The concept of irreconcilable differences provides a possible ground for divorce in a number of jurisdictions.
In Australian family law, with no-fault divorce, it is the sole ground, adequate proof being that the estranged couple have been separated more than 12 months.
In the United States, it can be one ground. Often it is used as justification for a no-fault divorce. In many cases, irreconcilable was the original and only ground for no-fault divorce, such as in California, which enacted America's first purely no-fault divorce law in 1969. California now lists one other ground, "incurable insanity," on its divorce petition form.
Any sort of difference between the two parties that either cannot be changed or the individual does not want to change can be considered irreconcilable differences. Some states use the terms irremediable breakdown, irretrievable breakdown, or incompatibility. However, in some states the official ground is irreconcilable differences or one of the other "I" grounds, but then the state's statutory definition of that term may include a waiting period or a mutual-consent requirement.
The only state that uses the concept of irreconcilable differences in anything like the way it was originally intended is Tennessee, where the courts will occasionally reject an irreconcilable differences claim as not stating differences that are truly irreconcilable.
Famous quotes containing the word differences:
“The mother must teach her son how to respect and follow the rules. She must teach him how to compete successfully with the other boys. And she must teach him how to find a woman to take care of him and finish the job she began of training him how to live in a family. But no matter how good a job a woman does in teaching a boy how to be a man, he knows that she is not the real thing, and so he tends to exaggerate the differences between men and women that she embodies.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)