Someone else on the boards mentioned this recently, but I just can't believe how easy it can be to get divorced! I want to recap the process:
Saturday, 3/13 - Mr. A told me he was seeing a lawyer on Monday.
Monday, 3/15 - Mr. A met with his lawyer for the first time and his petition for divorce was filed on that day.
Wednesday, 3/24 - I went into Mr. A's L's office to sign that I had received the petition. Otherwise I would have been served somewhere else. Had I not submitted an answer to the petition, that could have been the very last of it for me and we would have been D'd on 5/15 or the soonest available court date thereafter.
I did submit an answer, so we were ordered for a pretrial conference.
Wednesday, 5/12 - Mr. A, Mr. A's L and I met with the judicial attorney (Juliet). She scheduled our final divorce decree for 6/23 and told us to get mediation in the interim. We went to the Dispute Resolution Center, which is a local nonprofit mediation place that gets tons of referrals from that court, and put our names on the waiting list. BUT - it's a long waiting list and so we didn't get mediation (or even get scheduled for mediation) before 6/23.
Wednesday, 6/23 - We went to court for our final hearing and met again with Juliet. She was irritated that we hadn't gotten mediation. She gave us the choice of working it out right then and there in a conference room down the hall or scheduling mediation asap and coming back once more to finalize. We opted for the latter. She scheduled mediation for us (because they actually take her calls!).
FUTURE:
Monday, 7/12 - Mr. A and I will go to mediation and work out a separation agreement and both sign it.
Friday, 7/28 - We will bring our separation agreement to court and our divorce will be finalized.
UGH! It's hard enough for my brain to keep up with all this, let alone my emotions!!
