Unreasonable behaviour - acceptable reasons?

Does abusive language used every day in normail course of conversation count.

Preesuring to find full time work.

Being nasty because i want to go on a works do. This was a retiremant i took my camera to take pictures. Obviously the do went into the early hours but i was home at 12pm, which he claimed was very late!!

When my son asked my x if he would help decorate his bedroom he refused, so my son asked if he could do it himself my x said no.

My X offered to decorate my kichen, i cleaned it all down then my x refuused.

What one person finds reasonable another may not, if a woman hates the toilet seat being up and the husband deliberately leaves it up he is acting unreasonably on the other extreme if you marry an alcoholic you cannot later say you find the alcoholism unreasonable because you knew your partner was an alcoholic from the start.

Unreasonable behaviour is behaviour that has changed - recently he/she works late most days/ refuses to socialise with spouse/ swears at spouse/ plays golf every weekend/ spends the house keeping at bingo - poker ect.

The aim is to show that recent behaviour has become so intolerable that it has caused the irrevocable breakdown of the marriage.

"Very often clients ask what constitutes "unreasonable behaviour". Obviously, it covers extreme types of behaviour such as habitual drunkenness or violence but it is by no means necessary to allege anything near as serious in a divorce petition. In fact, because no-one likes receiving a Petition based on their unreasonable behaviour, it is very often sensible to keep the allegations to the bare minimum that will suffice to obtain the divorce even in circumstances where very much more could be added. A few paragraphs are normally sufficient and in a case where a marriage has in fact irretrievably broken down it is unusual not to be able to find some instances of unreasonable behaviour which will suffice for the purposes of obtaining Decree Nisi. It is important to understand that the courts are not too demanding about this - particularly where both spouses want a divorce.

Naturally, if the parties are not agreed on divorce the requirements of the courts are stricter because the allegations will be subject to scrutiny but in the overwhelming majority of cases the allegations are unchallenged because very few divorces are ever defended in fact.

Something which it important to bear in mind is that there are time limits involved. In general one must present a divorce petition within no more than six months from the last incident of unreasonable behaviour relied upon if the parties are continuing to live together. There are two explanations for this. Firstly, it is perfectly easy to accept unreasonable behaviour and many people do. For instance, if both parties are heavy drinkers and have been so throughout their married lives it would lack any credibility if one of them suddenly decided to petition for divorce based on the other's heavy drinking. The second reason is rather more important because it does sometimes catch people out. It is that it is a rule of law.

Perhaps this is best explained by example. Suppose a husband hits his wife and as a result the wife decides that the marriage is over but does nothing about it. She continues to live with her husband but there is no further incident of violence. At any time within six months from being hit by her husband the wife could present a divorce petition based on this unreasonable behaviour if she wished but once they have lived together for more than six months afterwards she can no longer rely on this incident (although she might be able to refer to it as part of a pattern of unreasonable behaviour).

However, this rule only applies if the parties continue to live together after the latest incident of unreasonable behaviour. If the wife in the above example had immediately left her husband after being hit and gone to live with her parents she could still issue a petition based on her husband's unreasonable behaviour in hitting her even though more than six months have passed since the incident. Even in this case, though, one should not wait too long. There gets a point where one simply cannot credibly complain about the behaviour of one's spouse if he/she is not actually there to be unreasonable. If it looks as though six months since the last incident of unreasonable behaviour occurred will soon elapse it is normally sensible to consider whether one should petition for divorce rather than wait any longer.

If one leaves it too long the parties may then have to wait two years from the date of the separation before one of them can issue a divorce petition based on two years' separation. And this is dependent upon the other's consent. If that consent is not forthcoming the person who wants the divorce may have to wait until the separation has lasted five years unless in the meantime his/her spouse relents. This can be extremely awkward if the reason for wanting the divorce is to remarry so it is worth bearing these formal and practical time limits in mind. They do sometimes catch people out and to our mind they are defects in the law but they are defects which can have very inconvenient consequences if one of the parties wishes, for example, to remarry but the opportunity for relying on unreasonable behaviour has passed.

People often think they can get a divorce based simply upon "irreconcilable differences". The truth of the matter is that this usually means "unreasonable behaviour" and in order to obtain a divorce on the ground of unreasonable behaviour one has to comply with the rules applicable to that particular ground including any time limits."

T

If you are having trouble getting your mail from the bank, then all correspondence can be sent to the bank and you can collect it from there. If you have documentation of your home address, or esp a Joint account at that bank it should be relatively easy to do this. I have had trouble with stbx changing the address of the bank so all statements go to his parents. This can be rectified by having statements just addressed to you sent to another address (as I have done). If you go to court for your form E you will need 12 months of statements which will be difficult to get if its acrimonious. So plan now, get copies of statements either forwarded to the bank for you to collect there in your name, or to a friends house. Unless your stbx goes and checks the details at the bank he will be none the wiser.