Our Law Blog

Although couples do not enter a marriage with divorce in mind, a prenuptial agreement (prenups) can protect both parties and avoid a long, costly divorce process.

Traditionally, wealth was the driving factor behind premarital agreements; today they are commonly thought of as a financial plan that sets forth expectations in a marriage.

                Divorce can be a trying, frustrating and expensive process for anyone. Just how expensive a divorce is may depend on the assets being divided. Here are the 20 largest divorce settlements:

20. Steven Spielberg and Amy Irving: $100 million

In California, there is a legal action known as a summary dissolution. This is the dissolution of a marriage that has only been legal for five years or less. A joint petition for summary dissolution can be filed when either spouse meets the standard residency requirements and irreconcilable differences the marriage render the marriage irretrievably broken. A summary dissolution can also be filed when the marriage does not involve any children and the wife is not pregnant (Wikipedia).

Who Can File for Summary Dissolution?

Many people believe that if a couple lives together for a period of years and holds themselves out to the world as a married couple, then the couple will be considered to be “legally married.” While this may be true in certain states, California abolished these common law marriages over a hundred years ago. A common law marriage can never be created in California; however it will recognize common law marriages that were created in states which do recognize them.

Even though California does not allow for common law marriages, couples who live together may still have rights to financial support and property division as if they had been legally married, but only under strict circumstances. In these cases, if one or both persons in the relationship had a reasonable and good faith belief that they had entered into a valid marriage, but it turned out the marriage was void, then that person can be considered a “putative spouse.” To be given the status of a putative spouse, it is not enough to say that you simply believed you had a common law marriage. Instead, the couple must have actually gone through the motions to get married, yet had something go wrong when trying to comply with the legal requirements for marriage (often this happens when one person was in a prior marriage and mistakenly thought that he or she was legally divorced). Not only that, but this good faith belief that you are married must continue throughout the marriage, if you find out that the marriage is invalid, then you lose putative status. Recently, it was also established that these same principles can be applied to couples who were in an unregistered domestic partnership. A person with putative spouse status will be entitled to share in property acquired during the invalid marriage or domestic partnership under our community property laws, and to any spousal support that is required once the relationship is terminated. A putative spouse may also have marital-type rights in other situations as well, such as workers compensation or retirement benefits (Wikipedia). The spouse who knew or should have known that the marriage was not valid will typically not be able to benefit from these provisions.

In late June, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) ruled that the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) was unconstitutional, and that the benefits available to legally married heterosexual couples should be available to legally married gay couples. The 1996 federal law had defined the institution of marriage as a union between a man and a woman, thus denying federal benefits for gay couples whose marriages were recognized at the state level—like joint tax returns, Social Security, health insurance, pension protection, benefits for military couples, and immigration protections for couples from different countries.

The court invalidated DOMA in a 5-4 ruling. Justice Anthony Kennedy, who delivered the decisive vote along with the court’s four liberal justices, wrote the majority opinion stating that DOMA “violates basic due process and equal protection principles applicable to the Federal Government.”

One of the most frequently cited family law statistics is that 50% of marriages end in divorce. No one gets married with the expectation of getting divorced. However, changes, including in the nature of the relationship between spouses, are inevitable and one or both spouses may ultimately come to the conclusion that a divorce is in the best interests of all involved. Below are some common signs of a failing marriage:

1. Decision making has become a dictatorship. There used to be a time when you and your partner would discuss the upcoming weekend plans, what to eat for dinner, the handling of work-related issues, etc. Now, you are making decisions without consideration from the other.

Same-sex marriage has become a much publicized issue in recent years. Pending the United States Supreme Court decision regarding the status of same-sex marriage in California same-sex couples in California may register as domestic partners with all of the same rights, at the state level, as spouses.

A California domestic partnership is “a legal relationship available to same-sex couples, and to certain opposite-sex couples in which at least one party is at least 18 years of age.” It affords the couple "the same rights, protections, and benefits, and... the same responsibilities, obligations, and duties under law..." as married spouses (legalinfo.ca.gov).