Divorce

In general, when someone files for divorce, s/he is supposed to file a petition in court and serve the petition on the other spouse. Then the respondent-spouse generally has a certain amount of time to respond to the papers and if s/he doesn’t respond, the filing-spouse can get the divorce on default. It could be possible, in some situations, that a spouse may lie in court to say that s/he served the other spouse when s/he did not. In these instances, perhaps the respondent-spouse can file in court to re-open the divorce proceedings by proving that s/he never got the papers and asking the court to remove the default judgment against him/her. Did you receive or sign any divorce papers? If you signed something but never got the final judgment of divorcem, perhaps you may be able to contact the courthouse where those papers were supposed to have been filed and give them the index number or docket number that is listed on the papers and ask if the divorce went through. If you don’t have a copy of the papers or if you never received any, you may want to go to the courthouse and still ask if they can search the records for your name and your husband’s to see if there was anything filed and ask what the status of the case is. Also, most states allow a person to contact the state’s department of vital records to search for a divorce judgment in the state, which may be one way to figure out for sure if a divorce was granted, especially if someone is not sure in which county the papers may have been filed. [NOTE TO STUDENT, PLEASE GOOGLE DEPT OF VITAL RECORDS IN HER STATE WITH THE TERM COPY OF DIVORCE DECREE TO SEE IF YOU FIND A LINK FOR HER OF WHERE TO CONTACT]

If you never signed any papers or never received any papers, do you think your husband tried to file a divorce without notifying you? As I said, if so, it may be possible for someone to try to file in court to un-do the divorce and re-open it if there was property or money or other issues that were not actually litigated that should have been. Talking to a divorce lawyer for specific advice can hopefully help you to figure out your situation and what options, if any, you may have. Here is a link for lawyers, some of which may be free or low-cost if you qualify: LINK