It doesn’t have to be this hard to get divorced

“The system sets people up for conflict, sets people up for war.” | Eleni Kalorkoti for Vox Rebecca Feinglos never expected to get divorced.

She’d been with her partner for nine years, and married for six, but finally she had to admit to herself that her relationship had taken an abusive turn.

It was 2021 when she decided to end it.

But Feinglos was surprised to discover then that the state she was living in, North Carolina, requires couples to reside in separate homes continuously for a full year before they can even file.

“In amicable divorces you could lie, but I did not have an amicable divorce,” she told me.

“It took 18 months for my divorce to be signed by a judge, and we did not have children.” When she was finally out of her marriage she felt angry.

She knew that many people could not afford to live in separate places, let alone pay for the attorneys needed to navigate all the fraught legal proceedings.

Feinglos, a former state government employee with a master’s degree in public policy, started researching divorce laws nationwide.

“It was so confusing even for me,” she said.

“This was before ChatGPT, and all the Google search results were from family attorneys saying, ‘Oh this is really complicated, you definitely need to hire us to help you.’” She has spent the years since pushing to change those laws.

North Carolina is one of a handful of states, including South Carolina and Arkansas, that require couples to live separately for a set period before they can file for no-fault divorce.

Most states make couples wait after they file, a “cooling-off” period meant to give spouses a chance to change their minds.

In Wyoming, it’s 20 days.

In Missouri, 30.