How Quickly Can I Get Divorced?
Timeline of Divorce in Louisiana – Procedure, Reconciliation, and Abandonment
Let’s talk about the timeline of getting divorced! What does it look like in Louisiana, specifically? Here is some educational information from an attorney’s knowledge and experience.
First, divorce in Louisiana is an adversarial process. Even if you and your spouse agree on all things from children to money, a divorce must be filed with the court. Filing means you take the document that allows you to get divorced to the clerk of court, pay the clerk of court fees (at least $450 in Lafayette), and there you have it: A petition filed against your spouse that says, “I want a divorce”. Once this petition is filed, the court tells the sheriff to go serve your spouse (at their home, or at their place of work). Your spouse accepting the documents is your spouse being serviced. In Louisiana, there are two other ways of service. One is long arm service where one of the parties is out of state, or out of the country. A certified copy of the petition for divorce will be sent to the person via certified mail, and then you file when you get the green card back. The other way is that if the other party is agreeable (a no-contest divorce where neither party is fighting the divorce), the attorney will write up the paperwork for divorce and the other party will come in and sign off saying my spouse already filed for divorce, we accept this divorce, and come what may.
What next? Divorce can certainly look like going to court and battling it out, if the parties aren’t getting along, communicating well, or talking to each other at all. Taking this route is setting yourself, your family, and all other aspects of your marriage up to be judged by a third person (a judge). But, there are other options in procedure and they are the two kinds of no-fault divorces: 102 and 103(1).
Civil code statute article 102 states that divorce shall be granted when either spouse files a petition for divorce and upon proof that since the service of the petition, or the signing of a waiver as discussed earlier, the spouses have continuously lived separate and apart without reconciliation for the required amount of time (180 days with no children under the age of 18, 365 days with children under the age of 18) that is to be elapsed before the filing of the rule to show cause. The latter, in Lafayette, looks like filing a document that says, “Yes, we lived separate and apart for the appropriate amount of days without reconciliation and there is no objection” and the hearing officer will recommend to the judge that the divorce gets confirmed. Note that is possible to file a 102 divorce while still living together! This is a particularly preferred method for when there are child support, spousal support, or use/occupancy issues, as filing and getting a date with a hearing officer will kick the spouse out.
103(1) divorce is granted on the petition of a spouse and upon proof that the spouses have been living separate and apart for at least the required amount of time (180 with no children under the age of 18, 365 with children under the age of 18) ON THE DATE that the petition is filed. This is the easiest type of divorce and can be done in a week or two if already living separate and apart with no reconciliation. Further, with this type of divorce a waiver can be signed without having to wait for the other person to file an answer for the divorce to be confirmed. This is known as a default judgment and looks like the following: A client is divorcing their spouse. The attorney fills out the paperwork for the divorce, files it with the court, and gets a certified copy back. The spouse of the client comes to the office and signs a waiver saying they accept everything and are waiving their right to file an answer, or respond. With that, the divorce moves forward to be confirmed by a judge.
However, if they do file an answer (no matter what that answer is), there can be no confirmation by default judgment or by affidavit; there has to be a trial. This trial is simple as showing up (an attorney or pro se) and confirming that you were married, that your spouse got served, that you want to get divorced, that you have lived separate and apart, and that there has been no reconciliation. Once these matters are verified, the judge can confirm the divorce and the divorce judgment can be signed right there.
Important clarifications about 102/103(1) divorce:
No-fault = The grounds for the divorce do not place blame on either party for ruining the marriage, but rather that the marriage has just fundamentally broken down and the parties can no longer get along. Both 102 and 103(1) are “no-fault” divorce options.
The numbers 102 and 103(1) refer to the civil code article, or the written law, for that type divorce.
Living separate and apart = Living in separate households, not separate bedrooms.
For a 103(1) divorce, you’ll have already lived separate and apart, so plan on 1 week to 3 months for the paperwork to be finalized once you file.
During this separation period, you can see other people, but remember you are not divorced until the divorce is final.
If you are seeing other people, it is possible that your spouse can file an adultery divorce. This hastens the granting of a divorce. Since spousal support terminates 6 months after a divorce is finalized, a spouse might convert the fact that you are seeing someone else into an adultery divorce, if they were to want the divorce to be done quicker to stop paying spousal support sooner.
Reconciliation = Having sex with each other or any other efforts to re-establish the status of being married to your almost-ex-spouse.
Affidavit = A sworn statement/a signed page of verification that everything said is correct and true to the best of your knowledge (if you sign the affidavit, what was said is considered to be true fact, even if what was said was a lie).
Pro se = You do it yourself.
To talk a bit more about reconciliation, the code article says, “The cause of action for divorce is extinguished by reconciliation” with the comment, “What constitutes reconciliation is a question of fact to be decided in accordance with jurisprudential guidelines”. This brings up the question, “Is there a gray area of what is and what is not considered reconciliation?” A good example is, “What if we had dinner together?” Can dinner with your spouse be simply platonic (intimate, affectionate, but nonsexual)? Absolutely. However, each spouse has the right to argue that it is reconciliation, and file an affidavit of reconciliation to be brought before a judge. In the event of an upset or poor communication, a spouse might flip this switch. While obvious reconciliation is the spouses sleeping together, it might not always be so simple and is thus fact sensitive and depends on the judge: Which judge did you get? How much information did they want? What do they think? Some judges might just let you hop up on the stand and say that you reconciled, but others might request more information. So in the end, whether something like an intimate dinner gets confirmed as reconciliation is up to the judge.
Reconciliation does happen, and because its impact is detrimental to the process of divorce, it is extremely important for you to be comfortable in bringing the issue to your attorney. If you say “Yikes, there was reconciliation!” or even if you are concerned about the possibility, or trying to explore, define, and set boundaries with your spouse, your attorney will first tell you that it’s going to be expensive (you’ll have to file a fresh divorce if there is reconciliation), and will then help you move forward. You can practice talking out about reconciliation with your Divorce Doula.
The last issue to be discussed is abandonment. Simply, a divorce has to be confirmed within two years or it is abandoned (it disappears, basically) and you have to re-file (and re-pay). To save yourself time, money, and stress, it is important to stay on track with the tasks and timeline of divorce. Use your attorney to figure out what you need to, use them and the other appropriate professionals to get it done, and use your Divorce Doula to comb through the weeds that grow around all of that.
Keep in mind that your Divorce Doula might not discuss these matters with you, or at least not in this language. They might bat back that you write that question down for your attorney, or ask you what you remember about what your attorney told you. The job of your Divorce Doula, or your coach, is to make sure that you are clear with and comfortable sitting on the things you are discussing with your attorney and other professionals. If you’re not clear and comfortable, we can help you formulate the appropriate questions for the appropriate people and maybe even help you with personal research, if that will ease feelings of overwhelm before meeting with professionals
