Our Blogs

Technically, you may file for a divorce on the grounds of two-year separation with consent without having first discussed matters with your spouse and having determined whether or not they would consent to the divorce. It is, however, not advisable that you do.

When you file for a divorce on these grounds, you are telling the court that both parties agree to the divorce. As a result, should your spouse inform the courts that they do not agree then you will need to withdraw proceedings and then start again, filing on a different ground. And, yes, you’ll need to pay the court fees again.

If you are filing on any other ground then it is still advisable that you discuss matters with your spouse if the two of you are on speaking terms. In fact, it would be best to discuss things with them beforehand even if you’re not, provided that doing so is possible and does not put you in a position where you could suffer physical or mental harm.

Doing so will ensure that your spouse is not surprised when they receive the relevant documents through the post (something that, in our experience, means that they return their documents more swiftly, thus allowing your divorce to proceed faster) and, should they inform you outright that they agree to the divorce, will prevent you from feeling anxious about the situation, also.

As discussed above, you may be able to obtain a divorce without your spouse’s consent if you file on another ground and we will explain this further in a series of posts that we will be publishing in the near future.