UPDATING THE BRAKING MECHANISMS IN NO-FAULT DIVORCE LAWS:

A PROPOSAL FOR AN EARLY WARNING/PREVENTION SYSTEM FOR DIVORCE

• Based on successful Los Angeles "Conciliation Court" - a marriage hospital where most marriages healed, others euthanized
  
  
• Mutual consent of both spouses was important factor or requirement
  
  
• Waiting periods
  
  
• Court-directed reconciliation counseling
  
  
• Judge must verify genuine "irretrievable breakdown" of marriage

• "Irretrievable breakdown" became "if one spouse wants divorce"
  
  
• Waiting periods, consent requirements survive only where state laws expressly demand them
  
  
• Court reconciliation counseling faded away, was too little, too late
  
  
• One spouse "tries everything" and gives up on marriage before the other spouse recognizes a problem
  
  
• Once one spouse decides to divorce, usually too late to save marriage
  
  
• Unilateral divorce laws increase mutual distrust during separation, make reconciliation harder
  
  
• Some waiting periods require strict separation - this discourages reconciliation
  
  
• Fault or contested divorces still take years
  
  
• Waiting periods, counseling laws need to be redesigned to adapt to modern life and unilateral divorce environment

• Gives couples a common language to communicate early warning signals
  
  
• Helps them repair marriages before it's too late
  
  
• Wait period varies from 6 months to 2 years, depending on children and mutual consent
  
  
• Based on existing laws in Maryland, Illinois, Pennsylvania, New Jersey & Puerto Rico
  
  
• But with new twist - puts waiting period BEFORE decision to divorce
  
  
• Wait starts with notice/request for help, NOT by leaving or filing for divorce
  
  
• Does not encourage "fault" divorce - applies equally to fault and no-fault
  
  
• Replaces archaic "cruelty" laws, procedures; piggybacks on existing system for domestic violence restraining orders

• Conviction of violent crime in family
  
  
• Restraining order for family violence
  
  
• Imprisonment or institutionalization (if those are divorce grounds in the state)

• Not mandatory
  
  
• Maximizes opportunities, time, information, incentives for marriage education
  
  
• All family courts, family service agencies, marriage license offices provide information on marriage education
  
  
• Careful, flexible definition of marriage education / educators

• Not mandatory, but a major incentive
  
  
• Consent must be specific agreement on all issues - not just superficial agreement

• The parties have never had children
• The parties have a written agreement on the divorce and all issues
• After the Period begins, the parties get marriage education