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My husband and I have been separated for 2 years. I had to get a protective order because he was cheating and doing drugs and decided to come home late one night and get physical. He was told to leave that nite by the police and I got the po the next day. He came back once with the police to get his clothes and I didn't see him again until court. I didn't start a divorce because I didn't have the funds as I was raising our 2 kids without help. He doesn't have to pay me child support because he gets disability/SSI. When we went to court over the po a month later we agreed to every other weekend visitation for him with our kids. That lasted about 3 months. Then he dropped off the face of the earth. He and his gf moved and changed their phone #s within a week. So he hasn't seen them since Oct 06. When I realized he didn't want to have any contact with us I just accepted it and eventually moved out of TN. Then I was reading my hometown newspaper the other day and saw my name. It was under the heading of chancery court and said his name vs. my name with (divorce) right after it.I didn't even know he had filed! I thought you had to do a publication if you didn't know where your spouse was. He didn't do that. So I guess my questions are... What stage is my divorce in when it makes the paper like that? Am I already divorced then? And if he did the divorce already could he have put something in there about the kids (like custody, visitation)even though I have them and he has voluntarily gone without seeing them for a year and a half? There's no telling what he put in there and I know from expierience with him that he would say I was keeping the kids from him. He took me to court once for custodial interference when I was showing up at the drop-off piont and he wasn't.(I won that one because I have records of his visitation at the police station and daycare center which were our "swap the kids places") I have looked everywhere and the only thing I can find about this situation is how to do a publication divorce. I don't know what to do if anything. And nobody seems to know the answer to my questions so far. Hopefully you guys can help me? Thanks.

TN Divorce Q and A
[b]Can a divorce be granted if the defendant's whereabouts are unknown?[/b]

[i]If the filing spouse has made a 'good faith effort' to locate the missing spouse, and can swear under oath and penalty of perjury that they do not know the current whereabouts of the defendant and have made an effort to locate them, the missing defendant can be 'served' by publication of a notice in a local newspaper.[/i]

If you are divorced, the publication will say so. If it doesn't that it's probably notice to serve. If I were you I would call one of the attorneys in that county 1st thing Monday at least be absolutely certain he can't change the custody/visitation terms of the divorce. If he can't, you've got yourself a free divorce and you can probably get a copy for your records later when you need it.

If he can change the custody/visitation, then you're going to want to respond to the court asap and stop it. Just be prepared with facts to prove his initial abandonment and/or any relatives and friends he could have easily found your whereabouts. In that case, you're going to have to be further prepared to set a new visitation schedule, share transportation, etc.

You might even want to try for child support again. Frankly, I'm surprised he doesn't have to pay you anything because he's on disability/SSI. Maybe the court cannot garnish a certain type of disability check, but they can still order minimum support from him to be paid $25 a week even.

I hope you'll return and let us know how it works out.

The thing in the paper wasn't a publication to try to serve me. I think I wasn't clear on this. It was in the paper in the same section with reality transfers and marriage licences and was just one line with other "blank vs. blank" underneath it. And then there were listingd for criminal court and civil court underneath kind of like a docket? This is what it looked like.

Chancery Court
Jon Doe vs. Jane Doe (divorce)
Dan Smith vs. Jean Smith(divorce)

It wasn't in the classifieds where they put the publication for service. I've seen those before and I haven't seen one with my name on it. So thats why I'm confused. Sorry about that!

Sa25,
It sounds to me like he just filed. In TN there is a 90 day waiting period for divorce with children. You need to call the court house in the county that he filed in. Ask the court clerk questions. They'll point you in the right direction. You are required to have a TN Parenting Plan completed and attend a parenting class plus a Marital Dissolution Agreement (MDA) which stipulates the separation of financial assets, if any.

You are required to use the TN Child Support Income Shares Worksheet for the calculation of child support. I honestly don't believe the fact that he's on disability makes a any difference whatsoever. It's his gross income, your gross income and the number of days each parent has the kids. Download it to your computer and plug in the numbers. It all comes down to percentages. If you have the children 100% of the time then you get 100% of the calculated cost to raise them. The court doesn't give a rip where the income is coming from. It's all about the best interest of the kids.

All these documents can be found on the web. Good Luck!