By Michael H. Gora
Question: I was married to my real husband Earl for 45 years. He had worked for the Canadian Railroad Corporation his whole life. Earl was a wonderful man, most all of the time, and a great father for our girls, who still live in Montreal. He finally retired. He had earned a pension, which continued to pay me his full salary after his death. The catch was that the pension would stop if I remarried. As the saying goes, “there is no fool like an old fool.” A friend of mine in Palm Aire fixed me up with a very nice man, who had been married for forty years and then divorced. We dated for two years. We became “very friendly.” Then we got married, ceremony, friends and all. It seemed like as soon as we got married he changed. He was no longer so sociable, friendly to me or loving.
Michael H. Gora
Now he does nothing but go to the Seminole Casino off Sample Road to play poker, or sit around and drink beer and watch the big screen TV his son and daughter bought him for his 80th birthday. Before we married, he could not keep his hands off me, now we don’t even sleep in the same room. I cook and clean for him. I’d have been better off if I would have rented a room from him, or moved in as a paid housekeeper. After six months of marriage, I’m thinking divorce. Yesterday he mentioned divorce. From what I have read in your column, I know that we have not been married long enough to get alimony. Is there any way for me to get my Canadian Railroad Pension back, so I would have money to live on?
Answer: Maybe. Call the office of the administrator of the Canadian Railroad pension and ask whether an annulment of the marriage would restore your pension payments. Marriages can be declared void, if either of you failed to be lawfully divorced from a prior spouse. So check the court records where he lived at the time of his claimed divorce.
Additionally your marriage can be annulled based on the refusal of one of the marriage partners to consummate the marriage (have sex with the other marriage partner) after the marriage.
In order to prove this ground for annulment you would probably need the corroboration of your husband; that is he would also have to testify that there had been no sex after marriage.
Your attorney, in his or her opening statement, can explain to the judge why the annulment is important to you economically, and the basis of your request for an annulment, rather than a divorce.
Whether the judge actually believed your testimony or not, an annulment would probably be granted, with a wink and a nod, as an easy and practical way to solve your financial problem. If that works out you might consider just saying, “Let’s just play bridge.” the next time your friends try to fix you up.
Michael H. Gora has been certified by the Board of Legal Specialization of the Florida Bar as a specialist in family and matrimonial law and is a partner with Shapiro Blasi Wasserman & Gora P.A. in Boca Raton. Mr. Gora can be reached a mhgora@sbwlawfirm.com.