Annulment Benefits, Advantages, and Process

An annulment is different from a divorce or dissolution. An annulment is a declaration that a marriage was never legally valid. In short, while a divorce or dissolution declares the end of a legal marriage, a marriage that was annulled was never legal in the first place for whatever reason.

Religious Annulment

One of the biggest annulment advantages is the lack of harm to a person's religious standing. Some religions frown upon divorce and will shun a divorced person. However, annulments are not associated with the same stigma as divorce.

Annulment side effects, however are not as pleasant. The protections offered to a spouse leaving a valid marriage through divorce might not be available to a marriage ending through annulment.

Annulment Process

Getting an annulment is not based on a time limit, as commonly believed, but is usually associated with shorter marriages where alimony or spousal support might not be appropriate and the property division might not be as favorable as it would be in a dissolution/divorce.

This is not to say that benefits are never available as state laws vary and in a longer marriage, one spouse would have come to depend upon a shared lifestyle with the other spouse and may be entitled to spousal support.

Dissolution benefits, however, are more well-known and more likely to be pursued by the average person.

Annulment child custody is an unlikely determination since courts are reluctant to grant annulments once there are children in the marriage. However, if one gets an annulment those decisions would need to be made just like they would be if the couple were getting a divorce.