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Can you stop a divorce if you want to stay together?

| Oct 8, 2021 | Divorce

When you got married, you both certainly had a say in the matter. You each had to sign the marriage license, and you each had to say “I do” during the ceremony. This was a union you entered into together. 

Now your spouse says they want to get a divorce, but you’re not interested. You want to stay together. Do you also get a say in ending the marriage? Can you stop the divorce in any way? 

There is no legal way to prevent divorce 

You can certainly talk to your spouse about your desires. You can go to couples’ counseling. You can use a trial separation to see if that helps. You can do many things that may save your marriage and may get your spouse to reconsider their request. 

From a legal perspective, though, you can do nothing to prevent it or stop it from happening. Even if you ignore all of the paperwork and refuse to acknowledge the divorce petition, the court could eventually just grant a default divorce to your spouse. Doing this makes the process take longer since they have to give you time to respond, but they don’t actually need you to do so. If you won’t, once the time runs out, the divorce still happens. Unlike marriage, which takes two people, a divorce only takes one. 

What should you do?

The best thing you can do, other than discussing things with your spouse and trying counseling, is to spend your time looking into all of your legal options to make the inevitable divorce go as smoothly as possible. 

 

 

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