Bad marriage

[rmrogers4436 0]

I am a 65 years old male U. S. citizen with one marriage which ended in divorce here in Arizona 12 years ago. I wish to marry a 51 year old female Philippines citizen married in the Philippines by a judge. Her husband abandons the marriage 23 years ago. He also failed to  divorce his first two wife’s.  what can we do.          

[KULtoATL 1,551]

Firstly, welcome to VJ  I'm not trying to be rude but you might get better advice on the Philippines subforum because the Filipinos and Filipinas there might have a better idea as to how to get some kind of formal document from the government or court to certify that, if there is such a thing in their country.

 

But of course, if you would like to follow the K-1 path, definitely make sure that the both of you have documents to prove the dissolution of the marriages. Otherwise, she might be denied because she's still considered married regardless of what her husband did back then.

[geowrian 22,338]

Welcome!

 

Philippines does not recognize divorces. She needs to either get an annulment (very long and pretty expensive process), or she can get divorced in another country. The latter is kinda hard as it's not easy to just go to another country and get divorced in many cases. She also cannot marry you in any form until the existing marriage is dissolved.

 

Given that her spouse has been gone for 23 years, she can try to get an annulment that way. It will still take quite a long time (6 months would be extremely lucky...a couple years is more likely). She likely needs to seek an attorney for the best direction on how to proceed if she wants to go that route...it's not really a DIY process.

 

Edit: Wait...her spouse never annulled his first wife? If so, then that's bigamy and her marriage was never legitimate. She should seek legal counsel on how to best approach this (if an annulment process is still needed, or just a court order).

Edited March 13, 2017 by geowrian