Legal Question in Family Law in Virginia

Re: am i able to get annulment instead of divorce?

Annulments are tough to get in Virginia. I cooperated years ago with a husband who wanted an annulment from my client who left the honeymoon after one night. Didn't work. If your husband concealed a felony conviction you have a decent chance. There are also fraud grounds, but that means you have to prove he made an intentional misstatement of fact upon which you justifiably relied to your detriment.

You can get a divorce based on desertion, but you will have to wait until you have lived in Virginia for six months. You will have to get him served in Illinois or have the divorce action published in a local (Virginia) newspaper long enough for him to respond if he's going to respond (of course, he probably won't see it, so he won't respond) then go forward to the final divorce. But you can't get the final divorce until one year after he left.

Re: am i able to get annulment instead of divorce?

Annulments are difficult but not impossible to get. The grounds for an annulment are: fraud, duress, insufficient age, bigamy, defective licensing or solemnization, violation of kinship intermarriage prohibitions, or lack of capacity to consent to marriage because of mental incapacity or infirmity.

You may bring a suit for annulment if: 1) the other party suffers from a natural or incurable impotency of body at the time of entering into the marriage; 2) prior to the marriage, one party, without the knowledge of the other, was convicted of a felony; 3) at the time of the marriage, the wife, without the knowledge of the husband, was carrying a child of another or the husband fathered a child born to a woman other than the wife within 10 months after the date of the marriage; 4) prior to the marriage, one party has been a prostitute; and finally 5) the marriage was entered into under fraud or duress.

If the facts of your case do not meet the grounds for annulment you may certainly file for a divorce on the basis of desertion. First, however, you must live in VA for 6 months before doing so.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at 301-652-0663 or 703-598-9220.