Apply for Absolute as a respondent

[AnnetteCurtainPeeper]

Hello,

Does anyone have any experience of applying for their absolute as the respondent?

Ex is the applicant, but is emotionally abusive and is ignoring all contact from my solicitor asking them to apply for the absolute.

No doubt he is enjoying this small piece of control he has left.

Nisi was pronounced 20th July - I understand that I will need to wait until November-ish before I can apply - i just wondered if there are more hoops for me to jump through?

My solicitor is away today and I've been so busy with work I've not had a chance to check all of this with him, but also I'd like to see if anyone else has experienced this.

It's very upsetting that it all seems to be in my exes hands.

Thanks a lot in advance

Have you sorted your financial consent order, you are strongly advised not to get absolute till this is sorted.

There are no extra hoops for you to jump through but, as the previous poster said, you should wait until the financial order is sorted before applying for the absolute.

He is refusing to engage anymore over the financial order and won't sign a consent order.

My parents are wealthy and he doesn't wish to 'terminate his right to anything that he could claim on in the future'. We share a child together.

I cannot afford, emotionally or physically, to take him to court over it.

I am desperate to marry my new partner with whom I have a baby.

I would try to finalise finances. It is a headache doing the Form E but better to finish everything now so you can get him out your life for good.

Agree with catkins22.

If you get the decree absolute and marry your new partner without sorting out the finances, you will lose your right to pursue a financial settlement. Your ex will have what he wants - the potential ability to make a claim against your inheritance from your parents whenever it suits him. Not taking him to court now is a false saving. If you don't finalise the finances before getting the decree absolute this will be hanging over you for years.

There are extra hoops to jump through in that a respondent's application for DA gets listed for a hearing and it's in the discretion of the judge.

I have experience of the respondent getting the DA, my husband did it. It was listed for hearing as Collaborate says but it was very straight forward. Costs order made (but never paid).

Strongly urge you to resolve financial matters before remarrying. I’ve found that out the hard way.

Thankyou for the replies everyone, and sorry for my late reply.

I suspect this won't be seen but I'll ask anyway!

My solicitor has told me it will cost tens of thousands to take exh to court for a financial order, we are already in court over our son and this has cost me £40k. I can't face the mental anguish of another hearing.

He has proposed I offer a sum, e.g 2k to sign the consent order - however he is really a piece of work and I fear he will see this as me having something to protect, which really it is.

So my options are a long drawn out court case, which I am not sure I will win as exh is unemployed and currently lives with his mother, My fiancée and I are employed, I could be made to pay spousal maintenance. This is also costly. Or I offer him a settlement out fo court.

I don't really know what to do.

Hi, I feel your pain. I divorced my alcoholic ex husband who didn't work and he used to threaten me with spousal maintenance through out our divorce. My solicitor was very risk adverse as he stated this isn't a very tried area of law yet where the women is the high earner vs the man.

I ended up signing over a large part of our assets to get my clean break agreed and move onto finalising the divorce.

My solicitor also recommended not proceeding decree absolute until our financial order was in place as he said it would weaken my case later.

Note we didn't have children so I would hope that any claim he made would be disregarded as your children are first priority. Plus I assume you haven't been supporting him since the separation either so it's not like he can claim he is used to having it to survive?

To sort out my situation as my exh was very difficult to deal with and not often sober I used a family member to mediate (his side) and that helped or I don't know what I would have done