We've been inundated with media images of how divorce proceedings go, with the one who's unaware of the filing being utterly surprised, perhaps when they were just at the top of their game in life. While it definitely is true that divorce requests are done through a legal court notice after one person files, a filing for separation of marriage isn't as cut and dry.
A marital separation that hasn't been court-ordered will not lend itself to surprise. A marriage separation is based on a written agreement that's kind of like a contract that has many terms that detail a spouse's responsibilities going into the future.
How it works
Because of the fact that this requires a contemplated and negotiated contract between two people who know about this, it's pretty much impossible for a separation agreement to be a surprise for either party.
Another aspect of separation agreements is that they don't fall into standardized, default filings. Each separation agreement is going to be unique and dissimilar to any other agreement.
Issues of fraud.
Of course, everything we've said so far assumes that the marriage separation has been done in a legal, legitimate manner. If someone were being fraudulent, though, it would technically be possible for them to forge the other spouse's signature.
If this is your situation
Stop reading. Start defending.
They could then file it with a court to make everything "official." However, this would only last as long as the second spouse figured out what happened and then went to court to protest it, making it illegitimate.
Once this all happened, the original spouse who falsified the documents would be arrested for fraud, contempt of court, falsifying a court document, and a number of other things. To make a long story short, the penalties would be pretty harsh for the suspect in a case like this, especially when you consider the anger of the court that was being tricked.
Why someone would go ahead and try to file a fake separation of marriage defies all logic. There are no benefits and massive penalties for this, and the partner is going to find out eventually. In basically every case, marriage separation involves both parties having to compromise and give up something that they want.
The concept behind separation.
The idea behind all of this is to allow a still married couple to sort out all of their daily financial issues and "try on" a divorce before it actually happens. In some cases, the couple decides to get back together once they see what being divorced would really be like. As a result, this filing is not something that would be beneficial to be faked. And if anything, the legal consequences are so severe that there's no reason to do such a thing.
In terms of response, the spouse who has been filed against has the option of disagreeing with the terms of the separation, in which case things like child custody and property control can be changed. If the spouse being filed against does nothing within the required timeline, then it's likely that the filing spouse will receive everything that they filed for.
Once the spouses come to an agreement as to property being split and child custody arrangements, they then come to what is known as a separation agreement. The terms of their agreement will then be transferred into a separation decree, which then makes it a court order that is enforceable against both of the spouses.
Spouses who live in states that don't allow separation agreements can enter into their own agreements that will be treated as a private contract instead of as a legal matter with the court.
We've been inundated with media images of how divorce proceedings go, with the one who's unaware of the filing being utterly surprised, perhaps when they were just at the top of their game in life. While it definitely is true that divorce requests are done through a legal court notice after one person files, a filing for separation of marriage isn't as cut and dry.
A marital separation that hasn't been court-ordered will not lend itself to surprise. A marriage separation is based on a written agreement that's kind of like a contract that has many terms that detail a spouse's responsibilities going into the future.