Georgia Divorces.  Before you file, one spouse must have lived in the state of Georgia for 6 months or Georgia must have been the last domicile of the marriage.

Also, the couple must be considered separated, in a legal sense, before you file.  In Georgia, being separated is not intuitive!  You may still reside in the same house, but live in separate rooms.  Or, reside in the same house and the same room, but not having marital relations.

The plaintiff (the person seeking the divorce) files a Complaint in the Superior Court of the appropriate county.  It should include information about the marriage including current living arrangements, the children involved, all the assets and debts of the marriage, the specific grounds the plaintiff is using to ask for a divorce, and what the plaintiff is asking the court to do (ie, child support, alimony, marital residence, etc…)

The Complaint is filed in the Superior Court of the appropriate county (which is usually where you two live, but not always).   Your spouse will be served with a copy of the Complaint by the sheriff.  Alternatively, your spouse can “acknowledge” service by signing a document affirming that he or she received a copy.

The defendant may contest the reasons claimed for the divorce in an Answer.  In that Answer each paragraph is addressed and the defendant will either agree or disagree with the content.

At this point, negotiations begin if there are disputed matters.  Find all the issues you two agree on, isolating those that are in dispute.  Once you have those issues in focus, it is best to seek mediation.  If successful at mediation, you may enter into a Settlement Agreement, setting forth all matters between you.  The court will review that Agreement and, if it is acceptable, issue a Final Order of divorce.

If those issues cannot be resolved with mediation, only then should you seek a trial before a judge (or jury, if you choose).  Rather than you two negotiating your settlement, the court will listen to both sides and make their determination of all the marital issues.

Clearly, it is best if you can find agreement between you in mediation, rather than seeking a trial.  Georgia divorces can be very expensive if you choose the latter!  More on that in the next section…

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Georgia Divorces.  Divorce affects, directly or indirectly, virtually every family in every state in the country.  The information on this DVD is designed to briefly summarize Georgia divorces and the laws that you should know about.

Marriage is a civil contract that the state has an interest in preserving.  Therefore, a marriage can only be dissolved as Georgia divorce law provides for.  Here are the provisions:  (1) a divorce or (2) an annulment; or altered by (3) a decree of separate maintenance granted by our courts.

There must be a proceeding in the superior court of the county in which the defendant resides (or the county where you resided during the marriage if the defendant left the county within six months before filing).  Also, the person seeking the divorce (the plaintiff) has to prove grounds for the divorce.  In other words, the plaintiff must give valid reasons for filing for divorce as permitted under Georgia law.

With Georgia divorces, there are 13 grounds for divorce.  One of them is that the marriage is “irretrievably broken”, often called the “no-fault” grounds for divorce.  One person simply claims that they want out (for whatever reason) and further claims that the marriage cannot be fixed.  This is the grounds most often used in Georgia divorces.

Here are some of the remaining 12 grounds for Georgia divorces, all of which require that the plaintiff show there was some wrongdoing by their spouse:

One, most common, is adultery.  Adultery in Georgia divorces, includes heterosexual and homosexual relations.  States could differ in this definition.

Desertion is another fault ground for a Georgia divorce.  If one person left, for at least one year, a divorce may be granted on these grounds.

Other grounds for Georgia divorces include abuse (mental or physical), mental incapacity at the time of the marriage, the marriage between persons who are too closely related, impotency at the time of marriage, force or fraud in obtaining the marriage, pregnancy of the wife unknown to the husband at the time of the marriage, conviction and imprisonment for certain crimes, habitual drug or alcohol addiction and mental illness.

Practically speaking, Georgia divorces are granted most often on the no-fault grounds of irreconcilable differences.  And, most states now have no-fault grounds, making it easily justifiable for one party to request a divorce, notwithstanding the other party’s reluctance to divorce.

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