Outcome of court hearing

On the 9th November I received a divorce petition out of the blue, at the time I was in a depressed state and had been taking medication for it for just over 4 months

We had been separated for just 21 months at the time and my wife cited over 6 years in the petition, this so that if I didn't defend it, or ignored it, then the divorce is automatic or in my opinion biased

I signed the acknowledgement under stress and gave away all rights to any settlement.

I realised some days later that what I did was both morally and legally wrong, i.e. why should I accept that length of desertion when in fact it was totally untrue and in addition to that my wife could have been subject to criminal proceedings for lying on oath

I wrote a letter to the court explaining my position and subsequently the Judge has issued a General Order to appear to establish the direction the proceedings should go

In the meantime my wife has now issued an amended petition citing unreasonable behavior, in my opinion the reasoning is barely warranted, she has not made any specific reasons but just a generalisation of unreasonable behavior and she further cites that the 'last straw' was in the years 2005, 2006 a period of which we have been separated for the latter part of 11 months.

My argument in all of this, is that my wife is doing everything she can to get a quickie divorce, and I find it totally unacceptable to be given 7 days to respond to allegations that have no support in terms of actual events

I further argue that it is 'unfair' to expect someone to be unreasonable towards his wife if in fact he was not there to be unreasonable

I know that eventually I either concede that the marriage is ended and just give in, or I allow myself the time to get over the stress anxiety and hurt it inevitably causes either party

It appears to me that my wife has been so selfish in the 21 months of separation as to getting over that and then expecting me to do the same at a drop of a hat.

It also appears that the law is heavily weighted towards the petitioner, no matter the reasons for divorce.

So finally my question is, has anyone found themselves in a similar situation and what did the Judge direct?

I cant offer direct advice on this.

What I would like to say is this. All you are doing is lengthening the hurt you feel by contesting. Once the divorce is over I can tell you almost certainly you will feel a lot better. Then you will know that its definatly over and you can start the long process of recovory.

There is no point in fighting this. It just makes the agony worse for all concerned. Just let go. All the best. Chris.

Yes I'm in a similar position every body here is likely to tell you there is no point in defending a divorce. Especially in view of the fact the marriage is ended. So take it on the chin and go quietly!! and start rebuilding your life.

Financially there is no point in employing a solicitor to defend a DP when a marriage is over so generally most divorces go through undefended. There are people who do defend so they can then cross petition.
your not likely to get legal aid either as it's a waste of tax payers money.

Now on the other hand you and I aren't happy so we've both written to the court I assume that like me you have been told the divorce has been removed from the special procedures list to await direction from the court.

I have a hearing on the 2nd of Jan when is yours? My issues are different to yours.Though our feelings and issue of time scales is similar.

After 2 years of separation both parties if mutually agreed can divorce with no blame to either side. You only have less than 3 months to wait I should suggest that to your wife. If you are not against getting divorced? I don't see why this couldn't be put to the court. If she isn't getting legal aid then it would make financial sense to her to wait and keep costs down. She gets what she wants and you don't have to take the blame for something you don't agree with!

I know people are going to say that when it's all done and dusted nobody is going to know or care! but you will and I agree with you.

You can't keep all the people happy all of the time. You can keep some of the people happy some of the time ( you and me LOL)

Josh2008 wrote:

We had been separated for just 21 months at the time and my wife cited over 6 years in the petition, this so that if I didn't defend it, or ignored it, then the divorce is automatic or in my opinion biased

and she further cites that the 'last straw' was in the years 2005, 2006 a period of which we have been separated for the latter part of 11 months.?

I think you have good arguments here. After 5 years of separation either partie can file for divorce without need for the other parties agreement. I assume that is what she was trying to do? especially if you can prove the separation hasn't been any way near that. you can tell her to go coco on that one! looks like you have anyway.

You can also tell her to go coco on the UB you have 6 months in which you can site reasons for divorce if you don't act on them in that time it's seen that you have accepted the situation.so her timing is out on this issue as well.

Though it seems now one gives a rat's a**e about time scales unless you raise the issue! As you've already stated it seems all to weigh heavily in the direction of the petitioner. My wife raised a DP then put it on hold. she later tried to get her sol to reinstate it over 12 months later. had nothing been said it would have carried on. It seems if you want a divorce you get one.

Many thanks Chris M and Jacko...my predicament is far worse than just a simple matter of giving in...and I will explain that in my next post

Update and what I think

The 5 year separation bit is now out the window, due to the amended petition

And I have read somewhere www.terry.co.uk

That the 'statute of limitations' has indeed run out with regard to filing the UB

As I stated the UB is defendable in many ways, some of the allegations are just general, nothing specific, but in any case my wife has put

"For a large part of the marriage the respondent has been involved in a cycle of going into business which have then failed"

I have no defense on this other than none of the failings in business have directly impacted on the family, that is to say they did not suffer financially because of it. These allegations I take to mean from the last instance some 12 years ago

"This has lead to numerous situations where the petitioner (My Wife) has been afraid to answer the door and telephone due to people chasing payment"

This I take to mean of the major incident when a business collapsed within 4 months of setting it up, over 12 years ago, I won't go into the nitty gritty, suffice to say NEVER go into business with a friend

At that time I admit I went into a depression, but even then I was the only person to deal with the problem, I felt it my duty to and explained to my creditors what steps I was taking to clear the overdue amounts.

Again over 12 years ago, and I dealt with it, my wife was working full time, so it was impossible for her to have had to deal with anyone calling (Bailiff?)

There is no mention whatsoever of specific instances where she has had to deal with these problems, yet she further states:-

"When these occasions have occurred the respondent (Me) has failed to face up to the circumstances, has declined into depression leaving others to resolve matters for him"

I have already explained that above

"This has caused the petitioner considerable distress"

I have no doubt it may have been distressful, but it was 12 years ago and we did kiss and make up, we were living under the same roof albeit, a little bit estranged for a while

"The latest incident of this is between 2005, 2006"

My wife told me to leave on the 19th January 2006, I will never forget that date, because it was the last time I saw her and to this day I regret not arguing or doing something about it, but that said I was involved in an internet sales (eBay) and I used Paypal as my main internet Bank

Very, Very briefly Paypal blocked my account some time in November of the previous year 2005, al over a £60 order to Australia where the customer claimed none receipt, I refunded the payment instantly and Paypal continued to block my account, despite continuous emails and telephone calls, I continued to supply goods but was not getting the money from Paypal so I researched the internet to see if others where having a problem i.e. was Paypal likely to go under, and guess what I found:-

www.paypalsucks.com

The horror stories in there defied all sense of humanity, they were sucking the lifeblood out of innocent law abiding people and due to their parasitical and monopolism way, they were untouchable, cut short I was dead in the water

Briefly again I know it's a saga, but my marriage depends on it

My wife and I were living about half/half independent lives it suited us and indeed we were better in ourselves because of it, however I ran the business from the matrimonial home, and even though I had taken every step possible, a creditor rang the house to chase up an overdue account

This culminating in my wife who had taken the call now almost two years later, and is now petitioning for divorce and that is her only 'defense'

The calling at the door quote tells me something else 'Bailiff' and my wife told my son about 18 months ago that a bailiff had called and she had given him my phone numbers, to this date no bailiff has contacted me, which beggars belief, by the very nature of their business independent individuals who rely on collecting debts as a means of their income and they never contacted me, know one even knows what they were chasing, or who they were representing, so I will leave other readers to make their own minds up on that

“The final incident was the ‘last straw’ for the petitioner and since this time both the petitioner and the respondent have lived apart”

This final incident whatever it was, can only have happened almost two years or more ago, because we have neither contacted or spoken to each other in that time, other than by way of email at my wife’s’ insistence since the issue ‘out of the blue’ of her original petition, more update on what I think follows, because it is a sad day

Now here is what I really think.

As stated earlier I am suffering from depression, I have been seeking medical attention since July of this year, my wife has been informed of this in the past

My condition is not merely a once in a lifetime problem, it is deeper than that, as I have suffered lows and highs for a very long time, and maybe the truth in it all is that my wife can no longer live with that

During the time since I received the 'out of the blue' petition, I have made four attempts to discuss face to face what our differences were, and my wife has flatly refused to discuss them stating 'I am not digging up the past'

Unfortunately for me, I have to know what really is behind it all, I cannot just accept that it is all over one phone call, I have hurt so bad, that to protect my wife on the financial side I have contemplated suicide on many occasions, something I have never experienced when suffering depression in the past

However I do not 'think' I am not capable of such an act, it smacks only of wanting attention and seeking pity from others, neither of which I want, my analyst thinks differently and to that extent that he has asked someone to ring me every day to see how I am getting on.

I firmly believe that my wife is suffering from something so bad that she urgently needs medical attention, she has accused me in an email of the most horrendous acts that defy belief, I have studied each and every word to try and understand what she was getting at, and I took the time to reflect on our past, to see if I really was that person

I have replied to each individual word in that email and I have accepted my responsibility where appropriate, even down to a percentage point where I believe we share the responsibility

Two words are constantly going through my head, one is ‘manipulation’ and the other is ‘control’ and I have tried to convey to my wife that these are problems she needs to seek medical attention for as they are impossible for anyone else to resolve other than me keeping away and she seeking that help

The manipulation word is one thing and one thing only, throughout the marriage we have never argued or said a bad word about each other, presumably neither wanting to hurt the others feelings, and because of that we would end up just not speaking at all until I attempted reconciliation, saying that I would not do again what I had done in the past, didn’t know what, but it was the best way to try and go forward.

My wife now calls that manipulation and I call it trying to make the peace

Whenever we had fallen out and made up all our family and friends would just say one thing, ‘you are both as bad as each other’

Now comes the most important word ‘control’ my wife has stated that I have been and always will be in control of her, I find that both disgusting and horrendous and if that is how she has felt all these years then why on earth put up with it, why wait over 30 years to tell someone.

My feeling on that, is, it is a major problem that my wife has and it is how she feels, rather than what was meant by me, I have actually thrown up at the very thought of it, I fully understand it is how she feels, but surely she needs to get that out of her system, without just blanking me out of her life forever.

I have told my wife that the divorce is not what I want, but I won’t stop her, fact is I need the time to get over the person I love and not to get just the seven days a respondent gets to file the acknowledgement

The matrimonial causes act 1973, was put into place to encourage people to discuss their problems sort them out and go down the road of two year ‘no fault’ divorce, the statistics however show a sharp increase towards unreasonable behavior, because that is the only way to get a quickie and the courts will generally accept anything that anyone says to rubberstamp the petition, but it has to be backed up with evidence.

And it has to be done within a reasonable length of time to warrant justification, neither of which my wife has done

I may be on a hiding to nothing, but my attitude is hope for the best but expect the worst, that is my only saving grace, and if it takes umpteen defenses, which can be costly then I will do that to try and save this marriage, if my wife is adamant that she wants a divorce then I am not going to stop her, the very fact that she has issued a petition shows that she believes the marriage has irretrievably broken down

But I have to allow myself the time to get over her and I think she needs to seek the medical attention she justly deserves, if it takes the full five years and she is still that way, then so be it, at least we both will have really understood that we had actually just grown apart