Four Ways To Leave Your Lover.

[roadwarrior]

If you have to choose, which among these escape routes would you take?

1. annulment of marriage / declaration of nullity of marriage
2. legal separation
3. declaration of presumptive death of the other spouse
4. recognition of foreign divorce.

feel free to post comments and views. killing the wife/husband is excluded as an option.

excerpts from http://dredd007.blogspot.com

The buzzword among couples whose marriage is on the rocks is ANNULMENT OF MARRIAGE. For most couples, the ANNULMENT of their marriage is the control-alt-del button of their lives. The reboot. The reshuffling of the deck. It is likewise the proverbial bridge that they have to cross to reach the promised haven of the life anew.

In pursuance of the second heaven (yes Virginia, there is “pangalawang gloria”), so many couples have resorted to this process that it would not have been totally inappropriate for them to have included the following phrase in their marital vows:

“Till death and ....annulment do us part”

But nobody can blame some of these couples for wanting to escape their domestic purgatory. Nobody could begrudge them for quitting on saving their dying marriage, for throwing in the towel, so to speak, for stopping to care at all and for wanting to start afresh. Not me. Nor should you.

Because nobody could feel the depths of despair of the battered housewife who is being brutally abused day in and day out by the husband whose idea of exercise is to probe the breaking point of his wife's flesh. No one could approximate the gnawing pain of the cuckolded husband whose jealousy is slowly eating away at his sanity. And how can one be judgmental when it is not one’s children who is exposed to the daily spectacle of marital shouting and shoving and strangling match.

But ANNULMENT is not the one all and be all of dissolution of marriage. In fact, on paper it requires the satisfaction of the most stringent of requirements before it is granted. It likewise entails the most cost. However, there are other alternative processes with which couples could unshackle the bonds of the loveless and decaying marriage but which the common lay men are not familiar with. If the immediately preceding paragraph hit you like a brick in the head, then read on…

[ghosthunter]

1. annulment of marriage / declaration of nullity of marriage
2. legal separation
3. declaration of presumptive death of the other spouse
4. recognition of foreign divorce.

If you are living in a loveless marriage, option No.1 is the only choice.

But ANNULMENT is not the one all and be all of dissolution of marriage. In fact, on paper it requires the satisfaction of the most stringent of requirements before it is granted. It likewise entails the most cost.

Actually if you are guided by a proficient lawyer, it is quite easy but the costs it true. You would be looking at P200K or more in total costs including "extras". Typical timeline for annulment is eight months to a year.

To be truthful, "annulment" is a thinly disguised divorce since the Philippines' Catholic church doesn't support divorce. So to legally satisfy that, we got the annulment

[roadwarrior]

If you are living in a loveless marriage, option No.1 is the only choice.




Actually if you are guided by a proficient lawyer, it is quite easy but the costs it true. You would be looking at P200K or more in total costs including "extras". Typical timeline for annulment is eight months to a year.

To be truthful, "annulment" is a thinly disguised divorce since the Philippines' Catholic church doesn't support divorce. So to legally satisfy that, we got the annulment

theoretically psychological incapacity is difficult to prove but i agree with you that in the hands of a good lawyer, a favorable decision is a cinch.

in fact our law office's package for the annulment process amounts only to 120k and includes everything. the total process takes about 3 to 5 months.

[roadwarrior]

FOUR WAYS TO LEAVE YOUR LOVER (with apologies to SIMON & GARFUNKEL).

1. RECOGNITION OF FOREIGN DIVORCE.

Previously, a foreign divorce was not recognized in our jurisdiction. As it was then, a foreigner husband who had successfully obtained a divorce outside of the Philippines can freely remarry his next trophy wife while the Filipino spouse is still at the mercy of our laws being married to the spouse who is no longer married to her. It was really an an unfair and questionable rule. But dura lex sed lex. (the law is harsh but it is the law)

Then came this law:

Art. 26. All marriages solemnized outside the Philippines, in accordance with the laws in force in the country where they were solemnized, and valid there as such, shall also be valid in this country, except those prohibited under Articles 35 (1), (4), (5) and (6), 3637 and 38. (17a)

Where a marriage between a Filipino citizen and a foreigner is validly celebrated and a divorce is thereafter validly obtained abroad by the alien spouse capacitating him or her to remarry, the Filipino spouse shall have capacity to remarry under Philippine law. (As amended by Executive Order 227)

The rationale for the passage of the above quoted law is to equalize the right of the foreign spouse with that of the Filipino spouse. Now, the spurned Filipino spouse can remarry too. . All she has to do is to file a petition before the court for the recognition of the decree of divorce validly obtained abroad and pray that the court declare his or her capacity to remarry under our Philippine jurisdiction.

Earlier jurisprudence required the other spouse must be a foreigner at the time of marriage, he/she should have thereafter validly obtained a decree of divorce abroad and such decree grants him/her the right to remarry. Lately, the court has relaxed the rule and granted the same privilege even to filipino citizens who later became naturalized citizens of other countries.

Among the four alternatives, this is the easiest to prove and is almost always granted by the court. This is also the the most painless, least acrimonious and least contested process because at this stage the couple has already (or almost ) moved on with their own lives. This process is a mere formalization of the marital divide. Cost is likewise not substantial since no psychological examination is required.

[roadwarrior]

i wish you were dead

not every marriage is a "they live happily ever after" affair. some unions, beds of roses, certainly are not. the shelf life of some marital relationships are too short, they should be appended with "perishable goods, do not delay"

some husbands, not the majority, i suppose, wish their wives dead because, they reason out, they are as cold as a corpse in bed anyway, only uglier. some wives have already killed their husband in their fantasies because apparently they are as useful as a carcass when they are drunk (and worse when they are sober.)

but for the initiated, they simply do the next best thing. they ask the court to declare their absentee spouses presumptively dead for the purpose of ahem... the proverbial second heaven, also known as marrying the post man or the meter reader or the tricycle driver or whoever is waiting in the wings.

the legal basis for the forsaken and forlorn spouse to finally stop gazing at the horizon in search of the ship carrying his long lost love can be found in Article 41 of the Family Code which provides:

Art. 41. A marriage contracted by any person during subsistence of a previous marriage shall be null and void, unless before the celebration of the subsequent marriage, the prior spouse had been absent for four consecutive years and the spouse present has a well-founded belief that the absent spouse was already dead. In case of disappearance where there is danger of death under the circumstances set forth in the provisions of Article 391 of the Civil Code, an absence of only two years shall be sufficient.
For the purpose of contracting the subsequent marriage under the preceding paragraph the spouse present must institute a summary proceeding as provided in this Code for the declaration of presumptive death of the absentee, without prejudice to the effect of reappearance of the absent spouse.

the above quoted paragraph provides for yet another reference to a bigamous marriage, that is, one that is contracted during the subsistence of another. while as a rule the subsisting marriage should first be annuled or declared a nullity before one can contract a second "life sentence", this law provides an exception, a different take, a novel approach.

why different you may ask. different in such a way, that the first marriage, is not declared a nullity by the court. it remains perfectly valid and without defect even after the petition is granted by the court. the first marriage however is automatically dissolved not by the fiat of the court but as a natural consequence of the death (presumptive) of one of the spouse. marriage, being "a special contract of permanent union between a man and a woman" it is axiomatic that it autoexpires when any of the contractors die, albeit presumptively, because a union requires two living and breathing individuals. no one can maintain a union by himself. it takes two, not only to tango, but to maintain a marriage.

in order to avail of this remedy however, there are certain requirements to be satisfied.

first. that the prior spouse, has been absent for four consecutive years.

the law is very clear and unambiguous in its requirement that the period of disappearance must be consecutive, meaning continuous, uninterruptedand unbroken. the law does not consider cumulative absences, otherwise half of the self-annointed lotharios in our land would have been declared dead already for their occasional disappearances while having their high noon trysts.

the four consecutive years may be shortened to two consecutive years if the absentee spouse disappeared under fhe following circumstances:

• (1) A person on board a vessel lost during a sea voyage, or an aeroplane which is missing,
  (2) A person in the armed forces who has taken part in war,
  (3) A person who has been in danger of death under other circumstances a

note: this abbreviated periods of four years and two years are applicable only for purposes of remarriage. for other purposes, longer periods are required. but that's another story altogether.

second. that the spouse present has a well-founded belief that the absent spouse was already dead.

the key word here is well-founded belief. many a petition of this nature has been denied because of failure to prove the well founded belief that the absent spouse was already dead. belief being a state of mind, is subjective, difficult to concretize and still harder to describe to the court. petitioners in order to prove this well founded belief, have invariably alleged the almost superhuman efforts they have exerted, the unceasing inquiries they have previoulsy made, the fruitless journeys to the ends of the earth and back, the almost futile exercise of writing letters to the last know addresses of their lost loves. that radio, print and tv advertisements have also been resorted to is underscored for the appreciation of the court. suspicion, after all, is not equivalent to well founded belief.

third. a summary proceedings for the declaration of presumptive death is filed in court and it was granted.

as the law provides, the present spouse can only remarry after the court has declared the absentee spouse to be presumptively dead. otherwise, the present spouse would be committing bigamy.

fourth. that the absentee spouse does not rise from the grave and reappear

this route however is not without its pitfalls. the law cautions that the second marriage would automatically be terminated by the reappearance of the presumptively dead spouse. all he/she has to do is to file an "affidavit of reaapearance" in the local civil registry and the second marriage would be automatically terminated as provided in Article 42 which states:
Art. 42. The subsequent marriage referred to in the preceding Article shall be automatically terminated by the recording of the affidavit of reappearance of the absent spouse, unless there is a judgment annulling the previous marriage or declaring it void ab initio.
A sworn statement of the fact and circumstances of reappearance shall be recorded in the civil registry of the residence of the parties to the subsequent marriage at the instance of any interested person, with due notice to the spouses of the subsequent marriage and without prejudice to the fact of reappearance being judicially determined in case such fact is disputed

then..... hell hath no fury like a spouse declared presumptively dead.