.

Stop feeling shame for ending a relationship and certainly don't be embarrassed about the length of time legal things take.

@BabyFedUp445
I completely get it - I have met someone new (a man) and felt really weird about explaining that I am legally still married to a woman.... he couldn't give a monkeys though, and neither do his family.
@Andthereitis
I think you are overstretching that @BabyFedUp445 feels shame for ending a relationship and I think it is perfectly normal to not want a process such as divorce to drag out. It sounds to me like she is not angry about being "instantly able to free herself from ExH" or embarrassed about the time that legal things take. More annoyed and frustrated that the legal process often takes longer than expected / described and she was expecting to be legally free of her ex sooner.

I am very interested to know your personal experience with marriage and divorce, if that isn't a rude thing to ask? I am very curious about your perspective

@TheChipsAreOnFire I'm divorced and remarried.
I don't think my divorce took an unreasonable amount of time. There was urgency but I didn't plod either. I had accepted that marriage was doomed for some time so knew that the divorce would happen.
I handled the paperwork myself. I did go to the court to get one of the bits of paper and the lady on the desk said "See you again" .. So far she hasn't.

I have a friend who is a solicitor who has handled some argumentative divorces where one person didn't want to be divorced, but the law recognises that once one party to a marriage wants a divorce, it really has to happen, it just might take longer.

There should be no shame in divorce. My grandmother was divorced and remarried in a time when it would have been shameful. She was a strong woman but I imagine her divorcee status was a difficult thing.

@Andthereitis LOL. If you read my posts my divorce is from years ago. There was zero shame on my part. The only shame is for my exH and the legal system. We are expressing frustration at a legal process that is supposed to take A LOT LESS time. An entire year to get a divorce when there are no kids and there is complete agreement on the divorce and finances is absolutely disgraceful.

Thank you for sharing that information.
I am intrigued though, when you say there was no sense of urgency in your divorce, did you not feel like you wanted the marriage to end ASAP once you had set on it? If you had been told it would take 26 weeks and then discovered that it would actually be considerably longer (in the case of @BabyFedUp445) would you not have felt any frustration at all? Or were you more of the mindset that you had separated from your ex, were living separate lives and the divorce was just a piece of paper?

I understand some divorces can drag out for years and years if the parties cannot agree and those circumstances are very difficult, time consuming, costly, stressful....but my ex and I are both on the same page here. We both have met new people and we are largely amicable, but want to get it settled.

I am glad to say that I feel no shame in getting divorced - I am of course disappointed that my marriage didn't work out as neither of us entered into it thinking it would end this way. Maybe if getting married was as time consuming and thought provoking as divorce we wouldn't have entered into it in the first place!

Applied for the final order at 00.04