Divorce Papers Problem

[nlovewithher 0]

Ok, here is an unusual situation I am hoping someone might have some advice on.

About 15 years ago I got married to a woman who can only be classified as a gold digger. Six months into our marriage she informed me that the only reason she married me was to give her two daughters ‘a standard of living she never had’. Needless to say we separated after that. A few weeks later I was told she was moving out of state and filing for divorce so that she could go on disability. She just wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to fight it. I told her she was more than welcome to a default judgment and I myself was moving out of state too. We were not married long enough for her to get alimony and I didn’t have a lot of money at the time anyway. We had no children together so no child support was involved. We didn’t have any community property. I have no doubt that she filed and got the default judgment of divorce. So I just simply went about my life and moved on.

After a couple years I got married again. It was over all a good marriage and lasted for ten years. Regretfully we did grow apart and did eventually get a divorce. We were both to blame, a true no fault divorce. We are still on good terms as friends and have four children. She has a live-in boyfriend and will probably marry him soon; he is even a nice guy.

First try... real bad idea.

Second try… almost.

Now here comes the girl of my dreams. As a boy I had heard the legend of the Guff, a place in heaven where the souls of people would play there until they were ready to be born, and if two souls fell in love there they were fated as soul mates and would search for each other and never be satisfied until they were together again. She is the kind of girl who makes you believe that story. Smart, sweet and beautiful, only she isn’t from the US, so I need a K-1 visa for her. (God has a sense of humor so he put her on the other side of the world from me.)

The problem is this...

I have the divorce papers from the second divorce but not the first. I don’t know what state or county she moved to or where she filed divorce, at the time I didn’t care. I have no information other than my first x-wife’s first and possible last name. To make it worse it’s a very common first and last name. I don’t have any info on her friends or family, school, anything. We didn’t even file a joint tax return at any time. I don’t even know her middle name. Basically I can’t find anything to work with to try and find her to ask her where the papers are, if she would even bother to tell me. She could be remarried or dead for all I know. Getting a PI to search for essentially a “Mary Smith” would be VERY expensive and I doubt would do much good. I had considered divorcing her in my state again just so I have the papers; I can do that relatively cheap and without too much difficulty. However my divorce attorney advised not to because it might cause the court to call into question the legality of some things with my second marriage and divorce.

So what are my options?

1. Don’t mention it on the K-1 and hope they don’t notice. (How much risk is there that they would even find it really?)

2. Spend a huge amount of money and possibly years searching for her and the papers.

3. Divorce her again and create the possibility for a bunch of legal problems.

4. Other (I am open to suggestions)

I will do whatever it takes.

I hate to fly, I mean I become Mr. Monk on a one hour flight, but I have flown to the opposite side of the planet four times for this woman. I live in the southwest and the only Spanish I speak is ‘no habla espanol’, but I am learning Filipino and Bisaya even though her English is perfect. I move to Davao and lived with her for four months, and I won’t even go through the bad part of town here. I don’t like durian and hate the smell of it but I’m trying to grow a durian tree from seed, knowing it won’t fruit for years if I can even get it to grow just because she loves it even though I can buy frozen durian.

What should I do? HELP!

[VanessaTony 3,567]

Aren't you simply able to have a search carried out on YOUR name to find registered divorces? I don't think where she is matters... does it? Wouldn't lawyers here (like in Australia) have access to programs/databases for their divorce/family matters reasons and able to carry out a search on your name?

Also, you said you don't KNOW for sure, you just assumed that she filed for divorce so you really need to find out if you ARE actually divorced from the first wife.

You MUST mention it because what if they find out? Can't lie to immigration.

Edited January 5, 2010 by Vanessa&Tony

[nlovewithher 0]

There is no national registry or even state wide registry of divorces or marriages here in the US. I need to know the exact state and county.

I DO know for sure she did file. Her mother HATED me because I was white. So he mom would have saw to that. I am sure there was a divorce. The question is WHERE/WHEN.

[Darnell 8,478]

There's some DB service that USCIS/DHS uses to check divorce stuff -

and you can pay a fee to have a search done on the commercial side.

Can't for the life o me remember the name of it, though.

Fee should be less than 200 bucks, iirc.

But - do the search on your name, plus her name, with that service - it'll go CONUS - if yer lucky though - it will be in one of the states where the records are kept. GAG - there's about 12 states where the records are NOT shared, so are not archived into electronic format into 'that' service.

To anyone reading this - hey - what the heck am I talking about ? ya remember the name of the company/service?

[Richard90027 1]

Ok, here is an unusual situation I am hoping someone might have some advice on.

About 15 years ago I got married to a woman who can only be classified as a gold digger. Six months into our marriage she informed me that the only reason she married me was to give her two daughters ‘a standard of living she never had’. Needless to say we separated after that. A few weeks later I was told she was moving out of state and filing for divorce so that she could go on disability. She just wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to fight it. I told her she was more than welcome to a default judgment and I myself was moving out of state too. We were not married long enough for her to get alimony and I didn’t have a lot of money at the time anyway. We had no children together so no child support was involved. We didn’t have any community property. I have no doubt that she filed and got the default judgment of divorce. So I just simply went about my life and moved on.

After a couple years I got married again. It was over all a good marriage and lasted for ten years. Regretfully we did grow apart and did eventually get a divorce. We were both to blame, a true no fault divorce. We are still on good terms as friends and have four children. She has a live-in boyfriend and will probably marry him soon; he is even a nice guy.

First try... real bad idea.

Second try… almost.

Now here comes the girl of my dreams. As a boy I had heard the legend of the Guff, a place in heaven where the souls of people would play there until they were ready to be born, and if two souls fell in love there they were fated as soul mates and would search for each other and never be satisfied until they were together again. She is the kind of girl who makes you believe that story. Smart, sweet and beautiful, only she isn’t from the US, so I need a K-1 visa for her. (God has a sense of humor so he put her on the other side of the world from me.)

The problem is this...

I have the divorce papers from the second divorce but not the first. I don’t know what state or county she moved to or where she filed divorce, at the time I didn’t care. I have no information other than my first x-wife’s first and possible last name. To make it worse it’s a very common first and last name. I don’t have any info on her friends or family, school, anything. We didn’t even file a joint tax return at any time. I don’t even know her middle name. Basically I can’t find anything to work with to try and find her to ask her where the papers are, if she would even bother to tell me. She could be remarried or dead for all I know. Getting a PI to search for essentially a “Mary Smith” would be VERY expensive and I doubt would do much good. I had considered divorcing her in my state again just so I have the papers; I can do that relatively cheap and without too much difficulty. However my divorce attorney advised not to because it might cause the court to call into question the legality of some things with my second marriage and divorce.

So what are my options?

1. Don’t mention it on the K-1 and hope they don’t notice. (How much risk is there that they would even find it really?)

2. Spend a huge amount of money and possibly years searching for her and the papers.

3. Divorce her again and create the possibility for a bunch of legal problems.

4. Other (I am open to suggestions)

I will do whatever it takes.

I hate to fly, I mean I become Mr. Monk on a one hour flight, but I have flown to the opposite side of the planet four times for this woman. I live in the southwest and the only Spanish I speak is ‘no habla espanol’, but I am learning Filipino and Bisaya even though her English is perfect. I move to Davao and lived with her for four months, and I won’t even go through the bad part of town here. I don’t like durian and hate the smell of it but I’m trying to grow a durian tree from seed, knowing it won’t fruit for years if I can even get it to grow just because she loves it even though I can buy frozen durian.

What should I do? HELP!

The US does not have a national database on marriage however if your first marriage was at all linked to immigration the may find out.

[nlovewithher 0]

She was a US born citizen too.

[nlovewithher 0]

There's some DB service that USCIS/DHS uses to check divorce stuff -

and you can pay a fee to have a search done on the commercial side.

Can't for the life o me remember the name of it, though.

Fee should be less than 200 bucks, iirc.

But - do the search on your name, plus her name, with that service - it'll go CONUS - if yer lucky though - it will be in one of the states where the records are kept. GAG - there's about 12 states where the records are NOT shared, so are not archived into electronic format into 'that' service.

To anyone reading this - hey - what the heck am I talking about ? ya remember the name of the company/service?

Is Indiana on that list of 12 states? Because so far I haven’t even been able to find the marriage license even with the state and county. Granted I don’t remember the year of it much less the month and only have part of her name and my name is very common.

I feel like if I have to have papers filing for a divorce from her again is almost a better option because I don’t think I am ever going to find any records of anything.

[JERIII 8]

Ok, here is an unusual situation I am hoping someone might have some advice on.

About 15 years ago I got married to a woman who can only be classified as a gold digger. Six months into our marriage she informed me that the only reason she married me was to give her two daughters ‘a standard of living she never had’. Needless to say we separated after that. A few weeks later I was told she was moving out of state and filing for divorce so that she could go on disability. She just wanted to make sure I wasn’t going to fight it. I told her she was more than welcome to a default judgment and I myself was moving out of state too. We were not married long enough for her to get alimony and I didn’t have a lot of money at the time anyway. We had no children together so no child support was involved. We didn’t have any community property. I have no doubt that she filed and got the default judgment of divorce. So I just simply went about my life and moved on.

Why do you have no doubt that she filed?

You probably should talk to a divorce lawyer, but here's why I'm a little confused. She couldn't get a default judgment by telling the court you had no objection. She had to try to serve you with papers. If she knew where you were living, she would have had you served, and then, if you ignored the papers, she could get a default judgment (maybe). If she didn't know where you lived, then she would have had to follow whatever the state's procedure was, but that would have meant that time had passed before she was doing this. (The post office will forward mail for a while).

Were you served? If you weren't served, and hadn't moved more-or-less immediately, it's possible that the marriage was never dissolved.

But let's be optimistic. There are services that will search for divorce decrees, and although she may have a common name, it's unlikely that the combination of your names is that common.

[mrs. wife! 3]

Is Indiana on that list of 12 states? Because so far I haven’t even been able to find the marriage license even with the state and county. Granted I don’t remember the year of it much less the month and only have part of her name and my name is very common.

I feel like if I have to have papers filing for a divorce from her again is almost a better option because I don’t think I am ever going to find any records of anything.

Here in Brazil they check if you have been married before, and only set the date if everything is ok.

This was your first wife right? How were you able to get married for a second time if she didn't file for divorce? Can't you go to the place you married your second wife and check if they have records of it?

Or they just don't check if you were ever married before?

[Scott and Mhay 57]

Dang what a mess. Yeah it would of helped if you had filed taxes together because then you could have used her SSN to find her. You dont know where any of her family is either...Hmm...yeah you would have had to be served with papers....weather you replied to them or not doesnt matter because in some states you can get a default judgement. I guess hind site is always 20/20 though. Good luck to you. Hope you get this resolved...

One last note/question...You had to file for a marriage license...I would to back to where you got married and try and get a marriage certificate...might help some. At least for a middle name and such.

[nlovewithher 0]

Here in Brazil they check if you have been married before, and only set the date if everything is ok.

This was your first wife right? How were you able to get married for a second time if she didn't file for divorce? Can't you go to the place you married your second wife and check if they have records of it?

Or they just don't check if you were ever married before?

I don’t know. I have been told there is no national registry of divorces or marriages. If there had been I would have married her almost a year ago.

I have talked to a divorce lawyer. He said there isn’t much I can or should do other than maybe hire a PI.

As for default judgment it works like this.

There is a service of papers. Then the respondent has a specified time to respond to the petition. If it is ignored eventually the court grants a default judgment on divorce. If a motion for a default judgment is made and no response has been filed within the time limit it gets granted.

Even if you don’t have any idea where they are you can file and get a default judgment, you just have to do the service of the petition different. That’s how I can file right now and get a divorce from the first wife even without any info.

The problem is if I do it invalidates some of the stuff from my second marriage and divorce.

As it stands I KNOW there was a default judgment.. no question, her mom would have paid anything to get rid of the ‘pink toe’. (She was black, I was white, her mom was as racist as they come)

There really is NO QUESTION about IF there was a divorce. Not even in the slightest.

How to find out WHERE is the problem.

If I can find WHERE then I can avoid the problems that filing here will cause.

[~Johnny~ 27]

Hi. Finally I can contribute something! I am having a similar problem, but my 1st marriage (of only 6 months also) was about 23 years ago in the state of Louisiana. Which is also one of those states that does not have a national or statewide marriage/divorce database. Only the city of New Orleans maintains a searcheable database. You have to mail a letter to each Parish county clerk for a records search, and you may or may not get lucky, I paid $10 for each search. It's really a turkey shoot. I sent letters the two places we lived during the divorce and both clerks came up BLANK...no record of marriage/divorce. But one of the seats had experienced a fire some years and records were destroyed. So, I'm on the fence now as to what to write on my K1 petition. Also I did pay for two commercial nationwide/statewide matrimonial searches. The first one is from a widely used commercial company called Intelius.... they have a website I think www.intelius.com The service was maybe $40 for a nationwide search and showed NO record of any marriage. There are only a handful of states that maintain national marriage/divorce database infomation as most states don't consider it to be "vital statistics". SO irrespective of what anyone says, unless the USCIS has local attornies in every state county seat searching file cabinets for divorce/marriage records, I would think it difficult to say the least for them find out if you were or were not even married. Unless as mentioned, that you were married to an immigrant candidate. Also another site that has access to national databases is called www.aretheyreallysingle.com....this one is $10 and they search only marriage records nationwide. Intelius gave me a nice 20 page background investigation,,,which is kind of cool....(noticed I had 3 speeding tickets in Alaska over 15 years....and showed EVERY address I've ever had)) Also, I lived in Alaska and was married there and have the divorce docs...but Alaska also does not maintain database...and the marriage/divorce did not show up on either of those commercial searches. There is NO national database for this type of search. I do think after reading everything for many hours about what they search for...and came up with the conclusion that they are more concerned with past criminal actions, and maybe rely on the honor system with regards to the majority of past "stated" marriages.

Edited January 5, 2010 by duplantisjj

[nlovewithher 0]

One last note/question...You had to file for a marriage license...I would to back to where you got married and try and get a marriage certificate...might help some. At least for a middle name and such.

I called clerk’s office in the state and county that we filed for the license and asked for that. They were not able to find it. They asked if I knew the year to help narrow it down, but I don’t. (I WAS YOUNG AND STUPID, OK.)

[~Johnny~ 27]

I called clerk’s office in the state and county that we filed for the license and asked for that. They were not able to find it. They asked if I knew the year to help narrow it down, but I don’t. (I WAS YOUNG AND STUPID, OK.)

I had same problem with date/yr...My problem with the search was I didn't even know exact year of month of marraige/divorce (heck I was 19). And they could not find the files as was told to me...there are thousands of files in the cabinets in the basement.... for each yr,,,,, and each month....without knowing a date to narrow it down...well Good luck...and there are NO plans to ever scan and digitize those records in my case.

[JERIII 8]

I called clerk’s office in the state and county that we filed for the license and asked for that. They were not able to find it. They asked if I knew the year to help narrow it down, but I don’t. (I WAS YOUNG AND STUPID, OK.)

Given what you have said about her mother, do you know where the mother lived? It would seem like a good place to look for the divorce.