Yvonne:
Okay, in Canada, there are a lot of ways to settle issues like custody or property issues. Let's say that you left your husband (and, of course, resided in Canada for at least a year). You might have any number of issues you want to settle: custody, access, division of property, support, restaining orders and divorce. You can deal with all of those together or you can deal with the issues seperately.
Now, here is where Canada is a little weird. The federal government controls marriage and divorce and all things associated with it whereas the provincial governments deal with children, support and property. Do you see a problem developing here?
Anyway, as a result, laws on custody, access, support and property division will (often) differ from province to province and the way you get these differs from province to province. As a result, I'm going to now assume you live in Ontario. (And that was probably much more than you wanted to know
)
If you wanted to get support (child and spousal), custody, property division and a divorce, these can all be done in a Petition for Divorce. Since a person can file a Petition for Divorce at the time of separation, that is probably the way to deal with it. A person can contest the property issues, custody issues and support issues in the petition without contesting the divorce. There are times when a year has gone by and we still haven't sorted out all of those issues. But the person is in a hurry to be divorced. At that point, I have on occasions brought a Motion for Summary Judgment to get the divorce while not finalizing the other issues. (I know, that sounds like a lot of legal mumbo-jumbo
, but I hope I managed to answer your question)
Edit to add:
if it takes a lot of negotiation and a lot of lawyer time there might not be a lot left to divide...
That's the objective
(btw, if you don't know, I am kidding - maybe
)
