Grounds

• Georgia recognizes 13 grounds for a divorce. Georgia is different from many states in that it is considered a no-fault state and requires the petitioner to allege grounds for divorce. If one of the parties alleges that the marriage is irretrievably broken (one of the parties refuses to live with the other party, and there is no way that the parties will reconcile), the courts will grant the divorce.
  
  The 12 other grounds include various wrong-doings by one of the parties, including adultery (heterosexual and homosexual), desertion (one of the parties must have deserted the family for at least a year and mental or physical abuse.
  
  

Residency Requirement

• Georgia has a residency requirement for getting a divorce. The residency requirement requires that one spouse has lived in Georgia for at least six month before filing the petition of dissolution of marriage.
  
  

Time

• There is no way to determine the time it takes to get a divorce if the divorce is contested. The length of time depends on the parties and how often they take each other to court to fight over various issues, including child care, custody, visitation, alimony and the division of assets and liabilities. The court may approve temporary agreements in regard to these issues, pending the final judgment.
  
  If the divorce is uncontested (the parties agree on all issues), divorce is generally granted within 31 days of service of the complaint on the defendant.
  
  

Children/Living Arrangements

• In the state of Georgia, once a minor child reaches 14 years of age, the minor child may choose with which parent he wants to live. The court will rule on the child's choice (it is presumptive), unless the other party shows that it is not in the best interest of the minor child to be with the chosen parent. Shared parenting time is always given to the non-primary custodial parent, unless the court deems that it is not in the best interest of the minor child to spend time alone with the parent. In that case, the court could order supervised visitation or remove a parent's visitation rights completely.
  
  

Child Support

• As of Jan. 1, 2007, the child-support law changed. The new law bases child support on income shares. Child-support calculations use the gross income of both parties. The two figures are added for the combined adjusted income of the family. The income is compared with a table by finding the corresponding combined adjusted income and the number of children of the marriage. Then each party's income is divided by the combined adjusted income to find the percentage of child support each parent must pay. The number from the chart is multiplied by each parent's percentage.
  
  In addition to child support, the parties share the cost of the child's health and dental insurance; uncovered medical costs, including insurance deductions; and private school tuition or day care and extracurricular expenses incurred by the minor child.