Understanding Texas No-Fault Divorce

There is a great deal of misunderstanding about “no-fault” divorce. Many people believe that the concept of fault has been eliminated from divorces. That could not be further from the truth.

The passage of the “no-fault” law years ago changed the requirement to allege fault, it did not change the right to allege fault.

Prior to the creation of no-fault divorce in Texas, in order to obtain a divorce in the State of Texas, one or both parties had to accuse the other of some conduct that amounted to fault. And then the accusing party had to prove it – assuming that the accused did not admit it. The common grounds for fault-based divorces included adultery, mental cruelty, physical cruelty, and abandonment.

The reason for a fault-based system was that the State took the position that it had a vested interest in keeping married people married. If you could not prove a fault ground, the State did not require you to continue to live together, but it required you to stay married. That requirement kept people from being able to marry other people, because doing so would amount to the crime of bigamy.

Now, Texas Family Code Section 6.001 states that “the court may grant a divorce without regard to fault, if the marriage has become insupportable because of discord or conflict of personalities that destroys the legitimate ends of the marital relationship and prevents any reasonable expectation of reconciliation.”

As long as one party or the other alleges that the marriage has become “insupportable,” there is no requirement to allege or prove fault in a divorce. This created some misunderstanding in no-fault divorces in Southlake and around Texas. The State looks at marriages almost like a business partnership, when it comes to the right to dissolve them.

If you and a friend went into the business of selling donuts, and after a couple of years your friend decided that he or she did not want to sell donuts anymore, you could not make your friend stay in the donut business. Similarly, in this day and age, if your spouse no longer wants to stay in the marriage, you cannot make him or her stay. If your spouse wants a divorce, he or she is entitled to a divorce.

But, the fact that there is no requirement to allege fault does not mean that fault cannot be alleged. Either or both parties to a divorce in Texas can still allege that the break-up of the marriage was due to the fault of the other party. While the Family Code still contains the same list of fault grounds that it used to, typically people now limit the accusations to adultery or cruelty.

So what is the benefit of pleading fault? If it is not needed to get the divorce, why bring it up?

One reason to plead fault is that in a divorce, there is no requirement that the property be divided evenly. The court is required to make a “just and right, equitable division” of the property, and one of the factors that the court can consider is the fault of either party. If one party is guilty of adultery or cruelty, that party may not only get less than 50% of the community estate, he or she may get as little as 40%, 35%, or even less. In fact one Texas Judge has been quoted as saying, “If I find out that a husband has been guilty of actual, physical abuse, I’ll take away everything he’s got, including his dreams!”

While, according to Texas law, even in the most egregious of cases the court cannot take someone’s separate property, it is possible that the court can deprive an individual of the use of his or her separate property for some period of time, under certain circumstances. In one famous case, the court allowed the ex-wife and children to live in the separate property home of the ex-husband, as additional child support.

If you have any more questions about no-fault divorce in the Southlake area, please contact us via our contact page or give us a call.