Timeline in Delaware

The 6-Month Separation Requirement

Delaware's separation rule, at 13 Del. C. § 1507(e), applies no matter which of the four statutory characterizations a petitioner checks on the petition: voluntary separation, separation caused by the respondent's misconduct, separation caused by the respondent's mental illness, or separation caused by incompatibility. All four are really the same underlying no-fault ground, that the marriage is irretrievably broken. All four require the same six months of living separate and apart before the court can rule. Interim relief, like temporary support or an injunction, is available during that six-month period under 13 Del. C. § 1509.

Residency: 6 Months Before You File

13 Del. C. § 1504(a) requires at least one spouse, either the petitioner or the respondent, to have resided in Delaware continuously for the six months immediately before the petition is filed. A servicemember stationed in Delaware for that same six months before filing also meets the requirement, even if not domiciled there. There's no separate county-level residency rule. Delaware Family Court is a single statewide court, and the three courthouses in New Castle, Kent, and Sussex counties exist as venues within that one court, not as separate county courts.

How an Uncontested Case Moves

Delaware doesn't have a separate summary-dissolution track with its own marriage-length or property thresholds. What it has instead is a response-based path to an uncontested case. If the respondent doesn't answer the petition within 20 days of being served, or answers agreeing with everything in it, the case becomes uncontested. At that point the petitioner, not the respondent, chooses whether the divorce is decided solely on the papers with no court appearance, or at a hearing the petitioner must attend but the respondent doesn't have to. That hearing-waiver option isn't available once a case is contested.

Even in an uncontested paper divorce, a separate ancillary hearing on property division or alimony generally can't be waived unless those issues are settled first.

What Restarts or Delays a Case

Because the six-month separation clock is a floor the court checks before it can even rule, a case can't move faster than that regardless of paperwork speed. It can move slower if the respondent contests the petition, disputes property or alimony, or doesn't respond in a way that lets the case qualify as uncontested. Delaware Family Court has no e-filing system for divorce; every petition is filed on paper, including in the state's most populous county, which can add processing time compared to states with electronic filing. A separate ancillary hearing on property division or alimony that isn't resolved by agreement beforehand also adds a step even after the underlying divorce itself is otherwise uncontested.