Today my WH and I went to court. (info is in my other thread) When I got home, I was looking over the copies of the response papers my WH had given me copies of...and the set that arrived in the mail today (service by mail) and they requested dissolution of marriage. I did not know that at court...I just thought it was LS like I had filed. So now I think that a divorce proceeding has just happened. (We did everything w/o lawyers due to finances...)

I am a mess...HELP!

well, did you read whatever you signed?

Pep

We have not signed any orders yet. They will be ready in a couple of days...

I am just in shock at the response being for disso. of marriage. I wanted to have a lawyer if it went to that, but I didn't know until after the hearing.

I would call the courthouse in the am and see what the heck happened. I *think* because you havent signed anything it isnt a legal document. Do you need to see a judge or is this done all in paper form? I would also see about local legal aid if finances are too tight to afford a lawyer because I think you do need legal representation.

good luck getting legal aide...
i am in school full time and only work part time.
they count child support as income.
my child support caused me to make "too much income" thus i did not qualify for legal aide. what a crock.

thank god for my mother who paid for an attorney for me.

mlhb

Did you receive a divorce decree? Did you sign a divorce decree? Sounds as if you may have just gone through an initial status hearing... for me was the one where we chatted with the judge, our finances, kids... things like that.

Contact the court house, or better yet, go there. Give them your case number and ask for a copy of the divorce decree, if they don't have one on file, you probably have at least another hearing left to go.

I am doing mine myself too.

I think the requested dissolution of marriage, may be some of the paperwork, copies, that he filed with the courts that he had to provide you copies of. I had to do that too. I hand delivered mine.

I have a service that prepared my documents, so she can probably explain things...I was just freaked out becuase I had no idea he had requested that until after everything was done in the courtroom. No papers have been signed, but I've heard there is not a lot you can do to stop a divorce ...is that true?

In the proceeding, it was all about finances and custody, nothing was ever sdasid re: LS or DV.

I am doing much better this morning, but I was very shell shocked yesterday.

Thank you for your responses...have a migraine today so I am down for the count...

IHC

Double-check with your service, (or maybe Mr. W or BB or one of the other lawyers will weigh in) but if you filed first, then it should be YOUR papers that count. You made the motion, and that motion is what the court will rule on.

His response can say just about anything, but it's just his reply to your motion.

He would have to separately move to make it a D, instead of an LS. Depends on your stat, but I doubt that it's as easy to do that as just putting "dissolution" in your response papers.

Hang in there!!!
Other than that, how did court go?

-AmI.

I am not sure...

He filed the response papers required of him, but then there were also papers, that were just like mine that were for diss.of marriage. So I am quite confused. How could he file something 4 days before my court date for LS and have that change the outcome? He put our courtdate for the 24th on there as the date and everything. I didn't even get served (by mail) until after the hearing...it seems like it couldn't have been that easy for him to do...

If you filed for legal separation, but he filed for divorce instead of a response to your papers.... you now have to file a 'response' to what amounts to a new filing from him, or you will get defaulted to whatever he asked for. divorce trumps legal separation, I think.

and yes, in california there is nothing you can do to stop the divorce. ironically, they force you to say in the response, "request for dissolution of marriage". there is no other option. There is no option to even just note for the record on the paper, "i dont want this divorce".

Now, HE can choose to say, "oops, i didnt have a lawyer, i made a mistake about divorce", and withdraw his filing. but there's nothing that you personally can do directly, if he indeed did file a petition of divorce.

This makes sense. I'd get those papers downto your legal service and find out if you need to file a response to his dissolution motion. And it sounds like he did it totaly incorrectly, indicating there was a court date when there wasn't one -- for the dissolution motion. So you might be able to ask to have it totally set aside. Then at least he has to re-file and do it right.

We need some of the legal minds to weigh in here .... can you add a request for their help to your thread title? There are a few lawyers around here.

techie,

I think he just filed a response to my papers, but I haven't had my legal service look at them yet. She thinks that it may have just been the response papers he had to file...she did say I could probably "sit" on the divorce papers because I am getting what I came to court for...CS, custody, property rights. I will know from her as soon as the judge posts the orders. As of right now, the orders haven't even been issued by the judge yet, so I am in waiting right now.

My legal service also figures he didn't file the right papers if he filed them on his own, which it appears he did.
Sop, that may buy me some time as well.

ironically, they force you to say in the response, "request for dissolution of marriage".

I don't get why they do that. So, the papers really may have just been his response, not a separate filing? I am hoping so.

Maybe the standard forms don't have a slot that says "I don't want this D...." but when you respond to a motion, you can say anything you want in the response including "I do not want this D, I don't agree that the marriage is irrepairable...." whatever.

It won't mean much to a judge, and won't stop the dissolution ... but you don't have to agree to a dissolution any more than you have to agree to give him the house and all the assets or whatever else he requests in a petition for dissolution.

My "just in case he files first" paperwork that I had prepared says that I do not want a dissolution and do not agree to it and do not agree that the marriage is "irretreivably broken" (which is the standard "no fault" comment on D papers here).


Really, though, that's all just semantics.

The big question that still remains is whether his response to your LS motion can change the nature of the motion to a D instead of LS. That's the one we need the legal minds to respond to!

And your legal service can probably tell you if the D papers he served on you were correct and if you have to respond, or if he just screwed up and you can ignore that. They will have to look at the actual legal papers to determine that.

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no, no, no. my comments were reguarding a response to a "request for dissolution" only. if one party petitions for a divorce, the other party must petition that they also 'want' a divorce.

For your specific instance:
I'm looking at california state form FL-120 now
(response to a petition)

There are completely separate items for "legal separation" and "dissolution".

"dissolution" == "DIVORCE".

At the very top of the form, there are exactly 3, mutually exclusive options:

[] dissolution of marriage
[] legal separation
[] nullity of marriage

you have been given papers pursuant to a DIVORCE, not a legal separation.

There's no way you can "accidentally" fill in the wrong one, in my opinion.


Did he give you form FL-100, or FL-120?

FL-120 is the *response*.
If he gave YOU an FL-100, you have been given a petition of divorce, not a response.
that's really obnoxious.
If he did that, you must file your own "response", to protect yourself and respond to whatever he asked for, if he asked for stuff you dont want to give him.

But even if he gave you an FL-120...
if one party asks for a legal separation and one party asks for a divorce, the divorce wins.

You are being divorced.

"I am not a laywer". but I know this part for a fact.

It will remain that way, unless he refiles as an "amended response", and changes the checkbox to say "legal separation".

techie,

But even if he gave you an FL-120... if one party asks for a legal separation and one party asks for a divorce, the divorce wins.

You are being divorced.


This is the form I received. In the original paperwork, it said he had to file a response within 9 days of the courtdate, plus another 5 if he was serving me by mail. He filed them 1 day before court. And served me by mail.

I guess I will know for sure this week when she gets the order ready for the judge.