When is a marriage legally over?
Question Details: Is the marriage considered over when divorce papers are filed, when one spouse moves out or is it when the divorce is final?
A marriage is legally over in many ways but it depends on which set of laws. I.e., after the court agrees you were abandoned and makes the order or upon an order of divorce between the spouses in court, when divorce papers are signed NOT filed.
A spouse moving out doesn't create a divorce but rather a case of when the couple was separated. The legal implication being the separation will let the court know how to treat assets and liabilities -- as marital property or separate property of the other from the time the couple has no possibility of reconciling, etc.
Consult with a divorce attorney in your state about specific issues you may have other than general time-line questions. Try www.attorneypages.com and check his or her record at the Ohio State Bar.
In Ohio, the marriage is only legally terminated by a decree of divorce or dissolution, and until the decree is filed for record with the Clerk of Courts, the people are still married.
That decree may state that the de facto termination of marriage occurred at some time prior to the decree, especially when the parties have lived apart and have terminated their financial partnership in every way for some period of time, and then use that de facto termination date as the last date when marital assets were acquired. Unless the court makes that specific finding, the usual date for the end of the marital asset and debt accumulation period is the first date of trial.
In an agreed dissolution of marriage, the people can agree that they ceased acting like a partnership prior to the decree, and that assets or debts acquired after that date are separate property.
