“If I got married, it wasn’t to get divorced.” “, says with a sigh Alexa Boden-Reider, 53, immersed for two years in a divorce process that is stalled in court. Her case is complex. “Everything is tangled. My divorce is the result of many things, although the usual ingredients are there. » By “usual ingredients,” this communications expert refers to her husband’s infidelities and the mismanagement of his agency, which she handed over to him after the birth of her first child.
When she questions him, in 2014, after fourteen years of married life, “He recognizes everything, both his infidelity and the fact that [le couple a] 1 million euros out [de dette d’entreprise] “. “He is going to see a psychologist and I forgive him, I want to save my marriage. » Despite their efforts to recover the company, Covid-19 will take over their activity. “Then he suggested that I leave Paris to start everything from scratch. I accept. He found a job very quickly and there, overnight, he left me alone in a town lost in the middle of the countryside with three children and 500,000 euros in debt. The horror. »
The more couples have established ties through work, wealth, property, children, “The more things there will be to unravel,” Marc Miguet, lawyer at the Hauts-de-Seine College, agrees, and recommends, when possible, opting for an amicable divorce, that is, without going to the judge, but represented by a lawyer. This formula does “less damage”, according to him, and it is much faster than contentious divorces (with a judge): three to four months, on average, for the former, compared to twenty-eight months for the latter, according to the latest data from the Ministry of Justice for 2020. Of the estimated 130,000 divorces each year in France (there are no longer complete statistics because appearing before the judge is no longer mandatory), the proportion of amicable divorces would be 55%. In 2023, there were 62,262 divorces before a judge, according to data from the Ministry of Justice.
“My husband told me I was going to end up in a poor neighborhood.”
When going before a judge you have to be patient. “In Pontoise, sometimes you have to wait more than a year before having a first court date” reports Marion Delplanque, lawyer at the Paris bar. “In Nanterre it is a disaster, points out his colleague from Hauts-de-Seine. I don’t think there is anything worse, except maybe New Caledonia. We only have twelve judges, when we need twice as many. Assuming you start the process today, the divorce cannot be finalized until early 2028. People are suffering. When they walk into my office, my first instinct is usually to hand them a tissue. »
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