Can You Be Divorced (or Married) Without Knowing It?

A fascinating news story came up a few weeks ago: a woman in New York is filing a suit against her husband for having secretly divorced her four months after their marriage…which was 20 years ago…and she claims she had no idea that they weren’t legally married that whole time. She found out, she says, because of tax paperwork that should have had both spouses’ names on it and didn’t. So what in the heck is going on here? Can you actually get divorced without knowing it?

Mercifully the answer is ‘not anymore.’

It was once the case that divorces in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and a few further-flung countries all offered divorces that were recognized by the United States and could be performed in as little as 24 hours — without either spouse present. This meant that all you had to do was get your spouse to sign something (or forge their signature) and you could get a valid divorce decree mailed to you within a couple of weeks.

There are still dozens of websites insisting that this is possible, and requesting thousands of dollars for the service — but they are currently 100% scams. There are no countries left on Earth that offer divorces in absentia; at least none that are recognized by any State in the Union. Mexico changed their law due to social pressure, and the Dominican Republic changed theirs due to a change in U.S. tax laws.

The news story is accurate insofar as the divorce occurred 20 years ago and was thus legal, and New York does not recognize common-law marriages, so the two decades the two spent as a couple does not mean they are married in any sense. But the same thing couldn’t happen today.

OK, So What About Getting Married?
This is a little weirder. It is possible to get what’s called a ‘proxy marriage’ or ‘marriage by proxy’, where only one spouse is present for the ceremony and the other spouse gives a third party the right to stand in for them. This process is only legal in four states, and other states are not obligated to recognize a proxy marriage (but most do.) In theory, if you somehow managed to acquire someone’s signature on several forms, you could travel to and live in one of those four states (or, in Montana, you can apply for a proxy marriage without residency if you are a member of the U.S. Armed Forces), and thus get married to someone without their knowledge.

This is, however, a useless endeavor, because literally any court in the country will dissolve such a marriage the moment they hear the story.

Interestingly, Montana also allows a double-proxy marriage in which neither party must attend, but only if both parties are in the Armed Forces. Similarly, a few of the states of Paraguay will perform double-proxy marriages for anyone, and the US will recognize those marriages by default…but again, any individual state may decide to unrecognize such a marriage at any time.

So realistically, while such a shenanigan is conceivable, it’s definitely not worth the time and effort, because the moment you try to do something with the ‘fact’ of your marriage, that fact is almost certain to vanish under you.