My husband and I are thinking about reconciling. However, I want to still protect myself in case it does not work out. Anyone heard of just putting a hold on the divorce for a given amount of time, say 4 to 6 months? If it doesn't work out, I don't want to file all over again and pay the filing fee. I live in New York State. Anyone had any luck with this? I do have a lawyer and will ask. Just really curious right now. After hours to contact her. Thanks.

I don't know but I do hope you can work everything out and have a new & improved marriage.

I'm sure you can. I did. I had filed, but didn't move on the settlement agreement for a while. If you really want to slow things up, tell your lawyer you're running low on funds and won't be able to pay him for a while. LOL.

My stbxw has brought things to a grinding halt.

She filed for divorce and tried to trick me int just signing her papers without me looking them over.

I refused and sent them to my attorney who promptly picked them apart and I countered.

If we had FAIRLY settled, she would still owe me around $15,000.

So she has stopped responding all together in hopes that I will now just go away.

As of last week I have sent her attorney a force movement or pay my attorney fees by the end of the week.

They failed to respond and now it's going to the judge.

Boy is she going to be in for a suprize.

I live in CNY and my WH agreed to stop the divorce and sign a one year separation agreement instead. (Unfortunately he still wanted to go through with the divorce a year later.)

In my case the WH had no legal grounds for divorce so I had four choices:
1)do nothing and he would be granted the divorce even though he didn't have grounds for divorce
2)countersue for divorce and I would be granted a divorce since I did have grounds for divorce (his adultery)
3)contest the divorce since he did not have grounds for divorce
4)we could sign a one year separation agreement and after living apart for a full year a divorce would be granted

I didn't want to 'force' him to stay married to me if he didn't want to but since he was so undecided (literally changing his mind between me and OW several times per day!) and we have children, and we'd been married over two decades, I felt he needed to give this decision more time and thought.

Initially WH filed for divorce, I was served divorce papers, I was advised by my lawyer to counterfile for divorce, but then I stopped my divorce filing after discovering MB. WH's divorce filing was still set to go through unless I contested it.

Just 6 weeks before the divorce was to be final WH agreed to consider a one year separation agreement. I was in Plan A and WH was doing some serious cake-eating. WH had been trying to demand I come along for visitation with daughters and also felt he should be able to come into my home and hang around to watch videos, stay for dinner, etc. He had convinced himself that even after the divorce he was entitled to continue hanging around me and my home. Of course I told him he could just pick his daughters up at the door and unless he got rid of OW I would not be in his life. But I did want the opportunity to do a really good Plan A though...

So I told him that I would agree to a one year separation agreement to give him more time to make up his mind between me and OW but that once the divorce was final he would lose me. I told him that since we had children and he was so ambivalent (and apparently not ready to give me up totally) it would not be a good idea to go through with divorce yet. He agreed since it was the only way I would continue letting him have access to me and my home. I tried to warn him that OW wouldn't approve, that she would be expecting him to marry her ASAP. He laughed and said "she's not like you"...

So I started Plan A, let WH come over every day, spent all day Saturday with WH and daughters. OW had WH pretty much to herself before that and didn't like it at all having to share him with his wife and daughters LOL. OW flipped out!
LOL

You need to ask about the legalities of putting your divorce on hold, financially and otherwise. As long as you are married if it's a 50-50 state, you can both get half of what the other earns, spends, etc and debts are a problem too.

I read that in my county about 30% of divorces never make it to divorce, meaning people file and as an attorney said "that's when they REALLY start thinking about divorce and how serious it is"...

Your court can dismiss your case due to inaction, you'll have to have a "reason" that litigation is not continued, but they'll give you a few weeks after they send a letter to you or your attorney, then the case will be dropped like mine was. So now I'm having to file all over again.

I wouldn't suggest reconciliation without a plan and counseling. You can end up in LIMBO for freaking ever like me - I hate to admit that an old crooked attorney was right, either say "we are working on this marriage, or we are getting a divorce." Period.