Divorce is the common term for ‘dissolution of marriage’ and it presents a complexity of legal issues unlike any other proceeding. Missouri’s marriage statutes 452.025-452.999 RSMo 2009, treat marriage as a shared economic enterprise, as a result, divorce naturally involves lots of complex stuff.
That said, what exactly is a divorce?
A divorce is a judicial decree by which a valid marriage is dissolved. From a legal standpoint, the divorce process will divide the couple’s assets and debts; determine the future care and custody of their children; and give each person the legal right to marry someone else.
MO is a ‘no-fault’ jurisdiction.
In years past, in order for a divorce decree to be granted, one of the parties had to be at fault; they cheated, they were physically/mentally abusive, addiction, or some other wrongful act….Lawmakers purposely made it difficult to get a divorce because they wanted to limit the number of divorces. Why? Public policy: lawmakers believed that marriage was good for society and a two parent household was good for the children and that marriage lent a certain security to society. Fault was really important because it could limit the amount of award and custody/child support of the partner found at fault. Of course there were defenses to fault, but this only resulted in protracted, expensive litigation. Now, however, the idea of fault is no longer applicable. Rather the parties must state that the marriage is irretrievably broken or the couple has irreconcilable differences.
Residency and Jurisdiction
Each state has residency and jurisdiction requirements to file a Petition for Dissolution and those requirements vary state to state. Addtionally, Missouri requires a ‘cooling off’ period, pursuant to section 452.305(1) RSMo 2009, whereby the parties must wait 30 days between the filing of the petition and the granting of a dissolution decree. The 30 day waiting period is a requisite for subject matter jurisdiction of the court and is, therefore, not able to be waived by the parties.