Divorce in New Mexico – NM Divorce Law FAQs

begin the divorce process in New Mexico, the parties involved must meet the residency requirements of 6 months and file a petition for dissolution of marriage to the district court. The court will then review their situation and extenuating circumstances and make a decision on the outcome of the case.

New Mexico divorce law provides four grounds for divorce:

1. adultery;
2. abandonment;
3. cruel and inhumane treatment; and
4. incompatibility

In practice, most divorces do not require these grounds to be proved, beyond stating that the differences involved cannot be reconciled.

Almost every New Mexico divorce case is filed under the no-fault standard of incompatibility. This means when you file your petition for dissolution of marriage, you simply need to state under oath that you and your spouse are no longer compatible. In other words, you have irreconcilable differences that have destroyed the marriage and there is no reasonable possibility of reconciliation.

The fault standards of adultery, abandonment, and cruel and inhumane treatment serve little purpose, as judges are not allowed to consider fault in deciding the issues in your case, such as child custody, support, and property division. Judges don’t want to hear the dirty details of who did what to whom because it is irrelevant in a New Mexico divorce.

To allege these grounds in your petition may even lead the judge to question the truth of your allegations and question your motives, leaving the judge to assume that you have alleged them just to punish your spouse. Needless to say, this is no way to begin your divorce case.

The answer largely depends on you and your spouse. If the two of you can work together and negotiate the issues, then a divorce can be obtained rather quickly.

With each issue you fail to agree on, more time is tacked onto your divorce case, which necessarily means that the financial cost of your divorce is going to increase.

If the parties can work together, a divorce could be granted within a month after filing. If the issues have to be litigated between New Mexico divorce attorneys, then divorce could drag on for more than a year.

The more you can resolve with your spouse, the less you have to pay your divorce lawyer to resolve for you. This could mean the difference of thousands of dollars by the end of your divorce.

It is difficult to put an exact price tag on how much a New Mexico divorce will cost because even when you think you know what will and will not be contested in a divorce, there always seems to be a few surprises along the way that you may not have considered being an issue.

The best thing to do in order to keep your divorce from dragging on and to keep the costs down is to try to talk to your spouse first.

If your relationship is so destroyed that negotiations aren’t possible, then talk with a licensed New Mexico divorce lawyer and tell him or her about every little issue you can possibly think of as being a part of your divorce and speak candidly about what you would like to achieve.

In return, your attorney can craft the most effective plan for resolving the issues with the goal of providing you peace of mind as it pertains to your emotional and physical well being, in addition to potentially easing the burden on your wallet.