What Are the Grounds for Divorce?
The two most common grounds for divorce in Rhode Island are “Irreconcilable Differences” and “Living Separate and Apart for the Space of Three Years”. The other, older, grounds for divorce are as follows:
(1) Impotency;
(2) Adultery;
(3) Extreme cruelty;
(4) Willful desertion for five (5) years of either of the parties, or for willful desertion for a shorter period of time in the discretion of the court;
(5) Continued drunkenness;
(6) The habitual, excessive, and intemperate use of opium, morphine, or chloral;
(7) Neglect and refusal, for the period of at least one year next before the filing of the petition, on the part of the husband to provide necessaries for the subsistence of his wife, the husband being of sufficient ability; and
(8) Any other gross misbehavior and wickedness, in either of the parties, repugnant to and in violation of the marriage covenant.
Don P. Moyer, 401 461-7800, Moyer Divorce Law
