Annulments Explained: How They Differ From Divorce and Legal Separation

Not every marriage ends in a divorce—and not every separation means the same thing.

This episode of Modern Family Matters explores the significant differences between annulments, divorces, and legal separations—three distinct ways marriages can be dissolved. 

Host Steve Altishin and Founding Attorney Lewis Landerholm explain that annulments are increasingly rare in modern law because they require proving specific grounds (such as fraud, bigamy, or incest), whereas no-fault divorces are available in all states without proving wrongdoing. 

While annulments theoretically erase a marriage as if it never happened, the practical and financial burden of proving grounds makes them impractical for most people. The discussion clarifies that children's legal status, custody, and support remain unaffected regardless of which dissolution method is chosen, and that legal separations maintain marital status while dividing assets—a distinction that can create complications if parties later reconcile or decide to divorce.

If you would like to speak with one of our attorneys, please call our office at (503) 227-0200, or visit our website at https://www.pacificcascadelegal.com.

Disclaimer: Nothing in this communication is intended to provide legal advice nor does it constitute a client-attorney relationship, therefore you should not interpret the contents as such.

Transcript

Steve Altishin: Hi, everyone. Welcome. I'm Steve Altishin, Director of Client Partnerships with Pacific Cascade Legal. And I'm here with our Founding Attorney, Lewis Landerholm, to talk about annulments and how they differ from a divorce or legal separation. Lewis, how are you doing today?

Lewis Landerholm: I'm doing well. How are you?

Steve Altishin: I'm doing well. This one's kind of interesting because we get a lot of calls and questions about annulment, even though it's not, I mean, it's pretty rare. So we're going to kind of talk about that and kind of how a difference between the other ways families can split up. So let's just start with the basic question, what is an annulment?

Lewis Landerholm: Yeah, basically an annulment annuls the marriage instead of dissolves the marriage. So basically it acts like the marriage never happened. And so it goes back and puts the parties in a position like we were never married. But to your point, it's very, in today's world, very hard to get an annulment. Annulments were sort of more of the history of annulments. I don't know if as well as I'm sure some people, but the religious component of the church, annulling marriages so that people could either continue in, you know, get remarried, continue in the church, all of these things. It was sort of a, that component came into play. In today's world, legally, an annulment is basically doing the same thing where the marriage never really happened. But you have to actually prove things in order to be able to get an annulment. And frankly, in most cases, it's not worth going down that path and spending the time and the money to go in front of a judge and actually prove why you should get an annulment because every state is a no-fault state. And so in a divorce, we don't have to prove why you should get a divorce. So that's generally why annulments don't really occur very often. So that's sort of the background of what an annulment is.

Steve Altishin: Funny, you were talking about the church because, you know, going for Catholic, it was always an annulment by the Pope was the Catholic divorce. Yeah. And for a long time, people thought, well, I have to get it legally in my state to make it valid with the church. But that was never actually the case. And so a lot of people kind of talked about that. And I like what you just said is there's a no-fault divorce. All of them are no-fault divorces. But annulments aren't no-fault. There's a fault that has to be involved. There are grounds, I believe, like you can't marry somebody. Well, let me put it this way. I think you can get an annulment if you marry your sister or somebody very close to you or have like a dozen wives or husbands.

Lewis Landerholm: Yeah, there are. Every state's a little bit different, too. So you'd have to look at the state law. But yeah, there are specific reasons for that annulment sometimes. And this is the one that's never fun to tell somebody that they have to go through it. But if they're saying they were married previously and thought they were divorced, but they weren't actually divorced and so then got remarried, then you could legally annul annulment. your second marriage because it's technically void by operation of law. So you could annul that second marriage. The most common one that people think about like trying to annul where it's not some technical, I mean, obviously you've got the cousins and sisters, that's a much more sort of fringe area of divorce annulment law. But the common one is I didn't know who this person was, so therefore I want to get an annulment. Fraud is what people sort of are thinking of and fraud is a reason for an annulment but fraud is very very like it's applied very narrowly it has to be extreme fraudulent behavior not oh i thought i knew who this person was and i don't know who they are that's going to be moved to a divorce

Steve Altishin: do you have to do something i mean like fraud let's say you learn about the fraud and then you you know you stay married 20 years At some point, will that make you not able to get an annulment?

Lewis Landerholm: Yeah, 20 years. I mean, time is a huge factor in annulment. It has to be within months. You're talking about the sort of, I went to Vegas, I got married, I want to annul it. I mean, in a very short timeline, not we were together for 20 years and I discovered some fraudulent behavior. 20 years earlier, it's going to be a divorce because essentially you're trying to avoid having to divide assets and that sort of thing. So it's very uncommon whether it happens. I'm sure there are cases along the way that there are facts that have risen to trying to advance those type of claims. But in 99.9% of cases, the answer is going to be you need to get divorced and an annulment is not something that makes sense to spend the extra money and the time to go in front of a judge to explain why you should be able to get an annulment.

Steve Altishin: Right. And just the final one that I, you know, you always hear is someone's underage, 14 year old, but even they, I mean, don't they even have to, I mean, they can't wait until they're 40.

Lewis Landerholm: I mean, it depends. Again, state law is very specific on that. And it's, It always changes at times. And so that would be a factual analysis to determine if what that looks like. And so there's not really a blanket answer on situations like that. And that's where the answer is divorce is always available. The question is, is it possible to get an annulment? And that's really something that we have to consider. you know, look at and compare it to the statute to see what's available for an annulment.

Steve Altishin: So let's say somebody is thinking that I want to do an annulment. How does an annulment work and what are the effects of an annulment on things like child legitimacy? Is it still really your child or custody or support? I mean, are those things that can be different than a legal separation or divorce?

Lewis Landerholm: So they're two separate things, like really the annulment versus divorce or legal separation really refers to the asset components because the kid components aren't affected by that. We can still do custody, parenting time, child support with unmarried parents as well. So it doesn't have an effect on being able to deal with kid issues. So that part would be a separate case. So If you were married and you could get an annulment and you had kids, you could get the marriage annulment, but then you would still do a custody parenting type case. So none of that is affected. The things that are affected are the division of assets. and support. In Oregon and Washington, we have unregistered domestic partnership law in Oregon. So even if you were unmarried, you can still divide some assets. Washington has CIRs, Committed Intimate Relationships, where it's the same idea. They're handled just a little bit differently, but it's that same situation where people have been together for a long time, They have co-owned property and we want to divide property. So there's ways to kind of deal with all of those things, regardless of its annulment or divorce anyway. And then legal separation is even a little bit different because you're dividing your assets, you're dealing with custody issues, but you're still legally married to the person until you file for divorce.

Steve Altishin: The legal separation is different, isn't it, than from two people who are never married and basically separate. because there's no real spouse.

Lewis Landerholm: Right. Yeah. It's just, we're not dividing. That goes back to the analysis on if there's intent of the parties to, you know, pool resources for a joint benefit. If you're unmarried, then we can deal with assets that way. Legal separation, you're married and people are, the misconception about legal separation is people assume that means that you're just kind of separating and and you come up with a kind of a loose agreement. A legal separation is one that we are actually going through the same process as a divorce. We're dividing property. We're awarding spouse support. We're doing all of those things. So it's the same exact process. It just means that you are legally married after the proceeding is finalized.

Steve Altishin: Okay, dumb question. Let's say you get a legal separation. 

Lewis Landerholm: Yeah.

Steve Altishin: Five years later, you, I'll guess this is part A and part B. Can you unseparate? Can you go in and modify it to go away?

Lewis Landerholm: Yeah. So that's the difference with legal separation is that it can go back to just, it kind of goes away or it, The alternative is that if you need to get divorced, you can basically then file for divorce at that point. In Oregon, you can convert a legal separation to a divorce within two years. After two years, then you have to file for divorce.

Steve Altishin: Let's say you're going to do that.

Lewis Landerholm: Yeah.

Steve Altishin: But you've already had a separation of assets. Can you go in and file for a divorce and say, none of that matters, I want it to be rearranged from the start? Or are you kind of going in with that and it's more like a modification, if anything?

Lewis Landerholm: It depends. It depends on the facts. So most of the time that it's going to be that the divorce then is very similar to the legal separation, but it doesn't have to be. And this is where it gets tricky, whether you choose to go down legal separation or not, because do you really wanna go through the process twice? So inevitably, people get legally separated, they continue to live together, they create more like marital assets, and that's where the divorce can be different than the legal separation. So it can make you do it And people don't always understand that. And so it is important to just kind of talk through if that makes sense.

Steve Altishin: Yeah, it sort of goes back to the, unless I'm misreading it, to the separate property and marital property. So if you separate with a legal separation and then come back and want to do something, that step that you got, it sounds like it's sort of treated like separate property.

Lewis Landerholm: Again, it's factual. It's so hard to generalize this stuff because how parties acted, what their intent was, all of these things play into it. And so the real answer is that the classic attorney answer that people hate is it really depends. We really have to look at the facts and analyze it to determine what's going to happen.

Steve Altishin: That's the smart answer because – What they're getting from their friends are, this is what happens. 

Lewis Landerholm: Yeah.

Steve Altishin: And understanding that it is all aspects of family law have nooks and crannies and turns and switches and things. You may think this is it, but it isn't it.

Lewis Landerholm: Yeah, and that's really the easy ones are, I want to get a divorce, right? That's the easy one. Either side of legal separation or annulment or unregistered domestic partnership law Those are the ones where, OK, we have to think through. We have to look at the facts. We have to understand pros and cons. And so that anything that sort of differs from a sort of traditional divorce, we have to think through and just help our clients just understand if that's the route they want to go down.

Steve Altishin: I mean, there's feels like. there are pitfalls to annulments, especially, but even legal separations, because it just, you got to be aware of what can happen in the future.

Lewis Landerholm: Yeah. And you really want to go through the process twice. I mean, it can happen and it happens and it's unlimited separation, but people then get back together and everything changes. So then you are, you know, getting essentially divorced a second time and that's a lot of stress and money and emotional energy that goes into all of that. So it's really important to think through it before embarking down any of those paths.

Steve Altishin: Yeah. But at least in a legal separation and in an annulment, the one thing I believe, tell me if I'm wrong, is that suddenly your children are no longer legally your children. They still are.

Lewis Landerholm: Correct. So the legal paternity or legal parental rights. So none of it affects the legality of parental rights. That's driven by the birth certificate and creating a legal paternity or an adoption or all of that's where the legal rights for parenthood come from. And so these cases don't impact that regardless unless there's a true change of legal

Steve Altishin: parenthood. Right. Well, thank you. This was really helpful. The sort of stuff out on the internet and just between people about annulments, legal separations, and divorces don't have any nuance. There's a nuance to it. I know of one couple that had a legal separation, I don't know, 40 years ago. They're fine. For them, it worked.

Lewis Landerholm: Yeah. I mean, some people do stay legally separated forever if there's a reason for them to do that, and it works perfectly fine. When people go into it and they don't know the pros and cons and just, you know, elect legal separation without really understanding what that means, that's where issues down the road can come up.

Steve Altishin: Yeah, because that's a good question. You know, I don't know how IRS feels about it. Are you really a divorce? Because they're pretty strict about divorce.

Lewis Landerholm: Yeah, from my, from, I mean, we have asked that question to a tax attorney and obviously I'm not a tax attorney, so I can't give, full blanket advice, but you know, the advice that we did get from a tax attorney is that if you are legally separated, you can still file jointly. But again, that can always change. So, you know, this is not tax advice.

Steve Altishin: No, not at all. It's just, it's just another thing to be aware of.

Lewis Landerholm: Yes. A hundred percent.

Steve Altishin: I love it. All right. We have gone through that. And I think we, I may be overstepping my bounds, but the need for annulment, it seems like, isn't as strong as it maybe was 30, 40, 50 years

Lewis Landerholm: ago. Yeah, agreed. Yeah, it's just not as common as it once was. And even the societal reasons for annulment just don't exist nearly as much anymore as the stigma of divorce has gone down. So it's just less common today than it was at that time. Yeah.

Steve Altishin: All right. Well, thank you, Lewis, for sitting down and talk to us about annulments, how they differ from legal separations, how they differ from divorces, how divorces differ from legal separations, because it's just a great thing to know that there are these differences and you really need to talk to an attorney about them. So thank you for coming in today and just talking about that.

Lewis Landerholm: Yeah, you're welcome.

Steve Altishin: Everyone, thank you also for joining us today. And if anyone has further questions, again, please feel free to contact our firm. We can get you connected with an attorney who can help you. Until next time, stay safe, stay happy, and be well.