I have been separated from my husband, who is not a legal citizen, for 5 months now. I do not know where he lives and was instructed to place an ad for divorce in the paper. I don't know where to begin or who to ask or what to do. Can you please point me in right direction?

Hi, eaf1977!

I would think that if you would contact a local newspaper where you would want to place such an ad, that doing so would be a tremendous help to you.

Also, do you have an attorney?

Thanks!

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Originally Posted by eaf1977

i have been separated from my husband, who is not a legal citizen, for 5 months now. i do not know where he lives and was instructed to place an ad for divorce in the paper. i dont know where to begin or who to ask or what to do. can you please point me in right direction?

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First off, please let us know where you live.

Let me give you an example of how it works in California, just to let you see how this question would be answered here.

First, you don't "advertise for divorce." There is no such thing. And if you place an ad in a paper to tell the world you want a divorce it is a total waste of money. You might as well call the psychic-hotline and have someone tell your fortune. It would be just as much a waste of money.

To get a divorce when your husband has disappeared, you file a petition for dissolution in your county along with a summons and pay the court filing fee. You then contact a process server and make whatever efforts you think you can to locate your husband (they can sometimes help with skip-tracing, etc.) You may wish to hire a private investigator to do this. If you turn up no leads on where your husband is, you then file an application with the court for an order for publication of summons (here's where your urband legend of publishing a notice in the newspaper comes in) and with it you include a declaration from your process server or private investigator telling the judge how hard you worked to try to find your husband but just couldn't find him. If the judge thinks you made reasonable efforts to find your husband but still couldn't he may grant your request and issue an order that allows you to serve him by publishing a copy of the court summons in a local newspaper for 30 days. This is a substitute for actually finding your husband and personally serving him a copy of the petition and summons. After serving by publication, you then can request entry of a default and default judgment and have your divorce finalized. Publication of summons in a newspaper can be expensive (I recall it cost $1,600 for a client of mine to publish summons in an El Paso newspaper a few years ago). And the fact that your husband is not a citizen or legal resident and the period you have been separated is irrelevant.

There is exact requirements for each court as to the size of ad, which paper it has to be in, and more. Your attorney should be doing this.

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Originally Posted by Fr_Chuck

There is exact requirements for each court as to the size of ad, which paper it has to be in, and more. Your attorney should be doing this.

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The number of susbscribers is also important. Courts require a certain number of subscriptions (or a certain number of free handouts) before they recognize a newspaper.