Bill Tracker: SB 583 Counseling to Fast Track Divorce

SB 583, introduced by Senator Dan Patrick, would change the mandatory waiting time before finalizing a divorce. Currently, the waiting period is 60 days. This legislation would increase the waiting period to 180 days. In a strange exception, couples that go to 10 hours of counseling would only have to wait 90 days. The bill was left pending in committee.

The bill analysis is inherently contradictory to the bill. It begins with the following premise:

“Some believe that divorces under current law do not allow for proper deliberation between the involved parties before dividing families, children, and property, and that the relative speed of no- fault divorces has contributed to an amount of divorces in 2004 that equal close to half of the recorded marriages in that same year.”

I do not accept the premise that the relative speed of divorce is “the” or “a” contributing factor in the total number of divorces, but let’s assume it is true. Why, then, would the bill allow for a three month divorce for people that go to a ten hour counseling session? If the goal is to keep people from getting divorced by making them reflect longer, why give the couple an incentive to get divorced faster by going to counseling?

Over the past week, I have commented on two bills that affect marriage in Texas. I am not anti-marriage. In fact, I am happily married. I am, however, very concerned with any legislation that is conceived as a “magic fix” to a deep and complex problem.