Across the United States, same-sex married couples faced many challenges in getting divorced until same-sex marriage was recognized across the country in 2015. Before this time, many couples could not get divorced if the state they were residing in did not yet recognize same-sex marriage.
Although the law regarding same-sex marriage has become much clearer over the years, there are still potential challenges on the path to divorce for same-sex couples in the state of Colorado. One of the reasons for this is the fact that same-sex marriage was legalized very recently. This poses several issues for the process of divorce, due to how the length of the marriage will be recognized.
Assessing the length of a marriage
A same-sex couple going through a divorce may have considered themselves to have been married for several decades, but legally. they will only have been married a few years. This can pose problems when going through the process of asset division or when calculating alimony, because the courts may underestimate the true length of the relationship.
Therefore, if a spouse knows that they should owe a significant amount of alimony due to the other spouse’s high financial dependence over several decades, they might insist that they were not at the stage of marriage until they legally became married. In this way, they may be able to avoid the high alimony payments that perhaps they should be paying.
If you are considering going through a divorce as someone in a same-sex marriage, it is important that you understand how the law will likely treat your situation before taking action.