Divorce Rights

The divorce rights of each main party involved in a divorce have always fluctuated throughout history, and still continue to do so today. Initially divorce rights were based on common law with one party having to be at fault in order for the divorce to be legalized. The party at fault was subsequently punished heavily as divorce was usually filed under a cause such as abuse or adultery.

With the changes in divorce rights over the years, it is now possible to file for a ‘no-fault’ divorce in most states. As such the rights of each party can be complex to determine, and often both sides involved hire a trained professional in order to ensure that their rights are protected.

To make it clear, divorce rights extend beyond the valid reasons of being able to apply for divorce. They cover financial settlement aspects, child custody and support, as well as including visitation rights and schedules. Generally in divorces where children are concerned, a neutral third party is used to mediate between the two divorcing parties to see if an agreement can be reached by both sides. However if this fails, then the court is called upon to decide the divorce rights and custody issues related to the children.

Although until now I have only addressed divorce rights in the form of getting advice from a professional, there are also several chat rooms on the internet where you can learn about the experiences of other people during a divorce. Though whilst being helpful and informative, you need to keep in mind that the information and advice is based on other peoples experiences and cannot replace the advice of a professionally trained person.

There is no doubt that if you and your partner are contemplating divorce, the easier and perhaps best way to resolve your divorce rights is to work out things amicably between yourselves. If you can do this, you save a lot of legal time, costs and court appearances, as well as it being less detrimental to the children, if there are children involved. But often this is not possible with one or both parties feeling blamed which leads to a bad feeling.

Finally, like with all things divorce related, the divorce rights of each party differ from state to state. Therefore what I would recommend, at least at one point during your divorce, is to ask for advice from a trained professional in this area, even if it is just for guidance purposes.