Saving No-Fault Divorce

Let’s talk about no-fault divorce and why the current political push to eliminate it is downright dangerous—especially for women.

No-fault divorce allows people to end their marriage on the grounds of “irreconcilable differences,” without needing to prove someone did something wrong. You can just say, “This isn’t working anymore,” and that’s enough. Before these laws, people had to prove their spouse was guilty of wrongdoing, like infidelity or abuse, in order to get a divorce, which meant airing your dirty laundry in court, often at great financial and emotional cost. For many women, who historically have had fewer financial resources and less power in marriages, this made leaving a bad marriage nearly impossible.

No-fault divorce was first introduced in the United States in 1969, when California passed the landmark legislation signed by Governor Ronald Reagan. (If you’re surprised by this, he later said it was the biggest mistake of his political career.) Other states followed suit, and by the 1980s, all 50 had some version of no-fault divorce laws on the books.

Here’s a reality check: today, around 70 percent of divorces are initiated by women, many of whom are in emotionally unhealthy relationships, sometimes with spouses who exert coercive control—a form of emotional abuse where one partner controls, manipulates, and isolates the other. No-fault divorce allows women in these situations to get out without needing to prove their emotional abuse in court, which is extremely difficult because there are no visible scars and abusers are often experts at covering their tracks. And it means they can avoid lengthy legal battles with an abuser who might use the court system as a way to continue controlling them.

Here’s the problem: recently, some Republican lawmakers have been pushing to eliminate no-fault divorce. Their argument? They say it makes divorce too easy and weakens the “sanctity of marriage.” They believe that if people had to prove fault, fewer couples would divorce and families would stay together. But this argument misses the point entirely. Forcing people to prove their spouse is at fault doesn’t fix broken marriages. It traps people in marriages that are already broken, unhappy, or even unsafe.

And here’s the kicker: no-fault divorce is about more than just making it easier to leave abusive marriages. It’s about giving grown-ups the right to decide if they want to stay married at all. It’s about acknowledging that sometimes there’s no obvious wrongdoing, but two people simply don’t want to be together. They shouldn’t have to jump through legal hoops or prove a spouse wronged them in order to leave a relationship that isn’t working for them.

At the end of the day, the decision to end a marriage is a deeply personal one, and we all deserve the right to make conscientious, reasonable decisions about our own lives—whether that’s choosing to stay married or choosing to move on.