Why go for 2 year separation no fault divorce?

[nevermarryamitford]

My BF and STBXW have chosen this route for their divorce which still doesn't seem to be happening, their relationship is very acrimonious, she cheated on him multiple times, they can't sort access to DD, parental alienation involved..

So my question is why do people choose this as an option? Is it entirely down to finances? Why didn't BF just choose adultery and have done with it?

Ask him?

DirtyBlonde thanks, have done, he says it's finance.

Just curious why anyone does it.

Yup, finance related. But it would be unlikely to make a massive difference I imagine if they aren't looking at changing their financial setup. For instance if she wasn't working Abd this gave her time to find a job and he felt he wanted to support her during that time with the least fuss. Then clean break at end of it. That's just an example but something needs to be happening in the background for that scenario to work, even if it's just investments maturing.

If they have been actively negotiating over a financial settlement, and it's hard going, I can see how the timelines pan out like this.

And by the time you've got some idea of how the money and child arrangements might work, you can then deal with the whole legal lot at once. And if it's near to the 2 year point by the time wrangling starts to give way to the outlines of a arrangement, then going that route (so no-one's conduct is mentioned) avoids stirring up the emotional side again.

Many years ago I used to be a Legal Secretary for a Solicitor in family law. This used to be pretty common & one main advantage I can see is not having to go over past events for the sake of the divorce petition. That must be pretty painful, and perhaps embarrassing, for lots of people.

A simple two years' seperation with mutual agreement is more straightforward from that point of view. And the end result is the same.

orangbutton I see what you're saying. Think I need to look into it with him more as nothing seems to be happening at the moment. They've reached some kind of stalemate..

DirtyBlonde I think they've mostly been actively negotiating over allocation of child care arrangements but this is proving impossible so the divorce isn't proceeding along these timelines. I see your point about not wanting to stir up conduct and the pain associated with that. This just seems like a really longwinded way of going about it.

SantasLittleMonkeyHelper that's true, not having to dredge up past behaviours could indeed be painful and embarrassing. Thanks for your thoughts.

bump

My XH and I did this to avoid having to blame each other for stuff in the petition, and thereby making the divorce process emotionally so much more horrible.

No fault is a much calmer way to do things.

PiratePanda this is helpful to know thanks.

I'm doing this with stbxh. He cheated and it was very tempting to go the adultery route or unreasonable behaviour one.
But we have DC and I want to try keep things as amicable as possible. The 2 years thing is simplest, and less likely to end in sulking and acrimony.
I'm certainly not in a rush to get married again anyway.
I actually think the system as it stands is a bit rubbish. It's 2017. We should have an option to end a marriage without fault if both parties agree without having to wait years.

WinchesterInATardis I'm sorry about your situation but it does sound like you're handling it really positively. I agree I think other European countries have no fault options which seems like a much more progressive approach, I don't think the two years should be necessary...

Tbh in acrimonious divorces, if you have to go through court with finances etc it can take longer than that anyway.

To petition on the basis of two year separation and consent is merely a tick box on the form. To use adultery one will have to have their solicitor draft an actual document stating the allegations of and incidences of adultery adding to the actual cost of the divorce.

If they have children and finances to sort out anyway it can often be two years anyway.

Why the rush for you though?

We divorced relatively amicably within 8 months of deciding to separate - all finances/child contact agreed through collaborative process and actually we only had one meeting where emotions got high enough that I had to leave the room for a few minutes. But we still did it on the basis of unreasonable behaviour so we didn't have to wait (partly because waiting would have delayed pension transfer).
But whilst it was his unreasonable behaviour, and me petitioning for divorce,the details of the petition were drawn up by him and his solicitor and were just bad enough to get through the court. It meant no animosity about his "faults"

We did 2 year by agreement - although we separated in 2008 and it was actually 2012 or 13 when I finally sorted the divorce.

ExH left me, I don't know if his subsequent partner was already on the scene - I suspect so but it's irrelevant.

At first I didn't want it to be happening, so didn't want to divorce.
We sorted access and financial pretty early on, between us.
Then it just kind of became something that needed sorting but which neither of us bothered with.
I'm not sure why he didn't, I've never asked him - maybe he didn't want to push me more having already hurt me so much when he left.
The push for me deciding to get it sorted was starting a new relationship.

I did the divorce paperwork myself and had a solicitor prepare the consent order based on the split of finances we had already sorted between us

AllTheBestNamesAreUsed ah this is interesting, I didn't realise it insured additional paperwork and that 2 year separation was simpler. Good point that it takes time to sort the child custody too.

No rush fo rem, I just want to understand what's happening, they've already been separated for more than two years.

ChasingSquirrels I'm sorry you had to go through what sounds like a tricky time. I'm glad to heat that you were able to come through it positively though and were able to do the paperwork yourself, and it's great that you were able to sort finances and access out relatively amicably - quite an accomplishment really.