Annulment is a legal procedure which “nullifies,” or cancels, a marriage. In the state of Illinois, annulment is called a “declaration of invalidity of marriage”. A marriage which has been successfully annulled is not recognized by the state any longer. Legally, an annulment makes the marriage as if it never happened. This process is much different from a divorce and is only available in certain circumstances.

Who Qualifies for Annulment?

In Illinois, there are only four lawful reasons someone can annul their marriage:

Although we rarely think of it this way, marriage and, consequently, divorce are business decisions as much as they are personal decisions. When a marriage ends, it is not only the spouses who separate but also the lives they have created together. This includes the home which they share together, their property, assets, debts and more. Undoing a marriage through divorce can be a tricky process. If you are planning to divorce, make sure to avoid these classic mistakes.

Overestimating Your Future Income

As the old saying goes, “It is better to be safe than sorry.” When you are deciding how the marriage will end, try to be conservative when picturing your life as a single person. Sometimes people overestimate what they will be able to afford on their own. For example, they may want to stay in the family home for sentimental reasons, but are not ready for the burden of the mortgage payments. If you are the lower-earning spouse, it is possible that you will receive spousal maintenance payments as part of your divorce settlement, but this is far from guaranteed.

If you are a parent who is planning to divorce your spouse, it is likely that one of your biggest concerns is how the divorce will affect your children. The transition from nuclear family to sharing children between two homes can be challenging and no two co-parenting arrangements are the same. Parents who plan to share custody of their children after a divorce will be expected to create a parenting plan or parenting agreement and submit it to the court. A parenting plan is not only required for divorce involving children in Illinois, but is also a great way to make sure parents are on the same page regarding how they will raise children after the divorce is finalized.

Things to Consider When Making a Parenting Plan

Because every family is different, every parenting plan is different. Some divorcing couples feel that they can roughly outline a custody and visitation schedule and plan little else while others go into much more detail about how their children should be raised. If you worry that you and your spouse will have trouble agreeing to parenting decisions in the future, it is best to be very specific in your parenting agreement. Take the time to prevent problems before they arise by making sure you and your soon-to-be-ex-spouse are in agreement about parenting responsibilities.

If you are planning to get divorced, you are probably wondering how you and your spouse’s property will be divided. Since Illinois is an “equitable division” state, marital property is divided equitably, but not necessarily evenly. While some states split marital property 50/50, Illinois courts have the freedom to award more marital property to one spouse than the other if such an arrangement is found to be fair. When the court is dividing marital property and debt, there are specific guidelines they must follow.

How Property Decisions Are Made

Illinois courts look at twelve main factors when making property division decisions in a divorce. The first factor is each party’s contribution. More specifically, the court must consider how each spouse contributed "to the acquisition, preservation, or increase or decrease in value, of the marital or non-marital property.” Each spouse’s income is considered as well the non-monetary contributions the spouses made to the marriage including homemaking and child-rearing. Courts will also consider any dissipation, or wasting or hiding of assets, when making decisions about property division. For example, a spouse who used martial funds to finance an affair during the marriage may receive less of the marital property. The value of the property which is assigned to each spouse is also taken into consideration.

It is no secret that many marriages end as a result of infidelity. About 41 percent of married people admit to having either a physical or emotional affair. Even more surprising, 57 percent of men and 54 percent of women admit to cheating at some point in their life. When an affair is one of the factors which ends a marriage, it may affect your divorce, but not in the way you might think.

Illinois is a No-Fault Divorce State

Illinois has been “pure no-fault state” since the start of 2016. This means that the state does not require divorcing couples to state their specific reasons or “grounds” for ending the marriage through divorce. Before the 2016 change, grounds like adultery or repeated mental or physical cruelty could be used as the cause of the divorce. Today, those seeking a divorce in Illinois only have one ground for filing for divorce: “irreconcilable differences.” According to the Illinois Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act, a judgment of divorce will be issued only if “irreconcilable differences have caused the irretrievable breakdown of the marriage and the court determines that efforts at reconciliation have failed or that future attempts at reconciliation would be impracticable and not in the best interests of the family.” For most couples, infidelity will not affect their divorce in any meaningful way.