Divorce when you can't find the spouse

[alpacasoup]

This is my first time posting here, so please bear with me. My fiance and I are planning to get married in June. We live in DE, the wedding will be in PA. Recently we found out that his divorce to his first wife did not go through. They lived in AZ when they were married. After being seperated awhile, he had tracked her down to FL and sent her divorce papers, and thought that took care of it. But then we found out they were still married, because she'd sent the papers back to the AZ court without signing any of them!

My fiance isn't sure where she lives now, and DE appears to have a divorce option for if you can't locate the spouse. Something about running an ad in a newspaper back in their hometown. Has anyone had experience with this or know how long it takes to process a divorce under those circumstances? Also, what happens if she somehow sees the ad and answers it, and still refuses to sign any divorce papers? Can she force him to stay married to him? They were married in '91, and seperated for over a year before he filed for divorce in '94. I'm just worried that we wont be able to get this resolved in time for our wedding. Any advice would be SOO appreciated. Thanks!

 

[dorenephilpot]

Notice by publication will provide him with a mechanism to divorce her without her permission or signature.

It's designed for folks who cannot find their soon to be ex.

If she doesn't show up at the hearing after the notices appeared, then the court will divorce them without her being there or even knowing about it.

I would definitely get on the stick, though.

If you let this go on too long, you're going to get close to the June wedding date, and who needs that stress?