Once you have been married, there are two ways to end a marriage, annulment or divorce. Both procedures depend greatly on state law.
Annulment may be proper, depending on the state law, because of things such as:
Annulment is different from divorce in that instead of ending the marriage, the law considers the marriage to have never existed at all.
Once a couple is deemed to be married, whether it be by common law or by means of ceremony, that marriage may be terminated only by a decree of a court. The divorce decree does not necessarily have to be entered in the state where the parties were married. Quite frequently one or both parties may change their residence in order to come within the jurisdiction of another state or foreign country to have a quickie divorce entered. Those types of divorce decrees may be valid provided there was a bona fide change in residence and provided proper notice was given to the other spouse of the fact that the marriage was to be terminated.
Grounds
Depending on the state, a divorce may be decreed either on grounds that the divorce is a person's fault or without assigning fault to either party, no-fault. The fault grounds for a divorce are:
A no-fault divorce means that there is no attribution of fault to the other party, but simply that the parties have lived separate and apart for the period of time required by state law with the intent to terminate the marriage.
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