We just met, so I don’t know him that well, but he was honest from the beginning. He says he’s still married because of their son, and because his wife doesn’t want to get divorced right now. Apparently, South Korea has a fault-based divorce system. TIL.
When the ex wife and me split up (she did, but didn’t bother to file for divorce, so I had to) the first time I made a mistake in filing, so things didn’t proceed, then did again. After all it took four years (yeah we could have expedited it, but we were on ok terms, so why bother)
In the end we were only divorced 4 years after we split up. Legally in my country there’s a mandatory 1 year separation phase anyway.
The only sad thing, I met someone whom I was interested in in that time, and (she communicated right from the beginning) that was something of a “no go” for her.
I was quite sad about that, specifically it would have been quite easy to confirm I’m not cheating by having her talk to my ex wife for once.
The ex and me do have children, so we’ll be meeting each other every now and then for the rest of our lives. I do know her new partner, she knows mine.
Talking to each other can give a lot of information in such cases. And OP would quickly find out if the guy is cheating by suggesting to all talk to each other for once. If he is blocking, I’d be careful, if he’s in a similar situation than I was he’d be very happy about that idea.
Some states require separation before the actual divorce. Could be legit.
It’s about South Korea …
For what it’s worth, I went through the same situation from the other side. We separated, but remained married for several years because she would have been uninsured otherwise.
I was in another relationship for several years before I was actually divorced. Fortunately, my first wife had a job with insurance by the time I wanted to marry my current wife, so it all worked out. And there were never any secrets to keep.
You can’t be certain about this guy without finding out more, but the situation does not necessarily mean he’s cheating.
I split from my wife but unless she filed divorce after that, we might still be married on paper. It was four times the cost to file for divorce as it was to get married to begin with and I couldn’t afford it.
Not sure about South Korea but I was technically married for 2 years after we separated. It was just a pain to go find a lawyer and figure out how to serve them in another state.
We weren’t living together so it was easy I assume for my partners to confirm I lived alone when they came over…
Was legally married for 12 years but only together for 11 months. She ran off when our son was 2 months old. Tried multiple times to get a divorce. But courts don’t like giving divorce when the another party not able to chime in. Years later she reached out ask for a divorce so she could marry another man. Told her to pay for it. And eventually she did and we got that divorce.
But I was always up front to all the women I dated. Never was an issue.
Oh yeah me too, it was on my dating profile, don’t want to deal with anyone that’s going to immediately have a problem
Ask his wife.
If she is ok with it, he’s not cheating.
There really isn’t any other way to know.
I was married already when I met my now wife. My first wife lived overseas and we hadn’t been together for about 8 years.
Our two children lived with me, but we didn’t have a separation or legal custody agreement. Doing all of that internationally, getting all the documents professionally translated, court dates, etc. was extremely challenging.
So we waited several years until both kids were legally adults and we just had to deal with the divorce (which itself took almost 3 years) before making things official.
That said, my case is much less typical than a guy just lying about his domestic circumstances.
In general, good. Very good.
Apparently, South Korea has a fault-based divorce system. TIL.
That’s an important bit of context, and makes it somewhat more likely to be true. Either way, if he doesn’t want you contacting his wife it stinks.
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Never, ever trust someone who tells you this. Insist on speaking to the wife first. This is the most classic lie to get some side action if you are already married.
Trust but verify. Only one person can really answer the question at hand.
Really. It leads into the classic “I’ll leave her soon I just need to get a few things in order” lie to keep it going.
Pretty likely he’s just cheating.
Not necessarily, but likely.
Can you spend a week-end at this place ? That’s an easy way to test.
Divorce can take a lot of time close, but if they’re still living with their hex, they’re not just married on paper.
My multi-year girlfriend is still technically married. She lives with me and no longer talks to her “husband”. The problem is literally don’t know where he is to serve papers. She thinks he is somewhere in Oklahoma but doesn’t know and doesn’t have an address. Can’t get divorce without serving him(giving him official papers saying divorce is requested).
Most places have Service by Publication, including Oklahoma.
She would need to file the petition, and then run a legal notice in a paper that serves that county, and that would count. Doesn’t matter if he ever actually sees or responds to it. She will have fulfilled her legal obligation for service.
Might be if it really mattered. It’s a paper and a party, I don’t care either way.
It’s also a lot of legal rights and privileges. And in many places it’s also a default inheritance. If something were to happen to her, you would have no rights to make any decisions. Her husband would. Her assets would become his.
Even if you aren’t interested in being married, it’s in her best interest to actually finalize the divorce to avoid a litany of issues.
True, especially with the child.
Yeah. I’d hate for some dumb legal shit to happen over nothing. Best to just get it done and a clean slate with no legal issues at all, even if it is a pain in the ass.
And expensive, I think last time we looked into it was like 950 just for the divorce filing.
Ugh. Yeah that’s a bitch. Cheaper than a legal fight but that’s not helpful if it crunches the budget.
But if you can swing it, it will only be a long term benefit. Especially with kids.
One would think a judge would allow her to serve notice in the local newspapers in a situation like that if the dude is even alive.
This is how I divorced.
Every country is different, of course, but I was wondering how is that different from divorcing from a missing person that from all you know could be dead.
Being dead or MIA is a very specific and powerful state of being where most laws completely change. Being alive but not known (to you) where they live is completely different. The system will show them as alive and paying taxes but accessing and sharing address and contact information without permission is various levels of illegal and will get flagged
Best bet is private investigators. They still exist and are good at OSint and tracking people down by the faintest trails
I asked how it works in Spain, I was really curious. Here you start the process in front of a judge that can last up to two years where the other person is declared “in rebellion” so the process can proceed without having to give further notification.
That sounds like a pretty good system. Just give a time limit notice where the divorce will proceed. One of the reasons I never marry even in long term relationships. It’s a huge pain to break up
Yeah this screams alternate service. And pretty sure at some point alternate service is also allowed over email, mail, or other means.
Possibly if she knew a town or even county. I also am surprised that’s even a thing anymore, like who reads physical newspapers? Only time I remember buy them was to wrap dishes and glasses when moving.
The laws are probably ancient and won’t be updated for decades yet.
Could be an Oklahoma thing. In my state, you can just run it in the local paper if you don’t have an address. They have 30 days to respond. OK is pretty backwards when it comes to women’s rights though.
Even worse is we live in Texas which is even more backwards. The marriage was done in Texas, she got pregnant and he ran away to ok but kid is about to be 13 and has never seen his bio-dad. There should be a law like “if either party abandons the other for 5 years the marriage is null and void by default”
Oklahoma has had Service by Publication for over 20 years.
1.0.
I had a friend who was married, but he didn’t live with his wife. They had a son together, and she had a son from a prior marriage.
He stayed married to her, but they lived separately. He said it was so she could stay on his health insurance. He also gave her money for her rent.
For several years they lived in different states. He’d take two weeks off from work to visit her every year. He’d spend one week with her, then spend the second week recovering from visiting with her.
To my knowledge he never went on so much as a date with any other woman and he showed absolutely no interest in cheating on his wife or even divorcing her. His attitude seemed to be that one woman was more than enough.
