How to Divorce a Spouse you cannot locate

If you want to divorce and are not able to locate your spouse, it is not completely hopeless to get a divorce. There are challenges involved that are different than when you have an address for a spouse. In order to divorce your spouse without an address or location, you will need to first make attempts to locate your spouse. Your attempts need to be documented. Some ideas would be to send mail to their last known address and save the envelope showing that it was not deliverable and that there is no forwarding address. You may also want to contact relatives of your spouse and keep copies of letters or calls you have made to attempt to locate them. You may also want to get statements from relatives or prior coworkers indicating that they have no idea where your spouse is located. You may even want to hire a professional to try to locate them through their date of birth or social security number. You may want to contact the Post Office and request freedom of information for a forwarding address. If, after you have exhausted all attempts to find your spouse and you still have no success, you can then petition the court to serve them the divorce by publication. You should be prepared for the costs of publication. Newspapers charge based on the number of words, and it is not unreasonable to expect that this cost will exceed $ 1000, even if you have no assets to divide which is the case in most divorces that involve a missing spouse.