There is no question that a court will not finalize your divorce unless you or your lawyer have properly served your spouse with papers.
But, in an uncontested divorce, your spouse is not going to be served in the traditional way that you understand service of process, where a guy walks to the door and hands papers to your spouse and announces “you’ve been served.”
Rather, your spouse is going to waive service by signing and notarizing a waiver, or by notarizing his final decree (which acts as a waiver by general appearance).
It is normal to file the divorce, and wonder “when is my spouse going to hear about this”. But, for an agreed divorce, you are the one that needs to be telling your spouse that the divorce has started and working with him/her to ensure that you are on the same page about your divorce settlement agreements.
To ensure that we do not ruffle unnecessary feathers, so to speak, we will not be sending your spouse papers directly from our Firm, unless you request that we do. Most often, you will simply forward your decree to your spouse via email. We have found this to be the most gentle, least confrontation way to approach things.
