Edna, TX Divorce Law Firms & Lawyers

You have not stated which 'divorce papers' you mean. If the document you are thinking of is a Marital Settlement Agreement which he won't sign, a good way to move things off dead center is to ask the Court for a pre-trial conference, to determine the issues which are contested, and to schedule a trial. That usually gets things moving.

You don't have to sign a declaration of marriage to be married by common law in Texas. However, if she was already married to someone else, just cohabiting with you and holding herself out as married to you doesn't make her a bigamist. Likewise, cohabiting with the next guy doesn't make her a bigamist even if she's married to you by common law. You can't get married by common law if you're already married. Even if she married someone else formally after she split with you, you're very, very unlikely to get a prosecutor to charge her with bigamy. Your right to claim common law marriage will end two years after the split if you haven't filed for divorce by then.

You do in fact have certain rights and interests to the property even though you are not on the deed based on the minimal facts you provided. But at the very least, you are entitled to your very personal clothes, toiletries, and effects and I'm so sorry he has done that to you given your situation as it is! You should consult with an attorney as soon as possible to discuss immediate court intervention, possibly even some criminal measures if he is in fact harboring certain personal items that definitely would not be subject to property division.