If you're going to file for divorce in New Jersey, your Complaint for Divorce has to state a legal reason why you're asking the court to end your marriage. That reason is known as your ground for divorce.
New Jersey law provides several different grounds for divorce, ranging from irreconcilable differences to adultery and extreme cruelty. But for many people today, the question isn't whether they can accuse their spouse of wrongdoing. It's whether there's any reason to do it.
Under New Jersey law, there are nine statutory grounds for divorce:
Each ground has its own legal requirements. You shouldn't simply choose one because it sounds closest to what happened during your marriage.
For many divorcing couples, irreconcilable differences provides a much simpler way to establish the legal basis for ending the marriage.
To obtain a New Jersey divorce based upon irreconcilable differences, you must allege that irreconcilable differences have caused the breakdown of your marriage for at least six months and that there is no reasonable prospect of reconciliation.
In plain English, the marriage has broken down, the problems can't reasonably be fixed, and you don't expect to reconcile. You don't need to turn your divorce complaint into a detailed list of everything your spouse did wrong. For many people, that's a significant advantage.
Yes. Adultery remains a legal ground for divorce in New Jersey.
If your spouse cheated on you, you may understandably feel that the divorce complaint should say so. But before choosing adultery as your ground, it's worth asking what you're actually trying to accomplish by including it.
One common misconception is that proving your spouse cheated will automatically result in a better financial outcome. New Jersey's alimony statute focuses primarily on factors such as the parties' financial needs, ability to pay, length of the marriage, standard of living, earning capacities, health, parental responsibilities, and other relevant circumstances. The statute does allow courts to consider proofs establishing certain divorce grounds when determining alimony, but adultery does not automatically mean more or less alimony.
So if your goal is to protect yourself financially, simply putting adultery into the divorce complaint may not accomplish what you think it will.
Extreme cruelty is another recognized ground for divorce in New Jersey. The law defines it to include physical or mental cruelty that endangers a spouse's safety or health or makes it improper or unreasonable to expect that spouse to continue living with the other.
There are situations where extreme cruelty may accurately describe what happened during a marriage. But again, there's a difference between having grounds to make an allegation and deciding whether using those grounds makes sense in your particular divorce.
I've handled New Jersey divorce cases for decades, and I've seen what can happen when the opening document in a divorce becomes a list of accusations.
One spouse alleges adultery, cruelty, addiction, or some other misconduct. The other spouse becomes angry and responds with accusations of their own. Before long, both people are spending time, energy, and legal fees arguing about who was the worse spouse during the marriage.
Sometimes those facts genuinely matter and need to be addressed. But sometimes they don't.
If irreconcilable differences provides the legal basis you need to obtain the divorce, you should at least consider whether making additional accusations in the complaint actually advances any of your goals.
This is where people often confuse the grounds for divorce with the other issues that have to be resolved during the case. Your ground for divorce establishes the legal basis for ending the marriage. It does not, by itself, decide custody, parenting time, alimony, child support, or how your property will be divided.
That doesn't mean a spouse's behavior can never matter. Certain conduct may be relevant to a particular issue in the case. For example, behavior affecting a child's safety could obviously become important in a custody dispute. Some serious misconduct may also have financial or other legal consequences.
But that's different from assuming that choosing a fault-based ground automatically gives you an advantage throughout the divorce.
Maybe. There are cases where a fault-based ground is appropriate. There are also plenty of cases where a person has legitimate complaints about a spouse's behavior but still chooses irreconcilable differences as the ground for divorce.
That's a strategic decision you should make based upon the facts of your case, not simply because you're angry about what happened during the marriage.
When clients come to me focused on proving that their spouse was responsible for the marriage ending, I try to bring the conversation back to something more useful: What are you trying to accomplish in your divorce?
Protecting your relationship with your children? Making sure you're financially secure? Keeping your business? Protecting retirement assets? Getting through the divorce without spending a fortune fighting over issues that don't change the outcome? Those goals are usually much more important than choosing the most accusatory ground available.
Your grounds for divorce are necessary because the court needs a legal basis to dissolve your marriage. But they're only one small part of the larger New Jersey divorce process.
Once the case begins, the focus usually shifts to the issues that will actually determine what your life looks like after the divorce: custody, parenting time, support, property, debt, retirement assets, settlement, and the other decisions that have to be made before the marriage can legally end.
If you're considering filing for divorce and want to understand what happens next, my free Divorce Smarter Course explains the New Jersey divorce process and the decisions you'll face along the way.
Until next time,
Steve