Why stall divorce

This can drive that partner to attempt one or more delaying divorce tactics, including psychological manipulation attempts on a partner, refusal to comply with court orders and communication with the court seeking to postpone or cancel the divorce. There are lots of reasons why an individual would want to delay divorce. Some consider delaying divorce for financial reasons. Others see delaying divorce to save marriages as a viable option. Every marriage, and by extension, every divorce, is unique.

In some cases, delaying divorce can be beneficial to both parties and in others, it simply makes the divorce process more expensive, more complicated and more emotionally difficult. One of the methods of delaying divorce to save marriages is pursuing marital counseling. In cases like this, the partner who suggests marital counseling often genuinely believes she can fix the problems present in her marriage and avoid divorce altogether. Sometimes this is possible; sometimes it is not.

Of course when a divorce procedure gets delayed it is not only the money issue that could transform the whole process into a time bomb, there is much more. Let me give you four examples of why delaying a divorce procedure can often make the situation worse.

The gap between you and your partner can grow bigger From the moment both spouses speak out the D-word openly, the timer starts to run. During the first days there will be a moment of stress, pain and panic, but in most cases both spouses often realize that breaking up in a positive way should be their joint goal. It's important to benefit from this point of view right away. My personal vision is that settling a divorce becomes then part of the relationship.

This means that every day you are delaying the process this 'joint goal' will become less important, because the 'soon to be exes' will each start looking ahead into their new lives with new targets, friends and potentially new lovers. The last one brings me to my second point. The risk that your partner finds a new lover during your divorce procedure In the beginning of a lot of divorce procedures both spouses prefer to separate in a positive way from each other.

This is based on the history the spouses build up together and the respect they have for each other. But in emotional and uncertain periods people often start to look for new partners or lovers to fill in their emptiness which has just emerged.

This search is in most cases natural and therefore inevitable. These 'post-divorce relationships' are often not the long-lived relationships but can be very harmful for the divorce procedure. A new lover often is fast involved and in most cases has a biased opinion about financial subjects or even custody.

However, if your ex avoids service, this will delay the divorce process. If your spouse avoids normal service, your divorce lawyer can ask the court for substituted service. This is an order from the court allowing service in an alternative manner such as:. If the residence is unknown, then it is common to serve the party by publication. The downsides to substituted service are:. This divorce trick can sometimes be used effectively to delay a divorce by firing their Texas divorce lawyer a few weeks prior to trial.

The fact that a spouse is generally free to change lawyers mid-case does not necessarily mean it is good idea to do so. Yes, it may delay the trial. However, the tradeoff is:. In general, a client has a right to be represented by the lawyer of their choosing. That means in most circumstances they can change attorneys mid-case. Judges are not generally inclined to force clients to stay in contractual relationships against their will.

However, at times divorcing spouses can try and use their ability to fire and hire new counsel to their advantage. At its most simple level firing your lawyer is reason to ask for a continuance from the court in order to:. Unless this trick has been used more than once. A court is often inclined to grant this motion for continuance.

Depending on the case, there are different things that can be done to combat delaying tactics. Unfortunately, most of the time the remedy is not immediate. However, ultimately it is possible to push a case along. Usually in the divorce cases I have handled, everyone understand that they are entitled to comply with the discovery rules of a case.

Unfortunately, there are times when this does not happen or the discovery could not have completed in a timely manner. Most of the time when there is an attorney on the other side of the case, we can reach an agreement on when they will get us the needed discovery. However, there have been times when there is a non-attorney or a difficult attorney on the other side of the case.

When this happens, the remedy is to file a motion to compel discovery and set it for a hearing. If after the hearing a judge finds that your ex is in violation of the discovery rules, a judge can:.

Generally, a judge must start with something mild before working up to the harsher discovery remedies. However, if your ex continues to be difficult the penalties can become very harsh. If the agreement was reached in mediation, then an added benefit of mediation is we can get the court to sign an order based on that agreement.

The easiest way to proceed of course is if everyone complies with signing the order to begin with. However, sometimes people change their minds, get cold feet, or want to tweak the agreement. In these cases, we will set a hearing to prove up the mediated settlement agreement. The judge will give our office a certain amount of time to draft and circulate an order based on that agreement.

If the other side continues to refuse to sign, we will show up on the day of entry the date the judge gave us to come back if the order was not signed by all parties. As long as the Final Divorce Decree or other order is drafted based on the mediated agreement a judge will still sign the Order even if your ex or the opposing counsel refuses.

The above method of getting an order signed applies to any order based on a hearing in front of a judge. The only difference is there is not the added step of proving up the agreement first. That is because there is already been a hearing and the order is based on the ruling by the judge. A divorce case can become very frustrating if your ex refuses to respond, does so slowly, or does whatever they can to drag their feet.