By Adam Handler
Civil Litigation Attorney, The Law Offices of Spar & Bernstein
Can I stop a divorce?
THE SIMPLE ANSWER IS YES (of course, later, I’ll ask you WHY you’d want to do that).
An action for divorce is not unlike any other lawsuit. There is a Plaintiff (the person who files the divorce) and the Defendant (the party who must answer or defend the allegations).
Every party has the right to litigate and have a fact finder (usually a judge and NOT a jury) decide the evidence needed to prove any case. If a party does not sufficiently prove grounds for divorce, an action to dissolve a marriage could, hypothetically speaking, be dismissed.
Realistically, this is rarely the case.
Any reasonable judge and/attorney working on a divorce case will ask both parties if they want to remain married. If they do not…why stay together?
Many times a husband/wife will refuse to consent to a divorce for reasons of power, greed, health insurance or the mistaken belief that things may actually work out.
That being said, I return to my question….WHY would anyone want to remain married to a spouse that does not want to be married to you???? Understandably divorce is an extremely difficult and painful process for everyone including the litigants and, more importantly, the children.
Divorce also involves issues of distribution of assets and as we all know, everyone likes to keep their money exactly where it is……with them.
Regardless, people need to be realistic and know when to hold them and know when to fold them.
If you are thinking about obtaining a divorce or need to discuss an inevitable divorce being filed by your spouse, I look forward to your phone call.
