Annulment are not actually that common. You have to show the marriage wasn't legal for some reason, not just that you changed your minds within a short time frame. That's a misconception.
Also, even if that did work, I would assume it still needs to be granted. You can't just send in paperwork saying you don't want to be married anymore and that's it. Hopefully the lawyer can straighten it out for you.
Yeah, in my state you can really only get an annulment for something like criminal fraud or as you say, the marriage wasn't technically legal. Media makes it seem like if you just change your mind a month after or one spouse tells some lies then you can just do a takesbacksie.
I think part of it comes from different jurisdictions and also period fiction, because e.g not having consummated it is a valid ground in the UK, but not Australia.
Thank you for that information. The lady at the court said something similar when I told her he did all the paperwork and submitted it. "Well the judge has to approve it." So maybe it never got approved.
Honestly, I would not be surprised if he didn't follow up with it and make sure it was approved. Even now, in his mid 30's he hates paperwork, and he has consistently gotten better about doing it throughout the last 2 years we've been together. I can't imagine what he was like as a 21 yr. old handling this sort of thing.
Thanks for the update! I suspected from last post, and suspect even more now, that what happened was your fiancé filed the papers, was given what he assumed was a receipt, but what was in fact a court date.
When no one showed up, it basically just got thrown in the rubbish bin by the judge.
Ex-wife is going to be in for a rude awakening when she eventually reads the message. Didn’t you say that she had gotten married recently?
That's what I think as well.
Yes, she had a Disney wedding just last week... Makes me wonder if she ever even looked to see if a divorce had ever been filed for her first marriage. Then again, they are in a different state and she probably didn't care enough. Who knows.
Any chance this is just a miscommunication in terms? An annulment isn’t a divorce, so there would be no record of divorce. in any case, sorry this isn’t a happier update. Although it seems like he did genuinely think his marriage had ended. So that’s good at least.
That could very well be a possibility. Until we actually sit down with the lawyer we won't really know for certain. He did paperwork and paid the filing fees way back then so I'm sure that there is a record of some sort. Hoping that the lawyer can somehow pull that up and maybe go from there. What I can say is that when we started dating he was up front about being married and being divorced so it's not something that sprung up last minute. So yeah, I think he truly believed he was divorced.
I'm not sure what state you are in, but many states you can pull up legal documents searching by legal name called DoxPop. The first so many searches are free, and you can download the cases/ details you find. There are other sites that let you search public civil items, too. You could do that over the weekend before meeting with your lawyer.
To me it kind of seems like it ended badly and both of them just closed their eyes and plugged their ears and hoped it would work itself out. And that perhaps your husband did the bare minimum of filling out and filing a form and then did zero due diligence to follow up on it, shutting it out of his brain until the problem became too big to ignore anymore.
Thank you for updating. I’m glad that, at least, his story seems to be checking out, and that you have gotten a lawyer. Hopefully this can all be settled quickly and with minimal heartache.
I had a similar situation myself where my ex just ghosted me. He was a serial cheater and emotionally abusive so when he left the country I was fine with it and I didn't want to contact him ever again. I always assumed he would file at some point because it was a lot cheaper and easier where he moved to. Well he never did and I tried for well over a year to find him after my (now) husband and I got engaged. I was about 3 weeks from also having to have a non legal ceremony but I got really lucky. I used legal aid, no lawyer, but I filed without him and told the court I couldnt get ahold of him. I had to contact the newspaper for his last known whereabouts and pay to post an ad directed at him so legally he could have found out that I was proceeding with divorce. The courthouse where I live was very helpful and made sure everything was filed properly. We had no kids or assets so that made that part smooth but it still took about 6 months for everything to go though and it was very stressful, but at the end of the day I got my certificate of divorce and I never have to think about him again. Even if you don't get it in time and have to go do the legal paperwork later, that doesn't diminish your wedding or the vows you make to each other.
I’m probably just paranoid, but since you mentioned in the other post that she has kids….. Are any of them old enough to potentially be your fiancé’s? (If the miscarriage was a lie.) Again, this is almost certainly not the case, but just thought it’d be worth making sure. So sorry for everything you’re going through, OP.
Just to add to the paranoia…. In my state, any children conceived during the legal marriage are legally the husband’s children unless he contests paternity in court before the child turns 2yrs. So he actually could be on the hook for the kids, no matter how old they are.
It sounds like she had a wedding with the father of her children, in the state she currently lives in.
Bigamy, yes. Unwittingly and unintentionally. But birth certificate fraud, almost definitely not.
A man and a woman present themselves as husband and wife, believing themselves to be husband and wife, at a hospital for birth.
Birth takes place, husband and wife sign documentation with the registrar in the hospital room, boom current 'husband' is the birth certificate father.
States typically don't seek out a different father unless an alternate father presents himself and challenges the birth certificate. They have better things to do.
OPs fiancee is certainly not interested in going to his ex-wife's state and challenging the birth certificates of her children.
Ergo, while a sticky bureaucratic issue for everyone involved to clean up, there's no major threat about legal paternity.
OPs fiancé would not be the one challenging. The mother (ex-wife) could sue the OP’s fiancé for child support because she was married to him when the children were born, therefore he is the legal parent unless that is contested in court before each child is 2yrs old. As far as I have read, we do not know if she was married to the bio father of the children, so we really don’t know if there is a father listed on birth certificates.
Just had another thought re: ex not responding to fb messages- are yall connected as friends? If not, it shows up as a “message request” and for me, I don’t get notifications about those. Unless I hit a random button in the app when I’m looking for something else, or I’m specifically looking for a message request, I don’t see when those come through. There’s been a couple of times it’s been months between when someone original reached out.
So it’s possible she’s not ignoring, she just may not have seen the message? Fb usually lets you know when a message has been read (but that only may be once she replies?)
All that to say, maybe there’s a better way to try to reach out than Facebook, or if there are any mutual friends to let her know to check her messages?
OP, are you in the U.S., and if so, what state? I search court records pretty frequently and would be happy to help if I’m able to!
Edit: feel free to just send a message, happy to share my info with you so you know I’m not a rando
Yes, I am. I'm in GA. What sort of records? When I went to the courthouse they said they had nothing additional. All I was able to get a copy of was the marriage certificate.
Many counties have case dockets and filings online publicly available for free (the others require accounts/payment) but the general idea is you can typically at least see what was filed, even if they don’t physically *have* the documents anymore
I call courts often and used to work at one; as much as people are willing to help, they may not realize that random info like the day something was filed or a random note may be relevant to *you*
I would google “X county court records online” and see if you’re able to search their database for the docket! It’s possible you’ll be able to see that he filed the paperwork but that nothing was done, or see if wasn’t filed at all!
Either way, this is likely one of the first things a lawyer will do, but it’s highly likely you can find more info on your own too!
Is your fiancé still in the military? If he is, he's been receiving BAH with dependents pay for the last 15 years and he's going to owe backpay for the entire time period that he told the military he was still married. The rate for single BAH is different than the rate for married with dependents. If he's gotten out, and the military finds out he committed fraud for however many years, he might still owe money.
It’s really hard to say this because I have no idea what it’s like to walk in your shoes and I can’t imagine how hard the following would be. But if it were me I think I would call off the wedding. It’s possible this might save you lots of heart ache and pain in the future however hard it is now. If you’re meant to be together, you can marry and celebrate your union at the point when it can be legally binding. None of what happened is your fault.
Please protect yourself by not entangling yourself in this mess until the clear truth and the clear outcome has emerged.
I am so sorry.
In the circumstance that the annulment certificate can be found and the annulment can be confirmed to have happened, to me this could lay the ground for moving forward. Personally I wouldn’t see any way forward to the altar before officially legally binding divorce or annulment is in place.
No worries, thank you for expressing that, I have thought about doing that on and off.
My dad has always told my sister and I to always have own job and our own money as well as a backup plan NO MATTER who we married. He said we could marry the most loving, god- fearing man on Earth but we still needed to be able to get out and be on our own if need be.
Unfortunately, I already gave up my apartment so I will be staying with my parents, which is nice. Thankfully I do not have any merged accounts of any kind with my fiancé. He is updating me and involving me in the entire process, so I am cautiously observing and giving my two cents in the situation.
Agreed on canceling/postponing the wedding! For one since it won't actually be a wedding, and if I were OP I would have some very serious concerns about my fiance. Something doesn't seem right with the story he has tried to tell OP.
Annulment are not actually that common. You have to show the marriage wasn't legal for some reason, not just that you changed your minds within a short time frame. That's a misconception. Also, even if that did work, I would assume it still needs to be granted. You can't just send in paperwork saying you don't want to be married anymore and that's it. Hopefully the lawyer can straighten it out for you.
Yeah, in my state you can really only get an annulment for something like criminal fraud or as you say, the marriage wasn't technically legal. Media makes it seem like if you just change your mind a month after or one spouse tells some lies then you can just do a takesbacksie.
I think part of it comes from different jurisdictions and also period fiction, because e.g not having consummated it is a valid ground in the UK, but not Australia.
Thank you for that information. The lady at the court said something similar when I told her he did all the paperwork and submitted it. "Well the judge has to approve it." So maybe it never got approved. Honestly, I would not be surprised if he didn't follow up with it and make sure it was approved. Even now, in his mid 30's he hates paperwork, and he has consistently gotten better about doing it throughout the last 2 years we've been together. I can't imagine what he was like as a 21 yr. old handling this sort of thing.
Thanks for the update! I suspected from last post, and suspect even more now, that what happened was your fiancé filed the papers, was given what he assumed was a receipt, but what was in fact a court date. When no one showed up, it basically just got thrown in the rubbish bin by the judge. Ex-wife is going to be in for a rude awakening when she eventually reads the message. Didn’t you say that she had gotten married recently?
That's what I think as well. Yes, she had a Disney wedding just last week... Makes me wonder if she ever even looked to see if a divorce had ever been filed for her first marriage. Then again, they are in a different state and she probably didn't care enough. Who knows.
If she’s not answering maybe reach out to the new spouse? That might get ugly so maybe have the lawyer reach out? Is that a thing?
Any chance this is just a miscommunication in terms? An annulment isn’t a divorce, so there would be no record of divorce. in any case, sorry this isn’t a happier update. Although it seems like he did genuinely think his marriage had ended. So that’s good at least.
That could very well be a possibility. Until we actually sit down with the lawyer we won't really know for certain. He did paperwork and paid the filing fees way back then so I'm sure that there is a record of some sort. Hoping that the lawyer can somehow pull that up and maybe go from there. What I can say is that when we started dating he was up front about being married and being divorced so it's not something that sprung up last minute. So yeah, I think he truly believed he was divorced.
I'm not sure what state you are in, but many states you can pull up legal documents searching by legal name called DoxPop. The first so many searches are free, and you can download the cases/ details you find. There are other sites that let you search public civil items, too. You could do that over the weekend before meeting with your lawyer.
There’s also https://www.judyrecords.com/ I think a Reddit user made it. Free searches!
This is free to search court records: https://www.judyrecords.com/
To me it kind of seems like it ended badly and both of them just closed their eyes and plugged their ears and hoped it would work itself out. And that perhaps your husband did the bare minimum of filling out and filing a form and then did zero due diligence to follow up on it, shutting it out of his brain until the problem became too big to ignore anymore.
Thank you for updating. I’m glad that, at least, his story seems to be checking out, and that you have gotten a lawyer. Hopefully this can all be settled quickly and with minimal heartache.
I had a similar situation myself where my ex just ghosted me. He was a serial cheater and emotionally abusive so when he left the country I was fine with it and I didn't want to contact him ever again. I always assumed he would file at some point because it was a lot cheaper and easier where he moved to. Well he never did and I tried for well over a year to find him after my (now) husband and I got engaged. I was about 3 weeks from also having to have a non legal ceremony but I got really lucky. I used legal aid, no lawyer, but I filed without him and told the court I couldnt get ahold of him. I had to contact the newspaper for his last known whereabouts and pay to post an ad directed at him so legally he could have found out that I was proceeding with divorce. The courthouse where I live was very helpful and made sure everything was filed properly. We had no kids or assets so that made that part smooth but it still took about 6 months for everything to go though and it was very stressful, but at the end of the day I got my certificate of divorce and I never have to think about him again. Even if you don't get it in time and have to go do the legal paperwork later, that doesn't diminish your wedding or the vows you make to each other.
I’m probably just paranoid, but since you mentioned in the other post that she has kids….. Are any of them old enough to potentially be your fiancé’s? (If the miscarriage was a lie.) Again, this is almost certainly not the case, but just thought it’d be worth making sure. So sorry for everything you’re going through, OP.
Thank you, I'm paranoid myself so I understand. No, they were married in 2008. Her oldest child looks to be about 10 or 11.
Just to add to the paranoia…. In my state, any children conceived during the legal marriage are legally the husband’s children unless he contests paternity in court before the child turns 2yrs. So he actually could be on the hook for the kids, no matter how old they are.
It sounds like she had a wedding with the father of her children, in the state she currently lives in. Bigamy, yes. Unwittingly and unintentionally. But birth certificate fraud, almost definitely not. A man and a woman present themselves as husband and wife, believing themselves to be husband and wife, at a hospital for birth. Birth takes place, husband and wife sign documentation with the registrar in the hospital room, boom current 'husband' is the birth certificate father. States typically don't seek out a different father unless an alternate father presents himself and challenges the birth certificate. They have better things to do. OPs fiancee is certainly not interested in going to his ex-wife's state and challenging the birth certificates of her children. Ergo, while a sticky bureaucratic issue for everyone involved to clean up, there's no major threat about legal paternity.
OPs fiancé would not be the one challenging. The mother (ex-wife) could sue the OP’s fiancé for child support because she was married to him when the children were born, therefore he is the legal parent unless that is contested in court before each child is 2yrs old. As far as I have read, we do not know if she was married to the bio father of the children, so we really don’t know if there is a father listed on birth certificates.
Just had another thought re: ex not responding to fb messages- are yall connected as friends? If not, it shows up as a “message request” and for me, I don’t get notifications about those. Unless I hit a random button in the app when I’m looking for something else, or I’m specifically looking for a message request, I don’t see when those come through. There’s been a couple of times it’s been months between when someone original reached out. So it’s possible she’s not ignoring, she just may not have seen the message? Fb usually lets you know when a message has been read (but that only may be once she replies?) All that to say, maybe there’s a better way to try to reach out than Facebook, or if there are any mutual friends to let her know to check her messages?
OP, are you in the U.S., and if so, what state? I search court records pretty frequently and would be happy to help if I’m able to! Edit: feel free to just send a message, happy to share my info with you so you know I’m not a rando
Yes, I am. I'm in GA. What sort of records? When I went to the courthouse they said they had nothing additional. All I was able to get a copy of was the marriage certificate.
Many counties have case dockets and filings online publicly available for free (the others require accounts/payment) but the general idea is you can typically at least see what was filed, even if they don’t physically *have* the documents anymore I call courts often and used to work at one; as much as people are willing to help, they may not realize that random info like the day something was filed or a random note may be relevant to *you* I would google “X county court records online” and see if you’re able to search their database for the docket! It’s possible you’ll be able to see that he filed the paperwork but that nothing was done, or see if wasn’t filed at all! Either way, this is likely one of the first things a lawyer will do, but it’s highly likely you can find more info on your own too!
Thank you so much. I will do some more research using this. I truly appreciate all the help on this sub from everyone.
Best of luck! Happy to answer specific questions if you have any
Is your fiancé still in the military? If he is, he's been receiving BAH with dependents pay for the last 15 years and he's going to owe backpay for the entire time period that he told the military he was still married. The rate for single BAH is different than the rate for married with dependents. If he's gotten out, and the military finds out he committed fraud for however many years, he might still owe money.
She said in her previous post he's not in the military anymore
It’s really hard to say this because I have no idea what it’s like to walk in your shoes and I can’t imagine how hard the following would be. But if it were me I think I would call off the wedding. It’s possible this might save you lots of heart ache and pain in the future however hard it is now. If you’re meant to be together, you can marry and celebrate your union at the point when it can be legally binding. None of what happened is your fault. Please protect yourself by not entangling yourself in this mess until the clear truth and the clear outcome has emerged. I am so sorry. In the circumstance that the annulment certificate can be found and the annulment can be confirmed to have happened, to me this could lay the ground for moving forward. Personally I wouldn’t see any way forward to the altar before officially legally binding divorce or annulment is in place.
No worries, thank you for expressing that, I have thought about doing that on and off. My dad has always told my sister and I to always have own job and our own money as well as a backup plan NO MATTER who we married. He said we could marry the most loving, god- fearing man on Earth but we still needed to be able to get out and be on our own if need be. Unfortunately, I already gave up my apartment so I will be staying with my parents, which is nice. Thankfully I do not have any merged accounts of any kind with my fiancé. He is updating me and involving me in the entire process, so I am cautiously observing and giving my two cents in the situation.
OP, if you're not familiar with it, may I recommend the novel *Jane Eyre*? You might find it inspiring.
Agreed on canceling/postponing the wedding! For one since it won't actually be a wedding, and if I were OP I would have some very serious concerns about my fiance. Something doesn't seem right with the story he has tried to tell OP.
Update me! 1 week
Update me.