A few years ago, the law around divorce changed in a way that most people only half-notice until they need it. If you’re facing a divorce now, or thinking about one, it’s worth knowing what actually shifted. It changes some real, practical things about how the next few months might go.
We still remember clients from before 2022 sitting across the desk, dreading the bit where they had to put something in writing about why the marriage had failed. Even in the most amicable splits, somebody had to be the villain on paper, at least on the surface. Unless a couple had already been separated for two years, the law required them to say why it was their partner’s fault. It didn’t matter that both people had, in private, agreed things were simply over. The paperwork demanded a story with a wrongdoer in it.
That’s gone now. Since April 2022, a statement that the marriage has broken down irretrievably is enough on its own,no need to prove anything, no list of grievances, no digging through old arguments to build a case. The court takes your word for it.
Practically, that means you can apply on your own, or together with your ex if you’re both in agreement. Joint applications are still fairly new territory. It won’t suit everyone, but for couples who’ve reached the decision mutually, starting the process side by side rather than as opponents tends to set a better tone for everything that follows; the finances, the arrangements for children, the years of co-parenting or simply coexisting that come after.
There is a timeline attached, a minimum of twenty weeks between applying and getting what’s called a conditional order (the “decree nisi” of old), then another six weeks for a final order. Six months, roughly, even if you both want it over tomorrow. That’s not bureaucracy for its own sake; some of it is genuinely there to stop people rushing into a decision they haven’t fully sat with.
There’s also a safeguard in here that doesn’t get talked about much. Under the old rules, a controlling partner could sometimes use the process itself, contesting a petition, dragging things out as one more way to hold on to power over the other person. That route has effectively closed. If you’ve been in that kind of relationship, this part of the reform was made with you specifically in mind, even if nobody ever spells that out.
None of this touches the children directly. Where they live, how time is split, what support looks like, that’s a separate matter, handled through a child arrangements order if you and your ex can’t agree it yourselves. But there’s a knock-on effect worth mentioning: it’s a lot easier to co-parent with someone you haven’t just had to blame in a legal document formally. Taking that argument off the table at the start doesn’t solve everything, but it removes one more thing to be angry about.
A couple of things people usually ask at this point. No, you don’t both have to agree; one of you can apply alone; it just tends to take a little longer if the other person doesn’t engage. Yes, you can stop the process partway through if there’s any chance of reconciliation, right up until the final order is made. And no, none of this automatically sorts out your money; the divorce and the financial settlement are two entirely separate legal processes, which is exactly why we push back when people assume that a simple divorce means a simple split. If you’re in a civil partnership rather than a marriage, everything here applies the same way, just with different names for the paperwork (a dissolution order instead of a divorce order).
Here’s the thing we’d want you to take away, more than any of the procedural detail: the law trusting you to know your own marriage is over is a genuinely good change. But simpler paperwork isn’t the same as a simple ending. The parts that actually matter your home, your pension, your children’s day-to-day life deserve just as much care and attention as they ever did, maybe more, precisely because the legal process no longer forces those conversations to happen for you.
If you’d like to talk through what this means for your situation, we’re happy to help with no assumptions made about how you got here. Contact us at info@rmzlaw.co.uk