Responding to Divorce or Separation

Either spouse in a marriage or partner in a registered domestic partnership can ask the court to end their legal relationship.

If you have been served with a petition and summons for dissolution (divorce) or legal separation, your spouse or domestic partner is asking the court to end your relationship.  In California, as long as 1 person wants to end the marriage or domestic partnership, the court can end it, even if the other spouse or domestic partner does not agree or want to get divorced or legally separated.

A married couple or registered domestic partners can end their marital status in California 6 months after the first papers are filed at the courthouse and copies of these papers are served on you, the respondent.

• Options to Respond
• Default/Uncontested Process
• Contested Process
• Forms