What Reason Do I Have To Give To Get Divorced?

A petition requesting a divorce is the most common petition that a divorce lawyer will file. Most cases fall under this category. In the petition, the party requesting the divorce makes an allegation. An allegation is just a statement that you will need to prove in the future to a judge. 

Prior to 1970, you had to allege fault as to why you wanted to obtain a divorce from your spouse. California became the first state in America to remove fault as a reason to obtain a divorce. This meant you had to have a legally recognized reason for a divorce, including assigning blame for why the marriage was failing. Often people hired private detectives to prove one spouse was cheating or bringing family and friends to testify on one's behalf to prove infidelity. This made the process much more contentious with one spouse pointing the finger at the other for breaking down the marriage.

These days, it is much simpler to obtain a divorce. All you need to do is cite to irreconcilable differences. The petition has it set up where all you need to do is check off the box. Judges no longer need to focus on assigning blame for the divorce. In fact, lawyers could be sanctioned for making such allegations as being against public policy and increasing acrimony in the litigation.

You may ask, “does the other spouse need to agree to getting divorced?” The answer is no. That is the reason California created no-fault divorces by giving spouses the option to divorce due to the all-encompassing allegation of “irreconcilable differences.”

You may have heard of irreconcilable differences in movies and television but what does it mean? It simply means you no longer want to be married. You and your spouse have an issue that cannot be resolved or reconciled. This could be that you do not like the way your spouse brushes her teeth or his hair or the color of their shirt that day. It does not have to be complex.

Most people do not divorce over such reasons, most often it is much more complex than a shirt color. Whatever the reason, rest assured California has no-fault divorces so you can obtain your divorce without having to disclose the cause.

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