The Documents

• Original Petition for Divorce – this describes the events surrounding your marriage and proposed divorce, and how you plan to divide everything up.
• Agreement of Conservatorship and Support (Only if Children are Involved) – this describes how you plan to divide custody of the child as well as how you propose to pay child support.
• Marital-Property Agreement – this describes how you will divide everything up from your finances (assets and debt) to your physical property (such as furniture, cars, estates, etc).
• Statement on ADR – this is a normal document that must accompany your petition that says you will settle everything at the lowest level possible.
• Waiver of Service (optional) – if you don’t want your spouse being served papers to appear in court then you must file this. Only use this if you know your spouse will be attending the court date. More than likely your spouse will be attending of their own free will right? There can be no disagreement!
• Counselling Certificate (Only if children are involved) - A class that you have to attend and receive a certificate from. Bring this certificate with you when appearing for your final hearing.
• Divorce Decree – this is the document that will become your final divorce decree when the judge signs it. There is also a paragraph that is used for changing the female’s name back to her maiden name if she wants. If that is what she wants, then this is the time to do it. If not, it can cost over $600 if it’s done at a later time. With a divorce it can be done for no extra fee.

The examples that the law library will give you (and what I will try to provide at a later time) are just that – examples. They provide for every possible scenario that could be included in a divorce. Being that way, the examples will be very thick, over a 100 pages. You have to pick and choose what applies to you, and type that portion of it up yourself. It is all typed up in an outline format. If it applies to you then you type that entire portion, including the numbers of the outline. For example, your particular Petition may jump from a paragraph 1.A.2 to a 7.B.1. If nothing in between applies to your divorce, you leave it out. It really is that easy.

Everything that is in the decree must be in there if it applies to you. For example, when it comes to the custody of the child, what is in the example is the law in Texas. It might be different than what you both proposed in the Original Petition Exhibit, but it has to be in there. Here is why: you both can make all the arrangements that you want over who gets who and when. As long as you two both agree, there won’t be a problem. It’s when one parent starts to want something the other parent doesn’t when it comes to custody. That’s when the part in your decree that pertains to custody of the child takes effect. If you have several bank accounts, they have to be in there. If you have credit cards, they have to be in there.