New York Allows No Fault Divorce (Finally!)

After detailing the “fault” allegations she had to make against her husband in order to obtain a divorce, which included statements of how and why he was to blame for the breakdown of their marriage, Elizabeth Gilbert, author of the best-selling book Eat Pray Love (Viking, 2006), makes the following statement to her “gentle readers”:

“. . . May you never, ever, have to get a divorce in New York.”

Thankfully, on October 13, 2010 New York finally joined the other 49 states to allow a no-fault divorce so such allegations, and the emotional trauma they caused, are no longer part of the legal landscape.

Prior to October 13, if you wanted a divorce in New York you had two choices:

• To obtain a No Fault divorce you had to reach an agreement with your spouse and then wait a year; or
• You had to allege and prove that your spouse was guilty of marital misconduct such as adultery, cruelty or abandonment.

The problem with the first choice was that you had to reach an agreement and if your spouse didn’t want to agree to anything, you could not satisfy the conditions which the law required before granting a “no fault” divorce.  And often one spouse had to accept an unfair settlement in order to get the other spouse to agree.

The second choice wasn’t much better.  If one spouse did not want the divorce, many couples became involved in a protracted legal battle where they exchanged blame for the breakdown of their marriage.  Even those couples who wanted a divorce and agreed on the settlement terms had to allege “marital fault” if they did not want to wait the required year.

With the new No Fault law, all of this has changed. Now, either spouse may get a divorce by stating that there has been an irretrievable breakdown of the marriage so the only issue between them will be how they will resolve their finances, not who was to blame for the breakdown of the marriage.  And mediation is the perfect venue to have that discussion since it is designed to help a couple look forward and plan their future rather than look back and lay blame for their mistakes!