separation...a concern and a question

Please can someone help to clariify a concern i have..to cut a long story short..im recently separated and about to move into my own place.

I have a question abuot laws on separation and basically this is it..how long do i have to be separated before i can date again..by this i mean i know eventually i will meet someone new and if my wife wont grant a divorce to me then is it still adultery if and when i do meet someone?

By the way it wasnt another person i left my wife for..but it is something that i need an answer about because life does go on and eventually i want to be happy again..

i look forward to any replies i get..and thanks in advance

First of all, leaving aside the law, I would be wary of rushing into a new relationship too quickly. I have seen people who left one disastrous relationship and immediately formed another, equally disastrous, one. You are likely to be emotionally off balance at times like this, and it is advisable for you to recognise this and make allowances for it.

But as far is the law is concerned, the short answer is that there is no period when having sexual relations with a third party ceases to be adultery, as long as you remain married. It could be ten days or ten years after separation - but as long as you remain married, sexual relations with someone other than your wife equals adultery and gives your wife grounds for divorce - but of course in that situation you might feel that divorce is the way forward !

You can petition for divorce after two years' separation if your wife agrees, or five years whether your wife agrees or not. You can also petition if your wife has committed adultery or if your wife has behaved in such a way that it is not reasonable to expect you to continue living with her. In practice this requirement is interpreted with considerable latitude. Finally, there is 2 years' desertion but this ground is hardly ever used these days, for a number of reasons. You cannot use your own adultery as a ground for divorce.

This is necessarily a potted summary but please ask for clarification if anything I have said is unclear.

thanks mike i appreciate the candid manner of your reply.and it is something of course i will take on board..having never been in this situation and being in great need of a happier future i now know a little of what lies in store.

I suppose 2 years in the grand scheme of things isnt so long..particularly if my happiness and my future life is what is at stake..as im sure u have read between the lines in relation to my post I at least now am armed with a little more information.

and im sure that things for me will be worse before they get better. thanks again.

Mike hopefully you will read this fresh post..I have a question about the petitioning for divorce after 5 years. Am I right in thinking that after this length of time I can divorce without citing unreasonable behaviour or anything at all? and she cant contest it?

I remain hopeful that the separation will be relativley amicable once the pain of the past couple of months has subsided as I wish to remain on good terms with my wife..tho whether she will cease to be bitter after a period of reflection remains to be seen.

She has told me she will never divorce me and I cant help but think that this is a spiteful way of hurting me.as she seems to think that all i want is another relationship with another woman..this isnt true by the way as no woman was involved in my final decision to leave her.

Im in the early stages here its been only 2 months after making the decision to leave..im unsure as to how long the bitterness will last..however after reading numerous posts on here it does seem that it can last years!! In my case of course i hope not but i suppose only time will tell and as a previous poster wrote on here roll with the punches..dust your self off and keep plodding along.

It is hard for me to comment without knowing the personalities involved, but it does not , in my opinion, necessarily follow that your wife is being spiteful or vindictive if she says she does not want to divorce you. It could simply be that she is not yet emotionally ready to come to terms with the fact that she is now separated, and this process can take time.

After five years' separation you can divorce whether your wife consents or not. There is, in theory, an exception on the grounds of serious hardship, but I know of no case where such a plea actually succeeded.

The fact that you can , in effect, enforce a divorce after five years has the practical consequence that after two years' separation the wife may come to realise that there is little point in refusing consent to a divorce because it only delays the inevitable.

With unreasonable behaviour, the allegations do not have to be serious and the Courts will accept relatively bland allegations of behaviour which do not really call into question the integrity of the respondent, like spending too much time watching the telly, snoring too loudly, not doing a fair share of domestic chores, and so on ad nauseam. It's usually a waste of time to contest allegations like this even though, objectively speaking, they are not sufficient justification for ending a marriage. The problem is that the marriage almost certainly has broken down if one of the parties thinks it has, therefore defending the petition would cost a great deal of money and still leaves you in the holy estate of matrimony and in the final analysis
a sufficiently determined spouse will divorce you in the end.

I concur with Fiona's comments that it is better to give things a chance to settle. It may be two different ways of saying the same thing.

Mike 100468