The husband or wife who wants to hold on will then ask if there is any way they can prevent it? If there is any way they can fight it in court and "not let him/her have a divorce"? If there is any way a judge will order the other spouse to return home since the one hoping to save the marriage has never done anything wrong?
The short answer to each of the questions is "NO."
While it's true that an objective reading of the statutes controlling divorce law would not seem to allow a divorce in cases like this, the reality of life is that judges do not pay any attention to this and they routinely grant divorces to spouses who are clearly the only one at fault and even over the teary pleas of spouses who have never down anything whatsoever wrong. Tennessee law even includes a specific statute stating that if you prove "the ill conduct of the complainant (your spouse) as a justifiable cause for the conduct complained of, and on making out the defense to the satisfaction of the court, the bill (the divorce complaint) may be dismissed with or without costs, in the discretion of the court." (To read the full text of TCA 36-4-120, click here.)
Because the statute uses the "may" in the phrase "the bill may be dismissed," the courts consider it "discretionary", meaing the court is not required to dismiss the case but merely can if it wants to.
If your spouse is determined to get a divorce... you are going to end up divorced. You can beg, plead, grovel, agree to tolerate intolerable behavior and humiliate yourself... but in the end you are still going to end up being divorced.
You can slow down the divorce. You can make it hurt more -- for both of you and for any children involved. You can make it cost more -- for both of you. But the nature of present divorce law and of the attitudes of judges on the bench is that a spouse who's absolutely determined to divorce can make it happen even over the objections of an innocent, blameless spouse.
So what choices do you have? Not many. You can accept it and move on with your live or you can obsess and fight it and end up emotionally destroyed in the process. You do have the informal power of persuasion. And precisely because you can slow down the divorce, make it more painful, and make it more expensive, you may have more options than you realize, but the options are more in the nature of the interpersonal relationship or you and your spouse instead of in the nature of legal maneuvers. The legal maneuvers that exist can protect your legal interests in the outcome of the divorce, but that is about all.
Certainly there are ways to avoid divorce when a marriage has developed serious problems -- by they are measures that do not involve the courtroom or lawyers. One approach involves what is called the Marriage Saver Movement. For more, click here.
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