No fault divorce

No fault divorce?

The headline read “Love cheats no longer outrage us, rules Judge”

Government seems to be thinking along the same lines as Mrs Justice Laing with discussions around a no fault divorce.

Currently the law requires a husband or wife to issue a divorce petition using one of five prescribed grounds to prove that their marriage has irretrievably broken down. Adultery and unreasonable behaviour are two of those grounds.

As things stand if you use unreasonable behavior as a ground upon which to end your marriage you must include details sufficient to satisfy a judge that you find it unacceptable to live with your ex - allegations that can often be hurtful and upsetting.

How will such details help you sort out your finances and arrangements for your children? In short they won’t.

Few would expect someone whose husband or wife has had an affair to carry on as if nothing had happened. For them, there will often be overwhelming feelings of anger and betrayal, grief and loss, and whilst some couples can work through this, some cannot.

For those couples, it would be completely understandable for the aggrieved spouse to want to detail in a divorce petition everything that was wrong with their ex - to give as good as they got - but when the emotion has died down how does this help when it comes to sorting out the issues around property and finance and arrangements for children - it doesn't.

At a time of massive change, both emotionally and financially one thing’s certain, it isn’t made easier by one of you having to make personal and hurtful allegations against the other in order to divorce. Divorcing is difficult enough.

So when a couple accepts that their marriage is at an end shouldn’t they be able to agree a respectful ending to a relationship that once worked?

#mediation #westlondon #divorce #separation #childarrangements #parentalcommunication #separating #divorcepetition