How to Get a Legal Separation

Video Transcript

"Hello. Have you ever wondered how to get a legal separation? If so, I have some tips for you. I'm Dr. Felicia, and I've worked with different custody issues and divorce situations for many years. Legal separation is relatively easy to acquire if for instance there's no minors involved. If there are no minors, you can do what's considered a pro se divorce dissolution of marriage. And your forms are usually held at your local courthouse within your community. So you can go down there, and they usually come with a packet that you purchase the forms and then you have instructions on how to file it. If you and your ex-spouse, or soon to be ex-spouse are on amenable terms, and you can communicate, it usually can be done in a pretty rapid amount of time. When there's minor involved, it gets a little bit more complicated to get a legal separation. Usually you have to go through lawyers, and you will have to get that legal separation. There's good and bad about that, it's done right, it's expediated. However, you should know that in different states the jurisdiction is different. And a legal separation is required, for instance, in the Washington D.C. District there has to be a year trial separation, or legal separation. So that kind of postpones things. The concept behind that, is that after a year a couple works out their issues, and they usually cool off, and marriages are saved. In other states you can do it in 60 days, in other states 90 days, so it varies, check with your attorney. If you have children involved, the separation process is a time to learn new parenting skills, how to parent as a divorced parent. You're usually required to go to parenting classes, and that gets a little bit more complicated. And those are requirements of the entire legal separation process leading to the divorce. I do wish you luck, whether you do it yourself without children, or whether you go through an attorney. Good luck. Dr. Felicia here. Bye now."