"IF you have been living apart for four years or more, you are going to be able to get a decree of divorce, even if one person says `I don't want one'," says Alan Shatter. "It's a marriage in name only after four years apart."
"If only one person wants a divorce, you can still go to court, but it will take more time," says Mags O'Brien. "The person who doesn't want the divorce could make the whole thing so awkward that it's really not worthwhile to try it." She concludes: "But do you want to stay with someone who wants a divorce?"
"If you don't want a divorce, then you can go to court to contest it", says Anne Dunne. "There may not be grounds for a divorce. The court will have to decide whether or not the requirements have been fulfilled. But "there seems little sense in holding someone in a marriage when they don't want to be in it."