Divorce can be a cooperative process, or it can be a highly-contested legal matter. People contemplating divorce often worry about how their spouses may respond when they file.
Specifically, they may worry about their spouses becoming uncooperative and refusing to participate in the divorce proceedings. People who are ready to leave their marriages worry about ending up trapped by uncooperative spouses.
Some people fight over every detail and try to use social pressure to prevent a divorce. Others simply refuse to participate in the process. Can one spouse ignore divorce paperwork and prevent a divorce from occurring?
Divorce without spousal participation is possible
The divorce process begins when one spouse files a petition with the family courts. They must legally serve their spouse with information about the divorce. The responding or served spouse then has an opportunity to counter the proposed terms by filing a response with the courts.
People who do not want to divorce generally still need to acknowledge the divorce filing or propose alternate terms. If they do not participate whatsoever, their decisions do not prevent the divorce. Instead, the New Jersey courts can grant a divorce by default, also known as a “divorce on the papers.”
The responding spouse does not have to provide any input or appear in court at all for the filing spouse to legally complete the divorce process. The courts can grant a default divorce if the filing spouse follows the right procedures.
The non-filing spouse typically has 35 days in which to respond to the legal paperwork they receive. If they fail to do so, the filing spouse has 60 days in which to request a divorce from the courts.
A family law judge can approve a divorce without the active involvement of both spouses and may agree to all the terms proposed in the initial paperwork submitted by the filing spouse. Even in cases where one spouse is entirely uninvolved or opposed to the divorce process, it is still possible to legally end a marriage.
Learning about the rules that govern divorce proceedings can help people prepare for every possible outcome. One spouse refusing to participate does not prevent the courts from granting a divorce in most cases.