Question #249:I am from the West Indies and I married my wife 13 years ago at City Hall in order for her to get her residency (green card) in New York City. Before we got married I had properties that belonged to me and is still in my name alone. We both tried to see if the marriage would work but it did not. After a while she refuses to have sex with me every time I would initiate having sex she would push me away. After living together for 5 years I moved out because it was getting to my head and I started feeling less of a man. There are no children involved. I tried to talk to her about a divorce on the grounds of no sex or abandonment and she refused to sign. It is now 8 years since we have separated. Please let me know if I will have to share my properties with her seeing that I had them before we were married and how hard would it before me to get my divorce.

If you owned the properties prior to the marriage and kept the properties in your name, the properties would be separate property and not marital property and your wife would not be entitled to any portion of the properties. If you contributed monies earned during the marriage to pay the mortgages on such properties or to make capital improvements, she may have a claim to ½ of the monies contributed, but not a proprietary interest in such properties.
Under the newly enacted “no fault” statute recently approved by the New York State senate and house of representatives and signed by the governor, if you have been separated for six months or more you will not have to prove any additional grounds to warrant a divorce. You will however, have to resolve questions of spousal support and division of marital assets.
If you’re living in the New York City metropolitan area, I urge you to call me at 212-370-1660 to arrange for an appointment for the three of us to meet to discuss mediating your divorce.

Leonard M. Weiner, Esq./ Divorce Solutions