The Vermont Statutes Online

Title 15 : Domestic Relations

Chapter 011 : Annulment and Divorce

Subchapter 002 : Divorce

• § 551. Grounds for divorce from bond of matrimony

  A divorce from the bond of matrimony may be decreed:

  (1) for adultery in either party;

  (2) when either party is sentenced to confinement at hard labor in the State prison in this State for life, or for three years or more, and is actually confined at the time of the bringing of the libel; or when either party being without the State, receives a sentence for an equally long term of imprisonment by a competent court having jurisdiction as the result of a trial in any one of the other states of the United States, or in a federal court, or in any one of the territories, possessions, or other courts subject to the jurisdiction of the United States, or in a foreign country granting a trial by jury, and is actually confined at the time of the bringing of the libel;

  (3) for intolerable severity in either party;

  (4) for willful desertion or when either party has been absent for seven years and not heard of during that time;

  (5) on complaint of either party when one spouse has sufficient pecuniary or physical ability to provide suitable maintenance for the other and, without cause, persistently refuses or neglects so to do;

  (6) on the ground of permanent incapacity due to a mental condition or psychiatric disability of either party, as provided for in sections 631-637 of this title; or

  (7) when a married person has lived apart from his or her spouse for six consecutive months and the court finds that the resumption of marital relations is not reasonably probable. (Amended 1969, No. 264 (Adj. Sess.), § 1; 1971, No. 39, eff. May 1, 1971; 1971, No. 238 (Adj. Sess.), § 1, eff. April 6, 1972; 1973, No. 201 (Adj. Sess.), § 9; 2013, No. 96 (Adj. Sess.), § 69.)