Divorce

“Grounds” are legally acceptable reasons for a divorce.¹ In North Dakota, there are different grounds for fault and no-fault divorces.

The only ground for a no-fault divorce is irreconcilable differences. This means that the judge will look to see if there are good reasons for not continuing the marriage.²

The grounds for a fault-based divorce are:

• adultery - your spouse is unfaithful or cheats on you;
• extreme cruelty - one spouse causes serious bodily injury or mental suffering on the other;³
• willful neglect - when your spouse refuses to provide common life necessities;⁴
• abuse of alcohol or controlled substances - the use must be severe enough that it affects business or causes great mental suffering for an innocent spouse;⁵
• imprisonment in a state or federal prison for committing a felony. The spouse must be in prison at the time of the filing for divorce.
• desertion - any of these things count as desertion:
  • refusal to have intercourse for a year, if a medical condition doesn’t make refusal necessary;
  • refusal to live in same house as one’s spouse for a year, as long as the refusal is not because the spouse is violent or threatening violence; or
  • you agree to separate, and then one of you wants to reconcile and the other doesn’t.⁶

¹ N.D. Cent. Code § 14-05-03
² N.D. Cent. Code § 14-05-09.1
³ N.D. Cent. Code § 14-05-05
⁴ N.D. Cent. Code § 14-05-07
⁵ N.D. Cent. Code § 14-05-08
⁶ N.D. Cent. Code §§ 14-05-06; 14-05-09