nlovewithher

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...

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!

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!

I would be scared sh*tless to spend many years in prison, not only for bigamy but also for stating at your second marriage that you were not married before when in fact you were. If not, you would have been required to produce divorce papers. And now you are trying for number three. Wow!

Ok first off I think there is a little confusion here. There are two people in this thread who have a similar situation here. Myself and duplantisjj.

In my case I am seeking NOT to lie but preferably find the divorce decree that I know beyond any doubt exists somewhere.

Ok, I once again KNOW that both the marriage and the divorce occurred. Where the records are have been the problem. I have never had a fear of bigamy being at issue because I do know the decree exists somewhere.

Even if I were to assume that the people who think there is no decree might be right in my state you must be aware that there was no decree and be within a matter of a few years for bigamy to be applicable. I looked into if that was a possible repercussion of my filing for divorce on the first marriage now and having the decree dates wrong. It isn’t even a remote possibility. Even if I had been aware the statute of limitations had expired many years ago.

I was never asked to provide any divorce papers, and did not lie about any previous marriage.

By the way, thanks for the insult, don’t worry I expected some of it.

Yes, I did a stupid thing in getting married the first time. I admit that. The marriage was a sham. I thought she was cute and ok. Was young and stupid enough to think that was enough reason to marry. Simply put I married for the sex. Let’s not pretend that I am the only one stupid enough to have done that once. The first marriage should have never happened.

The second was a good woman and is still a good friend. It just didn’t work out. She was 19 when I married her and around 30 discovered she never lived a life of her own. She married me too young; she grew to become a different person than she was at 19. I love her as a friend; I get along with her current BF. She isn’t evil just because she grew up. The second wasn’t an outright mistake. It was a legitimate marriage, with kids and the works.

As for number 3… as you call it.

She has a complete sense of who she is. She is indeed a little younger than me, but more mature than any woman I have dated who is my age.

The sex is grate and she is beautiful, but that’s not why I love her.

It’s because when I wake up and have a morning cup of coffee and look out over the balcony it feels wrong without her. It’s because I giggle like a school boy at the simplest things she does. It’s because I find wowwowwee the most annoying TV show in the world, but I will sit through every second just to hear her laugh. It’s because a dirty run down city like Davao looks like paradise because she’s in it. It’s because she has a smile so pure it can make you cry. It’s because she points at things with her lips and I have no idea at what and want to know. It’s because she eats rice with EVERYTHING, and I don’t like rice, but boy rice with her tastes good. It’s because she puts hotdogs in her spaghetti and it tastes like maple syrup. It’s because she sings, not just karaoke, but without any music at all. It’s because she can drag my butt to church every Sunday and I don’t mind. It’s because she got me in the habit of saying aircon, comfort room, and open the light and no one knows what I mean anymore. It’s because she picks up things with her feet. It’s because she makes silly faces. It’s because she looks cute eating a half formed duck egg. It’s because I have hundreds of new family and friends who I can barely remember their names but love them all as my own. It’s because Jollibee tastes strange but I still go because she like it more than McDonalds.

People I hear are constantly worried about the interview. Give us the interview, no worries there.

I talk to her every day for at least 7 or 8 hours a day, for a year now. How many couples do you know can sit at a table, no TV, no dinner, just each other and just talk for that long every day and not be bored. I can with her until the end of time itself.

I know her schools she went to, he old friends, coworkers, even her ex boyfriends. Think she don’t know me? She don’t need to ask what I’m thinking most of the time, she knows, but she still asks.

And her family, fantastic people. While I hear people saying they aren’t trusted or accepted, not me. If her dad wasn’t her dad he would defiantly be the best man. Sisters, brother, grandma, all of us get along perfect.

You know how people SAY they would die for her, sort of thing? How many really mean it. I know I do.

Now you tell me.

Yep, the first should have never been. The second should have been a friend.

So it took me three tries to get it right. Don’t think it’s real scr*w you.

Hey isn't that the George Canstanza of Sienfeld's Lie Detector strategy??? "It's not a lie if you believe it's true"

I agree that’s why I had been seeking a way to find the decree that I KNOW does exist. I do not want to lie about it.

to the OP. I talked to my husband about your situation. He said if you've tried the clerk where you got married and they have no record, then it's likely it wasn't even legit. In Australia (and I thought here) that an address was needed in order to "serve" divorce papers so if you don't remember that, then could she really have filed for divorce? I know you can after a while of someone being "lost" but hmmm...

Ok first off I think there is a little confusion here. There are two people in this thread who have a similar situation here. Myself and duplantisjj.

In my case I am seeking NOT to lie but preferably find the divorce decree that I know beyond any doubt exists somewhere.

I have no doubt there IS a marriage license. I signed it, that I remember. Pretending its invalid because some old woman in the clerk’s office can’t find it is simply not an option to me and seems as risky as lying. I know both items DO exist.

Also in many states including mine it is possible to file a divorce petition and without knowing the location of the respondent. I actually mentioned this as one of the most likely options. What I was concerned about in doing that was the date of the decree could invalidate by second marriage and divorce as my lawyer had warned me.

With the possible retroactive option available that is now what I am pursuing and can probably have a decree in hand soon.

I have been reading this off & on all morning here. Surely the OP would have some kind of vague recollection of where they married even being 20+ years ago? We had to submit copies of BOTH our divorce decrees for the I129F petition as we had both been married twice before. Somebody in your family may have recollection of where the marriage took place & you could then search the records office there.

As Vanessa said, lying will only make it worse. I would call USCIS and ask them how you would go about the process from here. Social networking sites suck as Facebook,myspace etc are great resources for finding people.

OP?

Did your divorce attorney mention possibility of filing a nunc pro tunc , if allowed in your state that would dissolve the first marriage and back date the papers to an earlier date! Your lawyer can explain the process better than me. Good luck!!!!

No he didn’t but that’s the first good idea I have heard.

If that don’t work, I think my best move at this point is to talk to my second ex-wife and my attorney and file for divorce from my first wife again. Make sure my bases are covered with the second ex-wife.

Sure I will look like an idiot, but it was stupid and so rightfully so I guess I got it coming to me.

No one has any magical ideas for finding it. I don’t remember a d*nm thing useful.

A PI is just flushing money.

I’m not sure about just not mentioning it on the paperwork. I am sure there is some risk of there being some mystery database if I do that.

Shouldn't your marriage certificate show by your SSN? Even if your name is common it should show up in the county you married. Even if she can have disappeared completely your marriage record shouldn't, and with that you'll get her name, her parent's name and maybe her SSN and might be able to locate her or the divorce certificate, if she ever did file for one. If you two aren't in fact divorced you're in bigger trouble by having remarried without being legally able to do so.

As I said the county clerk can’t find the marriage license so I have no idea what it has or don’t have on it.

If I am supposed to assume that the lack of divorce papers means I was never legally divorced then I would by that logic be forced to assume my married was never legal considering I can’t find the license either.

However I do know both do exist.

While the clerk can’t find the marriage license, that don’t stop the K-1. Not finding the divorce on the other hand is a problem.

Although it's all a bad memory, maybe, and you have burnt your bridges from those days, didn't the two of you have any friends together? A landlord? You can be your own PI if you try hard enough.

Friends no. I really didn’t. I was very much a loner at the time. I did have a landlord but I don’t remember the woman’s name.

lol

Okay so you need to remember approximate. Based on what you said:

1. what age were you when you married? Surely you remember whether you were late teens (i.e. 19, 20) or heading on up towards 30

2. you said you moved while she divorced you. Do you remember where to, or roughly when that was, or a friend that you met after you moved that could remember when you met them? Maybe check your credit history for the apartment you moved into?

3. On that vein, did you move in with your wife at the time? Do you remember where you were living? That'll give you a time frame from your moving out date

4. Was there ANYTHING you got together?

5. Do you remember what song was popular at the time? You could do a wiki search. Like personally, that friggen frog song... *shudder*... I remember that well :S

6. You were in a band, do you remember any gigs around the time? Or cd's or tapes you released?

Hope this helps to jog your memory

1. About 25 give or take a year

2. Yes, I move to the same state I am in now. Didn’t have any friends to speak of and still have only a few. Mostly only work acquaintances. Changed jobs a couple times since then, and that company was bought out and no longer exists and I haven’t seen anyone from it in 11+ years. Credit history shows nothing, granted I don’t use credit, and have never even had a credit card until recently. Seriously, I paid 28K in cash for a new van for my second ex-wife rather than get a loan. I have only had 3 loans in my whole life. One was a student loan, a car loan for my second ex-wife’s second van (after the one for 28K got totaled), a house I had bought and later sold but paid the down payment in cash. I have had mostly only saving account because I don’t even like to use checking. Even now I only have a BPI account, 410k, 1 visa card and investments. No debt at all currently.

3. Ya, still give me about the same time frame.

4. I think bought a couch while I was with her, but I paid cash.

5. Music, don’t recall. Musically I was stuck in 1986 for a very long time.

6. I wasn’t in a band. Maybe some other post. I’m a computer nerd. I do recall Quake coming out about then. So about 1996, same time range. The Quake thing has me a little closer to a year I think.

have you tried facebook searching her or myspace? Or googling her? you said it's a common name but maybe she has a good profile pic so you know for sure it's her (my 60 y/o half-sister has a FB! as does my husbands grandmother so not only "kids" join)

Can you think of ANY records you had with her? Maybe a joint bank account, the state you were married in at least? Would your family/friends know a rough year? Can you think of a range of dates? Like "it was hot" or "it was Christmas soon"... something like that?

I'm not sure how legal this is, but maybe the school her kids attended? Surely the government keeps track of kids and their education?

I tried looking found nothing. FB, Myspace, all nada, and I have even went though pages and pages of people looking.

I had an approximate year for the marriage certificate but the clerk found nothing. I was hoping to get more info from it if I had found it.

I think it was spring or fall of about 15 years ago. I have one living relative, my mother, and she don’t remember much about it either. It wasn’t like a big church wedding; it was some guy who was supposed to be some pastor friend in the living room. (Sounds like straight from Jerry Springer)

Her kids were not in school yet at the time. I remember one of their first names, but they both had different last names and I don’t remember them. The other daughter was called by a nickname. (Yes both daughters had different fathers, and not her last name. I think that should have been a warning sign at the time.)

Remembering things about this marriage is like trying to recall a fender bender from 15 years ago, she had little impact on my life over all, and was a very forgettable mistake. Imagine getting drunk in Vegas and waking up married, it was kind of like that. (How did I do that? Why? Wow that was dumb!)

Moral to the story.. Don’t take marriage or divorce lightly.

We may have taught ourselves that marriage is almost disposable in this country but guess what, when you finally pull your head out of your butt and want to make it count for real. This sort of thing bites you.

For me it's been 16 years since my Alaska wedding. And if remember right, there was check box...previously divorced? And then I believe there was a question, "are you legally able to marry?" And that was the extent of it. Never was asked to produce a decree. Every state handles marriages/divorces differently that why the difficulty in a national database exsists. Imagine getting all those national clerks to work together...

Ya, might be problematic considering they can’t find the first marriage license either.

The thing is, your state may NOT maintain records available to a national database. Some states, like Louisiana, only maintain birth records as a searcheable "vital statistic." There is NO national records database in the US that inlcudes all states where you can know everyone that was married and when, where, etc... There are only 12 or so states that participate in a national database project. That leaves 38 states, and others Districts etc... maintaining it's own records, files, and method of retreiving. I was married 13 years in Alaska ...and the search engines never showed my marriage, because Alaska doesn't participate. BUT...it did show my name and her name at the same address due to SSN records and tax filings.

It had 4 ‘possible sister’ listings… all names I don’t know. (I don’t have a sister)

We didn’t have a joint bank account, no joint taxes, not even a utility bill. I think I might have had her on an old video store membership, and I think they are out of business now.

She may have been a want-a-be gold digger, but also was not a very smart one because I had no gold to dig at the time.

I'm curious on how you managed to get married the second time.

They ask you if your were previous married, and if so, you have to produce evidence of the divorce.

Did you not tell them you were married prior?

At the time I like most people had assumed these records were available nationally. They didn’t ask, I knew there had to be a default judgment. So I just assumed they looked it up someplace and saw it was all good.

It wasn’t until I had to provide copies of the divorce papers that I found out there is indeed no national registry.

Just realized that both of those search sites will tell you if your state is one of the lucky ones that don't keep database searcheable records. I seriously believe that without a private investigator, the USCIS could not just magically push a button pull up your marriage/divorce info. They can't pull up what isn't in a database. The USCIS has a FACT Sheet on how it conducts it's searches. It does two main searches, one is the FBI search (looking for domestis arrests/convictions)...I forgot what the other search is, but it also is not related to marriages/divorces....I think something to do with immigration. Do you have your second divorce decree?

Yes I have the second.

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.

Yes, I did know, but when she moved out of state it was with her mother.

I know her first name, and I know that her last name was different than my X, but exactly what I don’t remember.

I also have narrowed it down to about 5 probable states they moved to based on what I do remember about them.

I also just did a search on both intelius and aretheyreallysingle.com they didn’t even find my second marriage or divorce much less the first one.

I am wondering now if the first was even legal considering the clerk can’t find it. As it stands I have no proof of the marriage much less the divorce.

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.)

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.

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.

She was a US born citizen too.

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.

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!