Divorces happen practically every day. Throughout New Hampshire, the parties to married couples decide that they no longer want to live as partners and choose to legally end their relationships. Though many aspects of divorce are emotional, at its core, divorce is a legal process that terminates a legal union.
When a person decides that they want to file for divorce, they must include on their pleading a reason or grounds for their divorce. New Hampshire recognizes both fault and no-fault grounds for ending marriages. This post will introduce some of those grounds but all readers are reminded that this post is informational and not legal advice.
Fault grounds for divorce
Divorces based on fault assign the failure of a marriage to one of the parties. Long ago, most divorces were based on fault. Some of the fault grounds that are still recognized by New Hampshire courts include:
- Impotency
- Adultery
- Cruelty
- Imprisonment
- Abandonment
Some individuals choose not to use fault grounds for their divorces for personal reasons. For example, if an individual wishes to end their marriage because of the adultery of their spouse, they could elect to file based on fault. However, the grounds on which a pleading is based will determine what a party must prove in court, and not all parties wish to discuss the intimate or embarrassing aspects of their relationships. For this reason, no-fault divorce also is recognized.
No-fault divorce
A no-fault divorce may be pursued when irreconcilable differences exist between marital parties and there is no hope of remedying them. Similarly, no-fault divorces can follow sufficiently long separations between marital partners. In no-fault divorce, the parties do not have to assign blame but rather can plead that they can no longer exist as married individuals.
The choice of how to plead a divorce is personal. An individual may have an idea of how they want to approach their divorce, but they can benefit from discussing their thoughts with a trusted divorce attorney for help and advocacy
