If your husband or wife walked out and left you to raise the kids alone, you are likely scared, angry, and unsure what comes next. You may not know how to pay the bills, keep the house, or what rights you have as a parent. If this has happened to you, know that the law of New Jersey gives you ways to protect your children, your money, and your home.

Why Do Spouses Leave Without Warning?

Each situation is unique, but most people do not walk away from their family for no reason. Often something big is happening inside them. A spouse may be dealing with untreated mental illness, deep depression, suicidal ideation, substance addiction, gambling problems, or a combination of the above.

In rare cases, a person under extreme stress can enter a mental state doctors call dissociative fugue, where the person suddenly travels away from home and loses track of who they are or why they left.

Other spouses leave because they feel crushed by money problems, job loss, or conflict, and they do not know how to face their problems. Knowing why your spouse left may not make the pain smaller, but it can help you plan your next steps with a clearer head.

What Steps Should I Take After My Spouse Leaves?

If your spouse left you and your children, these steps can help protect you and your family:

• Write down the date your spouse left, along with any notes or messages they sent. If they have a phone, try to contact them and document your efforts. A family court may want this information later.
• File a missing persons report with the police and provide them with copies of the notes, messages, and photographs of the missing person.
• Seek a custody order in Family Court. Even without filing for divorce, New Jersey lets you open a custody-only case so a judge can put your custody and parenting time rights in a signed Order.
• File for child support payments with the State, to build a record of amounts due.
• Protect the money you share, but avoid touching accounts that are only in your spouse’s name unless you have court permission.
• If you have joint investment or bank accounts, remove all but a token amount and transfer the remaining balance to accounts in your name only. This is an especially wise choice if your spouse abuses substances, gambles, or has a mental illness, because your resources could be quickly drained. After all, they’re not acting or thinking rationally. You should also cancel joint credit cards to avoid debt that could interfere with your ability to support your family. If your spouse finds themselves without access to money, they may be more likely to contact you, so you may learn where they are, how they are doing, their state of mind, and whether they want to return.
• Don’t spend money on yourself above and beyond what you would if your spouse remained. Document your spending to show you’re reasonably supporting yourself and your kids to prevent a future claim by your spouse that you took and wasted their money.
• Keep the mortgage, rent, and bills current if you can.
• Keep your children’s daily routines as steady as possible. School, meals, and bedtimes should stay normal. Your children may also need professional counseling to help them cope with the situation

Maintain time and energy for yourself. You have been dropped into an emotional and financial tornado not of your choosing. Your ability to maintain your composure and think straight is key to getting through this.

How Do I Start Legal Proceedings Against Someone I Can’t Find?

“Service of process” is a foundation of the civil legal system. It means that, normally, the person being sued (the adverse party) must get a copy of the legal action before the case can proceed, so they can defend themselves. For family law matters, there’s an exception (Rule 5-4-4(c)) in a situation like this. It states the following:

• When the adverse party cannot be located, you must provide the last known home address and show, through your diligent inquiry, that no current address is known for them.
• When it appears to the court that the adverse party cannot be located, the court may hear the matter.
• Such diligent inquiry efforts should include, as appropriate, inquiries to the person’s relatives, their last known employers, the US Postal Service, the NJ Motor Vehicle Commission or the motor vehicle agency of the state where the person was last known to live, and the US Department of Defense. These efforts must be stated in an affidavit or certification of diligent inquiry and submitted to the court.
• If this is established, the judge should order service by publication, which is a legal notice in a newspaper in the county where your home is located.
• If there’s no response within 35 days, a judge may grant you the relief you seek without any input from your spouse

If you’re seeking child support payments from your spouse, the State of New Jersey has access to information that you do not, including Social Security and vehicle registration data. They may find your spouse if other efforts have failed.

If your spouse is defaulted because they haven’t responded to service by publication and later shows back up, s/he may ask a judge to reopen the case, which could result in the matter being re-litigated.

How Do New Jersey Child Custody Laws Work?

New Jersey courts decide custody based on the best interests of the child, not what a parent wants. There are many considerations for a judge making this decision, including the stability of the home environment and the parent’s fitness.

A parent is not seen as unfit just because they have a mental illness. Don’t expect your spouse to lose their custody rights unless their conduct has a substantial adverse effect on your children (which may or may not be the case).

If you’re showing a good-faith but unsuccessful effort to find and communicate with your spouse, and they’ve been missing for a substantial period of time, a judge may award you sole legal and physical custody.

But if your spouse returns and seeks a return of their custody rights, you can contest that. Depending on the evidence and your children’s best interests, you may need to share custody again, or your spouse may just be awarded visitation rights. Only in an extreme case will a parent lose all parental rights.

How Do New Jersey Child Support Laws Work?

If the other parent has left you with your children, they should pay you child support. These payments help you care for them. They’re not for your personal benefit. Parents have a moral and legal obligation to support their children financially.

This ongoing financial contribution from your spouse (the non-custodial parent) is to help you (the custodial parent) pay for the financial and medical support (including health insurance) your children need.

This support program is a partnership among federal, state, and local governments to help children and their custodial parents. You can start the process by filling out an online application.

There are limits. If your spouse has serious substance abuse and/or psychological challenges and isn’t working, even if they’re found, and they have no income or access to funds, then you won’t be getting any payments from them. If they’re working, but “under the table” and paid with cash, it may be very difficult to get any support from them.

However, creating this obligation is a good idea, because if they turn their life around and start earning a legitimate income, then they will need to start paying past and current child support or face serious legal  consequences.

How Do New Jersey Divorce Laws Work?

You may no longer want to remain married to a spouse who abandoned the family. There are several legal grounds you can use to seek a divorce, which will legally end your marriage.

There are “fault” and “no-fault” grounds (or legally recognized reasons) to get a divorce. One of the “fault” grounds is desertion, which requires a showing of the following:

• Cessation of cohabitation: The parties stopped living together as spouses
• Willfulness: The departure was intentional, not forced by circumstance, including a psychiatric condition or substance addiction. If your spouse vanishes without a trace, for any known reason, a judge may not see it as willful because your spouse may have been kidnapped or murdered
• Lack of consent or justification: You didn’t agree to the separation, and your conduct doesn’t legally justify it
• Continuity for 12 or more months: Your spouse’s absence must continue without interruption for at least a full year up to the complaint filing

The most common ground cited in New Jersey divorces is the “no-fault” ground of irreconcilable differences. In such a case, there would be service by publication, and you would need to establish the following:

• You need not be specific by stating a fault or incident. The differences may be your spouse’s refusal to live with their family
• Those differences caused the marriage to break down
• That breakdown has persisted for at least six months at the time of filing (not 12 months if you’re alleging desertion)
• There’s no reasonable prospect or possibility of reconciliation

Under these circumstances, a judge might appoint a guardian for your spouse to determine what’s in their best interests and submit a report to the judge.

Has Your Spouse Left You? Contact Kingston Law Group for Guidance and Help.

For help protecting your children, money, and home after your spouse has left, call us at 609-683-7400 to arrange a near-term, reduced-fee initial consultation. We will listen to your facts, discuss the law, and advise you of your options. We accept credit cards and offer appointments from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday. Contact us today. You will be glad you did!