“I’m married!” or “I’m divorced!” don’t exactly make for good introductory lines when looking for that special someone, so sometimes you have to use other tactics to check if a person is married or divorced.
Most of us have been there at some point – the “Getting to Know You Catch 22”. Finding out if someone is taken or has been forsaken is important information to find out from the beginning; you probably don’t want to fall madly in love with somebody only to later find out that you’re “Steven on the Side” or “Susan on the Sly”. The problem with this kind of information is that it is viewed as more personal; the kind of questions that would make for more polite conversation fodder on a third date rather than a first meeting. But who wants to waste time and money on dates one and two if date three will send you back to the singles club?
So, how does one check if someone is married or divorced?
The obvious answer may be… just ask! If you are worried that the person may not be honest with you, well, maybe they’re not the kind of person you want to whisk off into date three anyway. Perhaps you suspect that someone you are already dating is married or has been divorced. It doesn’t take a Sherlock to detect if something is shady, but you don’t want to falsely accuse someone you care about. If they haven’t been upfront with you, there are less direct ways of getting the information you need.
Words may deceive you, but you can find out if they are married or divorced
- Look for the bling. A ring or some other kind of symbol can help you see if someone is married. Yes, they may have removed the tell-tale sign, but tan lines could show if a ring was previously worn on the relevant finger.
- Hire a Private Investigator. Getting a P.I Guy can be an expensive option (likely more expensive than date one and two would have been), so perhaps this is a more valid option if you are already in a relationship with a suspicious spouse. Private Investigators are professionals in chasing up people’s backgrounds as well as tracing their present actions. This means you can do a donut over a double-crosser if your doubts prove true.
- Depending on where you are scrounging, you can try visiting the department of recordsor the courthouse to do a simple background check or to look for marriage or divorce papers.
- If you really want to get dusty while digging up dirt, old newspapers can also be a good source to find marriage announcements. Old copies are usually kept at the newspaper offices or in libraries.
There are also a number of online resources to help you check if someone is married or divorced. Online records will only usually include the name of the bride and groom as well as the date of the marriage or divorce, but this should be enough for your sleuthing (or snooping) purposes.
- To find out which court would have handled the divorce process during the time the divorce took place, try an online search for “divorce records” for the relevant region and time period.
- For links to free marriage and divorce records, try visiting Cyndi’s List – Marriages at www.cyndislist.com/marriage.htm
- To find marriage records online for free, you can also try FamilySearch.org. Ancestry.com is another site that list marriage indexes, but you will have to fork out a fee for these services.
According to infidelityfacts.com, 74% of men in the United States would have an affair if it was gurranteed that they would not be caught; and American women are not much better reflected, with 64% saying that they would have an affair if they would never get caught.
According to The National Center for Health Statistics in the United States, about 49% of American marriages end in divorce. With these kinds of statistics, it is certainly worth considering whether the man or woman you have your eye on can look you in the eye with honesty and trust.