Grounds for Divorce in Georgia

“Grounds for divorce” are the legal reasons for a divorce. Most states, including Georgia, permit no fault divorces. A “no fault” divorce is simply a divorce for which it is not necessary to prove that there was any fault or wrongdoing by either spouse.

To obtain a divorce on no fault grounds, one spouse must establish that he or she refuses to live with the other spouse and that there is no hope of reconciliation. It is not necessary that both spouses agree that the marriage is irretrievably broken.

Georgia also has twelve possible fault grounds under which spouses can obtain a divorce. They are:

• • Intermarriage by persons within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity or affinity
• • Mental incapacity
• • Impotency
• • Marriage by force, menace, duress, or fraud
• • Pregnancy of the wife by a man other than the husband, at the time of the marriage, unknown to the husband
• • Adultery
• • Willful and continued desertion by either of the parties for the term of one year
• • Conviction of either party for an offense involving moral turpitude, under which the spouse is sentenced to imprisonment in a penal institution for a term of at least two years
• • Habitual intoxication
• • Cruel and inhuman treatment
• • Incurable mental illness
• • Habitual drug addiction