divorce denied! what to do now?

From the original post I assume that the letter has come back from the court after your ex filed an acknowledgement of service and you filed a special proceedure affidavit.

In order to dismiss the original Petition, you will need to make a formal application on notice to the court - (i.e. you have to notify the court, and the other party, that you are asking the court to dismiss the petition)

The court may accept a letter from you requesting the Petition be dismissed and countersigned by your ex indicating that this is agreed.

As an alternative, it may be better to amend the orignal Petition. Again, you would need leave of the court but if your ex agrees, this would normally be granted. There is a finacial benefot to this as the fee for filing an amended petition is £80, not the £300 for a new petition.

I suspect that the problem with the original petition was that you had reconciled - normally, periods of reonciliation for up to 6 months can be ignored, but the time is not counted towards the 2 year separation. So if you were reconciled for more than 6 months the 2 years would start torun from the 2nd, final separation.

If you separated in (say) Jan 2007, reconciled for 5 months then split again, you would not be entitled to apply until you had been separated for 2 years - i.e. June 2009 (2 years + the 5 month reconciliation)

Be aware that you can't amend the existing petition to change the date of the separateion to May 2007, as you had not been aprat for 2 years by the time the peition was issued. However, you may be able to clarify that the reconciliation was less then 6 months (if it was).

If you disnmiss the petition and start again you can use the 2 years from May 2007.

thanks, you're right- i just need to know how to dismiss my first application so i can start afresh...