Divorce Papers Problem

[nlovewithher 0]

O.P.,

you are upset, and I understand that, but it's time for you to look beyond the smoke of a man in love.

1) You do NOT know that you are divorced from your first wife. You have never been served, you have seen zero paperwork, you have not spoken to her since. There is in fact nothing remotely establishing that your wife did divorce you in absentia. You might as well be still married to your first wife. Very well.

2) You married again the second time, stating formally that you are divorced, when in fact that's not even established to this day. There are more legal implications to this than "just" a possible bigamy charge. Your second marriage may need to be declared invalid, with implications reaching into tax law (filed married, yet single) and social security.

3) Now you are aiming for marriage #3 and trying to do the right thing, hoping to confirm what you want to believe so badly. Good. There are only two approaches to this:

a . You will not get married again and hope that your hunch maybe right, do what the 3 wise monkeys do.

b. You absolutely want to get married again, even if as a convicted criminal, and contact a professional (divorce attorney/private detective) and get to the bottom of this, no matter the outcome.

I'm sorry if this distorts the happy picture, but possible bigamy is a serious enough to give you a wake-up call, no matter how much this may inconvenience you. It's not only about you, it's also about the women whose lives you change forever.

I only got upset about your flippant reaction to me getting married for a third time. As if I had not learned from my admitted mistakes.

On your points.

1. You are correct, I do not have proof. Thus my search. The idea that I personally know this would have resulted in the final default judgment is due to the personalities involved at the time. Substitute the word ‘believe’ for ‘know’ if you wish. While I highly doubt it I will concede to its remote possibility.

2. I am aware of the legal implications. In fact I mentioned that from the beginning as to why my lawyer advised I DO NOT file for a divorce absentia for the first marriage. However I am checking into the possibility of nunc pro tunc. This would be the perfect solution if allowed.

3. If I had wanted to lie I simply would have rather than even post this question. I already know it’s almost impossible for them to find the marriage much less the divorce. This is only become an issue because of my concern to do it right this time.

My original thoughts in the first post can best be summed up as the following options.

1. Lie if I had no other choice in the world. I know it wouldn’t be caught, but both she and I would still know we lied, and I don’t want that.

2. Search for the decree. Unlikely to get a result.

3. File again against legal advice and face the firing squad.

4. Other advice from here.

My options were listed from worse to best in my opinion.

To me this is much less about legal ####### and more about principle. This is about her and I. It took me until I was 30 to pull my head from my ####. It took until 40 before I figured out the difference between like and love. You think I’m going to risk it all for my first marriage to a woman that was a joke at best. When I say risk it I’m not talking about legally. I mean do you really want the first action of your marriage to be a lie.

I AM NOT THE GUY SAYING OK I’LL JUST HIDE! READ MY POSTS WITHOUT CONFUSING THEM WITH THE OTHER GUY!

[nlovewithher 0]

O.P.,

you are upset, and I understand that, but it's time for you to look beyond the smoke of a man in love.

1) You do NOT know that you are divorced from your first wife. You have never been served, you have seen zero paperwork, you have not spoken to her since. There is in fact nothing remotely establishing that your wife did divorce you in absentia. You might as well be still married to your first wife. Very well.

2) You married again the second time, stating formally that you are divorced, when in fact that's not even established to this day. There are more legal implications to this than "just" a possible bigamy charge. Your second marriage may need to be declared invalid, with implications reaching into tax law (filed married, yet single) and social security.

3) Now you are aiming for marriage #3 and trying to do the right thing, hoping to confirm what you want to believe so badly. Good. There are only two approaches to this:

a . You will not get married again and hope that your hunch maybe right, do what the 3 wise monkeys do.

b. You absolutely want to get married again, even if as a convicted criminal, and contact a professional (divorce attorney/private detective) and get to the bottom of this, no matter the outcome.

I'm sorry if this distorts the happy picture, but possible bigamy is a serious enough to give you a wake-up call, no matter how much this may inconvenience you. It's not only about you, it's also about the women whose lives you change forever.

***UPDATE***

I had found a high school reunion page for her school. There was only 1 person on it with a name like hers and of the proper year(s) for it to be her. It also had her email.

I emailed her and asked if she knew where the decree was at. She emailed back in minutes. She didn’t know who I was at first. But after a couple more quick back and forth emails… it was finial 9/10/1998

Certified copy is on its way! BOOYAH!

[Ladylethal 12]

So she had a copy and is sending it to you? Of the divorce? That's great news.

[nlovewithher 0]

So she had a copy and is sending it to you? Of the divorce? That's great news.

No, she told me where they were... I called the clerk’s office and sent a money order today... they will be here in a few days.

Either way... Happy dance time...

My baby is coming home... My baby is coming home... (Ok… yah, we still have a long time to wait and lots of paperwork... but...)

See this was the BIG hold up for me... Interview, medical, support I can’t imagine any of that being a problem...

[Robby999 1,024]

No, she told me where they were... I called the clerk's office and sent a money order today... they will be here in a few days.

Either way... Happy dance time...

My baby is coming home... My baby is coming home... (Ok… yah, we still have a long time to wait and lots of paperwork... but...)

See this was the BIG hold up for me... Interview, medical, support I can't imagine any of that being a problem...

Congratzzz!!!!! Now go to Wally world and purchase a fireproof safe to keep the document safe!!!!!!!!!

[Gary and Alla 3,694]

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!

Options...

1. Really bad idea

2. Probably the best choice

3. Not possible. If you are divorced, you cannot divorce her again, see below

4. Others....

First, she would not be able to file for divorce in a new state until she had lived there at least 6 months, otherwise she would have filed where you lived when you separated. Also it is difficult to get a default divorce judgement of the the other party is not served the papers. My first suspicion is that you were never divorced at all and are, in fact, still married to the first wife. I doubt any judge is going to grant a divorce if you haven't been served papers. I think there are ways to do it, but why should she go through that trouble? She wasn't going to get anything from the marriage, so why bother? She doesn't sound like an ambitious person. You could start your search in the county where you lived when you were married, then go to the county she moved to. You could also spend some money, probably not so much really, to have an attorney find the papers...if they exist. It is possible you were a bigamist during your second marriage. If you are not divorced from her, then you could divorce her BUT you have to find where she is and serve her papers.

DO NOT think you will get by not mentioning it. The USCIS and the NVC can find records of your marriages and if it is omitted your petition and/or visa will be denied and you will be barred from future petitions. You were young and dumb, so to speak, but leaving losse ends behind always comes back to bite you in the future. You probably know that by now.