In a recent Mississippi appellate case, a wife filed for divorce on the fault-based grounds of adultery and habitual inhuman treatment. The couple married in 2004 and then separated in 2011. They had no children. The husband owned a bail bonding business, and the wife worked as an admissions registrar.…
When filing for divorce in Mississippi, you can file based on fault or no-fault grounds. Existing fault grounds in Mississippi include adultery, criminal conviction with a sentence to jail time, bigamy, impotence, willful continuous desertion for a minimum of a year, habitual substance abuse, habitual cruel and inhuman treatment, the…
Adultery is one of the most utilized grounds for divorce. As unfortunate as it may sound, many spouses commit adultery. There are countless psycho-social studies and surveys aimed at figuring out “why” spouses engage in adulterous activity. But, in the divorce context in Mississippi, why a spouse commits adultery is…
In terms of divorce defenses under Mississippi law, “antenuptial knowledge” may simply be defined as a complaining-spouse’s (the spouse filing for divorce) pre-marital knowledge of the defendant-spouse’s pre-existing bad habits, condition, or other marital impediment that now is alleged to present a cause for divorce. For a defendant-spouse to rely…
When a client seeks my counsel about divorce in Mississippi and I ask them why he or she wants a divorce, in several cases, the response is surprisingly consistent: “We argue all the time” or “He or she is mean and rude to me.” During the first conversation I have…
Over the past decade, I have assisted hundreds of people with divorce and divorce-related issues in Mississippi. As we have briefly discussed in previous posts, there are two ways to obtain a divorce in the State of Mississippi: (1) an Irreconcilable Differences Divorce (“ID Divorce”) and (2) a contested or…
Marriage is a beautiful concept that many people are willing to embrace. But, unfortunately, the struggles of marriage become a concept that some people realize that they cannot, or will not, endure. When marriage gets tough, some spouses initiate their “fight” receptors and seek to endure the struggles while others…
Here in Mississippi, there is nothing like watching a good football game and drinking a cold beer with friends and family. Recreational drinking–and football of course–is a stapled pastime in our country. But for some, the pastime of alcohol consumption can become a serious problem. Just like a drug addiction,…
Habitual and excessive drug use–including excessive marijuana use–is one of twelve grounds for fault-based divorce in Mississippi. Under Mississippi law, “[d]ivorces from the bonds of matrimony may be decreed to the injured party for . . . [h]abitual and excessive use of opium, morphine or other like drug.” MS §…
Today the Mississippi Senate has defeated a bill that would have have created a 13th Ground for Divorce in Mississippi (bona fide separation for five years or longer). Senate Bill 2652 would have given a spouse grounds for divorce if he or she had been away from an abusive situation…