Wall, NJ Divorce Law Firms & Lawyers

Your husband and you are married. Let those words sink in. Your husband is not paying for your car. Again, since you and he are married, marital monies are paying for your car along with a host of other expenses and your husband does not have the right to take your car away from you as if "he pays for it". What is equally relevant is that you and he have been together for 32 years and not simply 3 years and there is a published New Jersey family law appellate court decision called McGee vs Mcgee, written by then-Judge Long ( who later moved up to the NJ Supreme Court), where she reversed a lower court decision because the trial judge failed to consider the period of time that the parties lived together before they were married in trying to "equitably" address the issued then before the court.  After McGee was decided, our state legislature changed the law by requiring people who lived together to put in place a writing as to the terms of their relationship so as to reduce the ability of one party to later file a "palimony" lawsuit, alleging that they lived together with specific promises of support and asset accumulation. At that point, most family part lawyers thought that cohabitation settings could not give rise to future claims, and then the NJ Supreme Court at the end of 2016 rendered a decision where the parties lived together for about 8 years and then married and remained married for about 1 1/2 years and as they were getting divorced, husband got a tremendous bonus ( over a million dollars) based on his work efforts over the prior 10 year period of time on a project. The trial judge said he could not consider the period of time that they lived together before their marriage in the division of that bonus in the divorce. The NJ Supreme Court disagreed and said that he received that bonus as a result of their joint marital type sacrifices together and therefore the lower court was required to reexamine it and provide the wife with her "proper" share of that million-dollar bonus to account for the entire time that they were together - which means that if you and your husband have lived together for the past 32 years as if you and he were a married couple, you may have significantly greater rights to the assets acquired during that period of time than you think. Translated, you need to meet with a family law specialist, knowledgeable on the case law addressing the "tacking" claims that may be available to you ( including any retirement assets he may have as well).  

You are still required to attempt actual service of process (and international service is much more complex than locally), but if there is no response, the entire case can be resolved by default.