Both filing for divorce

[ilikecrisps]

Hello.

I filed for divorce a couple of weeks ago. My soon-to-be ex husband has been abusive throughout our marriage, and one of my six examples of his behaviour is the fact that he refused to have sex with me - we hadn't had sex for over 7 years by the time I told him the marriage was over, and he repeatedly refused to tell me the reason for his abstinance. I'd warned him 3 times (one of which was in writing) that I wanted to have an affair and that's what I ended up doing.

So, he's had my divorce petition for a week now, and he's today told me he's going to file for divorce on the grounds of adultery.

Where do I stand on this? Any advice would be appreciated.

[Amethyst]

If he intends to contest the grounds he would need to submit a memorandum detailing why he disputes the unreasonable behaviour grounds ( and what grounds he believes the petition should be based on) within 14 days. Entirely pointless issuing a petition against you as they would only be joined.

You did commit adultery - due to the perceived unreasonable behaviour in essence - so it does all seem a bit moot. He'll be able to evidence such as per your letter. So it may end up simply both being used as grounds.

Anyway after the memorandum he'll need to enter his defence to the petition grounds ( as presumably he doesn't want to defend against actually divorcing ) and then it will go to trail so you can argue about who behaved worst ( not recommended and really would have no effect and just be incredibly stressful and upsetting for everyone )


Look forward to the days when no fault divorce is available and this can be avoided.

It cannot be said enough times that arguing about who is going to divorce who and on what ground is often a complete waste of money. The main reason for this is that there is usually no tactical or financial advantage in making inflammatory allegations against the other party. The only exception to this is cases of gross misconduct where one party’s actions are just so unreasonable that they cannot be ignored and must be taken into account in dividing the matrimonial assets. For the Court to take behaviour into account in dividing the assets, the conduct must be exceptionally bad. Examples of such behaviour include paedophiles, attempted murder and cases of severe financial or other gross misconduct. In practice, such cases are extremely rare indeed.