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Divorce Help - Legal Separation or Divorce?
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By: XSTILLA.COM
A legal separation, as opposed to simply a separation, is a legal change in the marriage's status. To clarify, a legal separation isn't usually an option for most couples and is rather uncommon except for cases where personal, religious, or even financial reasons prohibit a couple from divorcing.
For a legal separation, a petition must be filed in either your Family Division or Superior Court, and this may take as long as it does to finalize a divorce in some instances. The process also involves the court ruling on matters such as child support, alimony, and the division of property or assets, much as it does during a divorce, except for the divorce is not finalized and technically the couple is still considered married, but legally separated.
Also, with a legal separation, child support and alimony are referred to as separate maintenance, the laws of which vary depending on your state of residence. In some cases, the motion for separate maintenance can be filed prior to litigation in a process known as pendente lite, meaning pending litigation.
If the couple decides in the future to then seek a divorce, the rulings and motions made by the court during a legal separation will set the tone and have an influence on future judgments during the divorce process.
The Different Types of Separation
To explain further, with a legal separation, the court rules on matters such as support or child custody and visitation issues, but does not actually grant a divorce.
The three other types of marital separations are:
• Living apart: This option may change one spouse's rights to shared property in some states.
• Trial separation: This occurs when a couple isn't quite sure they're going to divorce, but instead, have a trial separation while deciding on what they should do next.
• Permanent separation: This term is most often used when a couple decides to separate before divorcing.
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