Marriage length?

So I found the answer to my question... you do have to be married a year to have the courts sign off on your homestudy, but most homestudy agencies will start your homestudy and just wait until your year anniversary to send it to the courts... this won't delay our plans too much since we will be married for a year in December and we are just about to start our homestudy. I hope this doesn't effect too many other families. There are already plenty of issues with adoption, why did they have to add on one more!?:confused:

The system was design, albiet poorly and by a bunch of ne'er-do-wells, to protect children so that when a child is placed into a two parent home, the parents can be said to be "getting along". And they can only "get along", according to the ne'er-do-well, if they have been married one to two years. Most people don't divorce in the first 2 years of marriage-- that's the "honey moon" period when people are still happy with one another. It's 4, 5, or 6 years later they get divorced. Did the ne'er-do-well take this into account [statistical facts]? No. They didn't. Another thing the ne'er-do-well never thought about was people like myself-- single adopting fathers. I have NO stipulation for marriage. There is NOTHING in the home study "rules" that say "you should be hooked up with your girlfriend for at least 2 years... or plan on marrying in the next 5 years, or.. whatever." I can get my home study, no problem, and then turn around and marry and divorce a million times a week... and it will have NO effect on my home study. GO FIGURE THAT ONE OUT. Hence why I call state foster/adopt workers "ne'er-do-wells." You are a ne'er-do-well when you 1) support the system "Oh, it's so well laid out!", 2) you designed the system, or 3) you work in the system without trying to fix it "I'll just live with it, everyone else does." Please, tell me I'm wrong and why... :-) Bryan :D :D :D :D :D

We're also haveing a hard time understanding is.. in Arizona, you dont have to be married to adopt, however, some agencies require you be married. We'll be married in April, but if we start the process now, we have to do it as a single. WHY ??????? How difficult is it for the other parent to adopt later? Any idea on the cost? We have found an agency that doesnt require us to be married, however, their training is all during the week and an hour away!!! Casie

It is pretty easy for a spouse to adopt a child once you've adopted them... but they typically [in Az] won't let it occur for at least a year-- it's 12 months from placement of a child to the adoption being finalized.. then the child is yours, so the courts are out of it and your spouse can adopt for relatively little cost [about $300]. Bryan

We are going through Commonwealth agency and they say Russia and Ukraine has no marriatal lengths. We are spiritually married and will be getting legally married this year then starting our paperwork. Since we have been together for over 8 yrs. living together no country will really have a problem from where we are wanting to adopt. Just thought I'd let you know. NatelisaAz

I think the country and the state are two different things. While the Ukraine does not require you to be married a year, the Arizona Courts do. You need their appoval after your homestudy is done. Our agency made us wait until we were married a year so that we would be certified by the Courts. I hope that makes sence. Check with your agency to make sure, but that is what we were told happens state wide. Good Luck! :)

We just went through this last year! We did our training classes last year. Got to the last class when we found out we had to be married for one year. Forget that we've been together for 7 and living together for 6 lol Well, our wedding was one week after our last training class, so here we are... waiting! Yes, you can do everything else, but have the commissioner sign off on it. Watch though, some agencies require you to be married longer. However, there is NO LAW on how long you need to be married. Each agency decides what they want, so some will say one year, two years, three years, none at all. Makes no sense to me at all since single and gay's can adopt. ITS THE COMMISSIONER taht wont sign! Anyway, good luck to you!

Your lucky! We had this same question! We did our classes and were not married yet ! We got married one week after our classes were done. Our agency didnt mind the fact that we were not married, it was the commissioner that signed it and he has a rule of being married for a year. It didnt matter that we had been together for 6 years :O(