After several months of careful thought, I’ve decided that divorce is the path I am going to have to take at this particular fork in my life. My husband and I have no children together, nor do we own any property together. Aside from removing names from insurance policies, I don’t think there are many other legal issues to be dealt with.
I’ve been doing a few quick internet searches on DIY divorces, and I’ve flipped through a book or two, but I would like to know if anyone has any personal experience doing this. Also, do you have any tips or advice?
I have already brought divorce up to my husband, and we have been living separately for the past five months. He is not happy about this, and he doesn’t want it; but it is the right thing to do, and I don’t believe he will fight me on it.
Thank you for peeking in here, and I would appreciate any words of wisdom!
My wife and her ex did it themselves and she says it was pretty simple. All you have to do is print out the forms, follow the instructions, both of you sign it and file it in the county of the petitioner’s residence and wait. I’ll ask her tonight (show her this thread) if there is anything else I missed or any advice she might have.
Sorry to hear your situation is terminal but hoping things work out for the best for both of you - N8
I live in Illinois and did a DIY divorce several years ago. Went really well considering it is a cruddy thing to begin with.
First we signed an agreement that neither of us would retain an attorney without informing the other person and that no legal actions could be taken till 30 days after one or the other retained an attorney. This was to avoid getting blind sided where one is not seeking professional legal advice and next thing you know the other person walks into court with their attorney and owns you. This would allow the other person time to seek counsel of their own.
We agreed in principle to not use attorneys at all though and agreed to a no-fault divorce. The above was to leave the door open in case one or the other felt it had become necessary. On the whole we did not see the point of paying thousands of dollars to someone else to bicker over an item worth a few hundred dollars.
I think the above will work if the two of you are generally civil towards each other and can be reasonable and open to compromise. No kids and no property helps a lot in keeping that a lot less complicated (in my case we had no kids but did own a house together).
After that you need to sit down and divvy up what you all own together. Some things should be obvious (clothes) but other things may be considered jointly owned stuff (e.g. a DVD you bought together). So, separate out the clearly obvious and then sit down and list what is left. In our case for DVDs/CDs (as an example) we tossed a coin for first pick then took turns taking one off the pile. When we were done we did a little horse trading till both were satisfied.
A few times we got into a fight over something or other but we REALLY did not want to pay attorneys so we chilled out and sorted it out. After that we wrote out what financial obligations we had and division of joint monetary assets and so on. We were both not greedy and fair minded so this went fine.
After that you need to do whatever your state says you need to do. In Illinois we needed to be living separately for 6 months and our state allows for no-fault divorces. Unfortunately such things differ from state-to-state and you need to check. In the end we agreed to get an attorney to help us file papers. This cost all of $300 and he just made sure the “i’s” were dotted and “t’s” crossed then walked us through the one court appearance we made (formality mostly) and saw to proper filing of the papers.
In our case the attorney said the six month waiting period was in fact not checked on and we could at any point have filed and just said we lived apart for six months. However I made sure six months passed…my dad was an attorney and I just did not want something coming back at me later (although I did not expect it would). In your case seems you are there anyway but Indiana could be different.
Hope it goes ok for you. Lousy thing to have happen but sometimes it is for the best.