LEGAL SEPARATION vs DIVORCE
or ANNULMENT
By Barry J. Roche

Most people confused about Legal Separation vs Divorce. Technically and legally, a divorce is the process of dissolving the marriage - nothing more and nothing less. In other words, it is the process of obtaining a Declaration from the Court that your marriage is now at an end - Divorce means that you are no longer a married couple nor spouses (i.e. husband and wife or visa versa).

When most people say they "want a divorce", they are referring to the whole gamit of related Family Law issues that often go along with the desire to dissolve the marriage. Consequently, how simple or complicated a divorce is depends, not only on the laws in your State or country but your own personal circumstances as well. If you have other issues such as child custody, visiting rights or property settlement to resolve, then your divorce will not just involve a straight dissolution of the marriage. Divorce isn't just filling out forms and filing them. It's also about legal language, legal procedure and most importantly, resolving outstanding family law issues with your spouse.

This means that you will have decisions you need to make. You may also want these decisions to be legally binding. Often the signing of a marital settlement agreement, for example, is not sufficient to constitute a legally enforceable agreement. The agreement may have to be approved by the court.

In countries such as Australia, the concept of Legal Separation has been done away with. However, in the United States it still prevails in many jurisdictions. The main difference between a Legal Separation and Divorce is that in a Legal Separation, the marriage is not dissolved. The parties are simply declared to be legally separated but remain "spouses". As in a divorce, other issues such as custody, visiting rights, child support and property settlement may still be resolved.

Again, most people don't know the difference between a Divorce and an Annulment. A Declaration or Decree of Divorce recogises that there was a valid marriage which has now been dissolved. An Annulment is a Declaration or Decree that the marriage was NOT a valid marriage in the first place. In order to obtain the latter, you normally have to show that there was either fraud, undue duress or an absence of consent. For example, if you were "off your face" drunk when you got married, then this would amount to a lack of consent. Another example would be where you got married because you were threatened with something if you didn't. However, if you married someone so one of you could get a Green Card, this does not go to a lack of consent, fraud or duress. Consequently, annulments are nowhere near as common as divorces, because the legal criteria is much more rigid.

There was a news article about a London heiress who, after 17 years of marriage, discovered that her husband was actually a woman. Her transsexual spouse concealed his true gender from her for 17 years, using a home-made part of the anatomy for sex. While many people would find it surprising that in 17 years of marriage, the wife did not realize she was living with a woman, the court still nullified the marriage. It was, in effect a form of fraud.

© Barry J. Roche

Barry Roche is the founder of the Womens Divorce Self-Help Club and the author of numerous divorce articles and ebooks including, “How To Win When Facing Divorce”. He is a former Divorce Lawyer who wrote this book specifically to help women not just survive divorce, but come out not feeling a victim. The book is available for purchase at http://www.divorceandwomen.com/help.html. (This article may be reproduced provided it is unedited, the copyright is acknowledged and the information in the resource box and links are published with it.)

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