Keeping families together

NICK EICHER, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: Divorce and the children of divorce.

There’s little question that no-fault divorce has sped up the process. But at least one state wants to add extra steps before couples with children can walk away from their marriages.

WORLD’s Juliana Chan Erikson has the story.

STEVE GRISSOM: Thank heaven I had an office with a door, and I could close my door, and I would close my door and sob.

JULIANA CHAN ERIKSON: Divorce shattered Steve Grissom. When his wife filed the paperwork to end their marriage, Grissom said there were days when he could not function at work. The couple initially shared custody of their daughter.

GRISSOM: I became an every other weekend and Wednesday night dad until my wife relocated to another city. That throttled my contact.

Grissom, founder of the ministry DivorceCare, is one of hundreds of thousands of Americans who’ve gone through a divorce with children. His happened in the 1990s, but he says walking away from a marriage is too easy now.

GRISSOM: Every divorce has its own story, and there are many nuances, but in general, we've made it too easy for people to get a divorce, and that's through the enactment of no-fault divorce legislation.

In all 50 states, anybody who wants a divorce can get one without having to prove their spouse did anything wrong, like abuse or adultery. They can file for what’s called a no-fault divorce. California was the first to make it legal in 1969 and ever since then, many credit no-fault with streamlining the process but it also raised the likelihood that marriages would end in divorce.

Divorcees like Grissom and family advocates say speedy court proceedings don’t give people enough time to think about the toll divorce takes on their emotions, their finances—and their children.

That’s led some state lawmakers to try to make filing for divorce harder.

NEWS CLIP: House Bill 1684 specifically impacts couples who share custody of children.

Last month, an Indiana state lawmaker proposed a bill that would require couples with children in the state to have a witness testify that the marriage was “irretrievably broken.”

Micah Clark is the executive director of the American Family Association of Indiana. In his state, couples have a 60-day waiting period before a divorce is finalized. Clark says that’s not long enough.

MICAH CLARK: The argument that this makes the divorce take longer, I actually think, is probably a good thing. Attorneys don't like it, but the reason is, the longer a divorce takes, the more of a cooling off period. They have more of a time for consideration, more of a time for counseling.

The Indiana bill isn’t expected to get far. That hasn’t stopped other states from trying.

NEWS CLIP: Newly sworn in Oklahoma senator wants to make it harder to get a divorce in Oklahoma.

That senator recently tried a second time to end no-fault. And a legislator in South Dakota has tried four times. Neither have been successful.

Another proposal in South Carolina would require signatures from both spouses to file a no-fault divorce application. Current law only requires one. That proposal’s not likely to get anywhere either.

Getting rid of no-fault won’t be easy. Still, some wonder if it’s even the right approach. Experts say that since no-fault became an option in the United States, rates of domestic violence have declined. So have homicides committed by a partner.

Removing no-fault also won’t help those who need to leave a marriage quickly, like in cases of abuse. Rik Lovett, a divorce lawyer in North Carolina, says laws that slow down the process will make divorce even messier and more acrimonious. It could also bankrupt spouses.

RIK LOVETT: A lot of people don't have the money, don't have the funds, they can't afford to go to court one, two, three, four times for these kinds of actions. So the more powerful person with the money in the assets wins.

Lovett says making divorce more difficult sometimes leads to another unintended consequence: divorcing parents could make concessions based on potential legal costs instead of what’s best for the children.

LOVETT: The harder you make it, the more often justice is not done because the moneyed spouse beats the other spouse down. They give up and they either waive alimony or they waive the right to retirement account division. They waive something big and say, that's fine. I'll give you 50-50 custody even if you're an unfit dad. I just need to get it over.

Lovett added that family courts don’t have enough judges to handle longer divorce battles. Still, the extra legal hurdles, the added expense, and the longer wait times might make some reconsider filing for divorce, but not everyone.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Juliana Chan Erikson.

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