A friend of mine is going through divorce proceedings. Along with all the issues involved in the divorce, one question has started to come up.
What do you do with the marriage contract once the divorce is finalized?
I’m not sure there’s a factual answer here; I think we’re looking for other people’s experiences.
If you mean the actual paper marriage certificate, I just filed mine away with all the divorce papers. Divorce is a hugely legal thing, keeping the papers around seems like a good thing.
I’ve just got a big envelope with all the papers in my filebox. Never have needed it, might never need it.
Well…I am actually going to ceremonially, and with great pleasure, burn mine. The divorce becomes effective in August.
If I need a copy they are availble from a courthouse
Symbolically burned it, or at least I will when my divorce is finalized.
Okay, let’s expand the question a little. Thanks to Belrix for raising the need for some clarification.
The friend has the legal marriage certificate, and the religious marriage contract. The m.certificate is a public record, AFAIK, and as UnwrittenNocturne noted copies should be publicly available. The m.contract is a private record, no copies available anywhere, and (at least in this case) is very artistic.
The question thus becomes a two-parter: What do (or did) you do with the civil certificate? And what do (or did) you do with the religious contract, if you have (or had) one?