Your spouse tells you that they’re not getting divorced under any circumstances. They claim that they’ll just stop the court case if you try to start one. Maybe they claim that it takes both people to agree to get divorced, so you can’t do it on your own.
You’re shocked. You just wanted to bring it up to get the process started. You never thought they would be this uncooperative. Can they stop the divorce?
They can only delay it
The good news is that, in Brambleton and all across the state, a person cannot stop a divorce from happening against the other person’s will. They can only delay it by not cooperating – perhaps by refusing to go to court dates or refusing to sign the paperwork – but that doesn’t mean that you can’t eventually get divorced.
What will happen is that the court will be forced to issue a default divorce in your favor. This actually can help you in some ways, especially if you thought the property division process was going to be contentious. Since your spouse did not come to court, they don’t get to make any sort of demands on what the court rules.
This can also have a big impact on child custody cases if your spouse was thinking about seeking sole custody and will not be able to do so since they are not in court.
Actually getting the process started
If you want to get a divorce, your instinct to start the process by talking to your spouse was the right one. Even if they are not going to cooperate with you, you still need to know what legal steps you’ll have to take to get things underway.