Divorce Lawyer in The Woodlands and Conroe, Texas
Most people do not call a divorce lawyer the day they decide the marriage is over. They call weeks later, when something forces it: an emptied account, a lease coming due, a child asking a hard question. If you are looking for a divorce lawyer in The Woodlands or a divorce attorney in Conroe, TX, the question is not whether but how.
Griffin & Cain, Attorneys at Law, PC handles divorce across Montgomery County, and the first questions are always the same: how long it takes, whether you must prove anything, and what happens to the house, the kids, and the paycheck in the meantime. This page answers them in the order a divorce unfolds, alongside the rest of our Montgomery County family law practice. We will provide a complimentary consultation so that you can discuss your issue with us.
Texas Gives You Two Ways to Ask for a Divorce
You do not have to prove your spouse did anything wrong. Texas lets you plead what the law calls insupportability: the marriage has broken down through discord or conflict of personalities, it can no longer do what a marriage is supposed to do, and there is no reasonable expectation the two of you will reconcile. That is the no-fault ground most Montgomery County divorces rest on, and nobody has to testify about who ruined what.
Texas also keeps a list of fault grounds: cruelty, adultery, felony conviction, abandonment, living apart, and confinement in a mental hospital. Each is narrower than it sounds: abandonment means your spouse left intending to stay gone and stayed away a year, and living apart means three years without cohabitation.
When Pleading Fault Is Actually Worth It
Fault costs something: discovery runs longer, and the other side gets a reason to litigate the story instead of the numbers. Sometimes it is worth that price.
Texas judges divide the community estate however they find "just and right." There is no presumption of a 50/50 split, and the Texas Supreme Court has given trial courts wide latitude in striking that balance. Fault is one of the things a judge may weigh. Where the estate is substantial and the proof is solid, pleading fault can move the division; where the estate is modest and the proof thin, it usually adds cost without changing the outcome. Which case is yours is one of the first calls we make together.
Residency: Who Actually Qualifies to File Here
You can file in Montgomery County if either spouse, not necessarily the one filing, has made Texas home for the six months before filing and lived in this county for the 90 days before filing. That is the whole test, from Texas Family Code § 6.301.
Either spouse. Most Texas divorce pages get this wrong. If your husband has lived in Conroe for two years and you moved out of state in March, Montgomery County can still hear your case: a spouse living elsewhere may file where the other spouse resides, as long as the spouse who stayed meets the six-month requirement.
The 60-Day Waiting Period, and What It Is Not
Every Texas divorce waits. Under Texas Family Code § 6.702, a judge cannot grant one before the 60th day after the petition is filed, and two details in that sentence decide more cases than the rule itself.
First, the clock runs from filing, not service: it starts the day the petition reaches the district clerk, whether or not your spouse has been served. Waiting to file so nobody gets upset does not keep the peace; it just pushes your earliest finish date out.
Second, 60 days is a floor, not a timeline; it says only that a judge cannot sign sooner. The cases that finish near day 60, in our experience, settled everything before filing.
The wait is waived in two situations, both involving family violence: your spouse was finally convicted of, or received deferred adjudication for, an offense involving family violence against you or a member of your household, or you hold an active protective order or emergency protective order based on a finding of family violence. If that is part of your case, tell us at the first meeting; it changes both the timeline and the plan.
None of these clocks starts until a petition is on file. If the calendar is working against you — a lease ending, a school year starting, an account shrinking — call our Conroe office at 936-539-1011 before another week goes by.
Temporary Orders: The Rules for the Middle of the Case
A divorce has a middle: two people who used to share a household still have to pay bills, parent children, and live somewhere while the case is pending. Temporary orders are the rules for that stretch.
A temporary restraining order can be signed without advance notice to your spouse, and it forbids specific conduct: draining accounts, transferring or hiding property, destroying records, tampering with insurance, harassment, tracking your movements.
Temporary orders go further than most people expect. While the divorce is pending, the court can order:
- a sworn inventory and appraisement, a signed accounting of everything the two of you own
- support payments from one spouse to the other
- production of books, records, and financial documents
- payment of reasonable attorney's fees and expenses
- appointment of a receiver to preserve and protect property
- exclusive occupancy of the residence, meaning who stays in the house
Read that list again if you are the spouse without access to the money. None of it is automatic; each item is something your lawyer asks for and backs with evidence.
If your spouse controls the accounts and you are doing math at the kitchen table, temporary orders are how that changes. Call our Conroe office at 936-539-1011 and we will tell you what to gather before the first hearing: statements, pay records, the monthly bills in your name.
Uncontested, Agreed, Contested
Clients use these three words interchangeably. Courts do not, and the difference largely sets what a divorce costs.
- Uncontested usually means your spouse does not participate: no answer, no appearance. The case still must be proved up, and still cannot be granted before day 60.
- Agreed means both spouses take part and sign a decree resolving everything, which is where mediation earns its keep and the ending we steer toward when the facts allow.
- Contested means an issue is genuinely disputed, such as the character of an account or the value of a business, and a judge decides it.
Most cases start contested and end agreed; cost tracks how many issues stay live, so much of our work is shrinking that list.
What a Texas Divorce Decree Decides
Property and debt. The court divides the community estate as it finds just and right, which is not automatically 50/50. Everything either of you holds when the marriage ends is presumed to be community property, and rebutting that presumption takes clear and convincing evidence: tracing, in practice, through statements and account histories. No court can hand your separate property to your spouse. Tracing and retirement accounts get fuller treatment on our property division page.
Conservatorship and possession. Conservatorship is what most people mean by custody: who holds which rights and duties for your child. Possession is the schedule, down to where your child sleeps on a given Thursday. Both turn on your child's best interest, and our child custody page covers both in depth.
Support. Child support, along with medical and dental support, is set under the Family Code guidelines applied to net resources; our child support page walks through the math. If circumstances change years from now, that calls for a modification, not a second divorce.
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The Mistakes We Correct Most Often
Waiting to file. Nothing a court can do for you starts before a suit is on file. The 60-day clock is not running, no temporary order can allocate the bills or the house, and three months of kitchen-table negotiating still leaves you at day zero.
Moving out with no orders in place. Leaving does not forfeit your rights to the house or your children. It does set a de facto schedule and split of expenses that quietly becomes everyone's reference point. If you must leave for safety, leave; then get orders.
Emptying accounts before anyone is watching. A restraining order forbids exactly that, and Texas law supplies the remedy afterward: on a finding of fraud on the community, the court calculates what was depleted, reconstitutes the estate on paper, divides it just and right, and may enter a money judgment against the spouse who spent it.
Treating "no fault" as "no dispute." Insupportability describes the legal ground for ending the marriage. It says nothing about whether you agree on the retirement account or the summer schedule.
Signing before you know what the estate holds. A mediated settlement agreement that meets the Family Code's requirements is binding, and once it is signed a party is entitled to judgment on it. That finality is what makes it valuable, and why we get the sworn inventory first.
Divorce in Montgomery County
Which court hears your case. The District Clerk's divorce checklist routes family filings to three courts: the 410th District Court, the 418th District Court, and County Court at Law No. 3. State law requires the 418th to give preference to family law matters, and the 410th functions as a family court in practice.
Mediation comes before your temporary orders hearing. Both family district courts here order the parties to mediation before any temporary orders hearing, and keep those hearings short when mediation fails: the 418th caps them at three hours in child-residence cases and two hours in other matters, split equally, and the 410th generally allows one hour per side. An hour per side is not a trial. So we prepare the mediation as the main event, because in this county it usually is. Partner Robert S. Griffin holds mediation credentials from the A.A. White Dispute Resolution Center at the University of Houston Law Center.
The standing order, filing, and the parenting class. The county keeps a countywide family standing order, the Montgomery County Second Amended Standing Order Regarding Children, Pets, Property and Conduct of the Parties; ask us how it applies to yours, and read it. Filings go to the District Clerk at 301 N. Main, First Floor, in Conroe, the building where the 410th and 418th sit, and attorneys e-file through eFileTexas. A case with a child under 18 filed in the 418th also needs a Parent Education and Family Stabilization course certificate, and some courts will not accept online versions, so check before you register.
What the courts' own standards say about timing. Statewide judicial standards call for uncontested family cases to be resolved within three months and contested ones within six, measured from the appearance date or the end of the waiting period, whichever is later. Those are targets, not promises. One local deadline does bind you: the final inventory and financial information statement must be exchanged no later than 30 days before trial, and we calendar it on day one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Did Texas repeal no-fault divorce?
No. Insupportability, the no-fault ground, is still the law and still what most divorces here are pleaded on. A bill in the 2025 legislative session would have repealed it, but it died in a House subcommittee in March 2025. Texas has no regular legislative session in 2026, so nothing is changing this year.
Can I get divorced if my spouse will not sign anything?
Yes. A Texas divorce does not require your spouse's signature or consent. Your spouse gets formal notice and chooses whether to respond; if no response comes, the divorce can still be granted once the waiting period has run. If your spouse participates but stonewalls, the judge decides the disputed issues.
How long does a divorce really take?
The only fixed number is the 60-day minimum, and few cases finish that fast. An agreed case with a decree drafted in advance moves quickly, while a spouse who hides records slows everything down. The courts' own standards aim to close uncontested family cases within three months and contested ones within six, but those are targets, not commitments.
Do I have to go to court?
Usually at least once, though not always for a fight. In an agreed case the appearance is short: the judge confirms the required facts and signs the decree. A contested case means mediation, a temporary orders hearing, and possibly trial, though because mediation comes first in both of Montgomery County's family district courts, many cases settle before that hearing.
What does a standing order actually do?
It sets the ground rules while your case is pending: how both spouses handle the children, the property, the pets, and each other. Standing orders are adopted county by county, so Montgomery County's is not the same as a neighboring county's. Ask how the county's standing order applies to your filing before you change anything at home.
Do both of us have to live in Texas to file here?
No. It is enough that one of you has made Texas home for the six months before filing and lived in the filing county for the 90 days before filing. If you moved away and your spouse stayed, you can still file in the county where your spouse lives.
Talk to a Conroe Divorce Attorney
A divorce rewards moving early: filing starts the clock, temporary orders stabilize the money and the schedule, and a sworn inventory tells you what you are actually dividing. Those are the first things a divorce lawyer should set in motion. The firm's family law matters are handled by Brian Russell Cain, a Montgomery County Bar Association member, along with Marissa Garcia, whose practice is family law exclusively.
Our office is at 400 W. Davis St., Suite 200, Conroe, TX 77301, blocks from the courthouse, and we serve Conroe, The Woodlands, Magnolia, Montgomery, Willis, and Spring. Call our Conroe office at 936-539-1011 or contact Griffin & Cain to schedule a complimentary consultation with our family law attorneys.
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Contact Our Office
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We will provide a complimentary consultation so that you can discuss your issue with us. Get started by calling us or contacting us via email, and we will respond as soon as possible.
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936-539-1011
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400 W. Davis St., Suite 200. Conroe, TX. 77301