Hi, I am not sure if this is the forum for my questions, but here goes. My husband and I, both Americans, moved to Italy. After 7 months it crashed and I moved back to the US with only a suitcase of clothes. We are still legally married, but he has been living with an Italian woman for four years now. If I divorce him here will the settlement be acknowledged and enforced there? If I don't will he be considered married to her at some point, and where will that leave me?
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First, and most importantly, you need to consult with a lawyer in the state where you live. If you don't know one or can't afford one, call your local bar association. They almost all have a lawyer referral service that includes some reduced fee options.
Generally, either party to a marriage can file for divorce in the state where the party lives provided the party has lived there for sufficient length of time, which varies from state to state being anywhere from 30 days to a year, 90 days being common. Regardless of what is common or typical you need to know what the answer is for your state because nothing else matters.
You may have some complications getting service of process (i.e. legally binding notification that you filed for divorce) on your husband but your attorney can handle that.
Italy recognizes US divorce judgments.
Neither of you can enter into another valid marriage until you are divorced.
When one forgets superficial variations, one can see that Italian leaders of today behave more or less as their predecessors have always behaved. - Luigi Barzini, The Italians (1964)
Thank you so much for your feedback and advise. I feel a bit less nervous at the moment.
The best thing you can do is ask for divorce from any country other than inside Italy. I am getting divorced on June 15 after 4 years of waiting. My future Italian ex and I are good friends and agreed on all the terms, no kids were involved and our first court hearing was less than 5 minutes, one lawyer, still 5 years of waiting in total!
I suggest that you go to the Italian consulate in your area or look on the US Embassy in Italy website for lawyers.
Expect to have to pay fees for document translations, the Italians are crazy about official document, not all European countries ask for these but you will need to communicate through the US Embassy.
Good luck!
The OP said they were "both Americans" - I wonder if either of them also has Italian citizenship and, if so, how that fact might affect this conversation.
marriage and divorce is recognized internationally. If you got married in the US divorce in the US if you got married in Italy I recommend that you get divorced in any country other than Italy. It is doable and you won't have to wait 5 years like me. I just got my divorce transcribed into the anagrafe in Florence. Even if both citizens are Italian and got married in Italy, one of the partners can take residency in another country and ask for divorce based on the laws of the country of residence.
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*spoiled Jack Russell
Tuscanartist is right. There is a minimum 3 year waiting period to get a divorce here and it can take much longer. On the other hand, you might want to consult an Italian lawyer (see US consulate website for list of English speaking Italian lawyers in various Italian cities) as you may be able to get a better settlement here in Italy. Generally, wives who earn less than their husbands do better financially after divorce here in Italy than they do in the US. I'm not sure if that applies to you.
Do you have any children? If so, this could make the whole thing a lot trickier but since you don't mention it I assume you don't.
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Mmhhh.....
It was interesting for me to read this thread as I have an American friend who is going through a divorce from her Italian-born but dual citizen (USA) husband here in Italy. She has only been here for five months and is in an isolated situation (no car in rural area, no job, two little kids home all day) but the separation has been a living hell. At times she just wants to give up and leave the kids here with him. He has many demands (all the furniture, almost all the money from when they sold their house, minimal child support, she must pay for their plane tickets to come visit him and she must stay in a local hotel for two weeks in case the girls cry for her during the night during their two weeks/year visitation) but he storms out of negotiations if she doesn't accept them all and states that "then she can just stay in Italy". He knows that she really wants to go back to the USA asap and that is the big club that he keeps hitting her over the head with.
My fantasy is that she call his bluff and say OK, she'll stay in Italy. My understanding is that he would then have to continue to pay the same amount of rent, utilities and expenses as he has been doing now (1400 per month total). That's a heck of a lot better life than she'll have in the usa as a single mother who probably will lose job after job if she's got to take off because the kids are sick. She's afraid she'll wind up on welfare and at the very least will need food stamps. Here she wouldn't have to work (her kids are 3 & 4 years old) and could then take them back to USA for at least a month every summer to visit family there. What a mess!!
She has proof (a cousin has defected from the family and has told her everything) that her husband & MIL's plan all along was to promise her everything to get her to agree to move everyone and everything here...then to divorce her where he would be at an advantage because he knew she'd want to return to the USA (she doesn't speak Italian, doesn't drive here, has no family, etc.) and would agree to give up everything just to be allowed to leave with her babies. Plus his family is well established here and that's always an advantage (they even paid off her first lawyer, the only English speaking one within 75 km!!).
Diane in Veroli
(formerly debp1)
http://www.diane-underanolivetree.blogspot.com" target="_BLANK
She sounds pretty stupid, she moved here with a husband who planned to divorce her - she didn't know that? She doesn't drive, why not. And she hasn't learned to speak any Italian. Anyway she should stay in Italy and demand that her husband support her and the kids, learn to speak at least some Italian and start driving. After some time the husband might get tired of paying all the bills and give her a better agreement to move back to the US.
www.johnandluisa.blogspot.com
She doesn't work yet she has food on her table and a roof above her head. As long as she was a wife this could make sense (not for me, but many people seem to be fine with it, so ok).
Now she's not a wife anymore so, technically, she's a scrounger and he owes her nothing.
Next case?
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