by Nancy Houser

Created on: January 01, 2009   Last Updated: January 07, 2009

A marriage ending in divorce is the most painful emotional process between two individuals and their families, with the internal healing process and moving on with one's life even more difficult. But the types of divorce and how they are approached sets the scene, with a wide variety of divorce types available in each state with common denominators between the majorities of them.

All states offer different rules about each type of divorce they grant, with different categories focusing on specific regulations. Prior to California's 1970 first "no-fault divorce" that has spread now to most states, one of the parties involved in the divorce had to do something wrong for the divorce to be passed, referred to as "grounds for divorce" which involved adultery, confinement in prison, physical incapacity for sexual intercourse, cruelty on a physical or mental level, desertion, and incurable insanity. The party who contested the divorce had to defend themselves in court, denying what they were charged. The most popular types of grounds for divorce are no-fault divorce, uncontested divorce, a collaborate divorce, and a mediated divorce.

Today, divorce statistics show that 43.7% of custodial mothers and 56.2% of custodial fathers are either divorced or separated, with 7.8 million Americans paying way over $40 billion dollars in child or spouse support. And many attorneys or family courts provide free case reviews to offer suggestions and pricing to interested parties, both online and in person.

NO-FAULT DIVORCE:

Most states allow both fault and no-fault divorces, with no-fault being the easiest and most popular in family courts to get passed. Simply put, no one is at fault for the marriage ending and any cited misconduct does not influence the final decision, stated as either "irreconcilable differences" or "incompatibilities". The drawback in a no-fault divorce is there are limiting legal defenses for the person who prefers to remain married, and many feel the fault divorce is the reason for skyrocketing divorce statisticsdoubling in the past three years.

Today, all the states except New York allow a no-fault divorce, with New York one of the last states to allow it under specific regulations, still basically requiring a fault for a divorce. With six grounds for divorce allowed in the state, the only way a no-fault divorce can be passed if the parties live apart for a period of one year under a court ordered legal separation judgment, or one signed by both parties, and if

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