Is divorce different for same-sex couples?
The divorce itself works exactly like any other divorce. Since Obergefell (2015), every state must marry same-sex couples and must divorce them, with the same grounds, the same procedures, and - per the Supreme Court again in Pavan (2017) - the same "constellation of benefits" attached to marriage. The era when a couple could marry in one state and find no court willing to divorce them is over.
What is genuinely different is not the process. It is three pieces of arithmetic that sit underneath it.
The marriage-date problem
Property division and spousal support lean heavily on the length of the marriage - and for many same-sex couples, the legal marriage date badly understates the partnership. A couple together since 1995 who married in 2015, the first year they legally could everywhere, shows twenty years of shared life and a "short marriage" on paper. Shorter marriage can mean less support, a smaller marital estate, and premarital years treated as separate property.
Courts in some states can weigh premarital cohabitation, and some judges will consider that the couple married as soon as the law allowed. But none of that is automatic, and how much it helps varies by state and by judge. The practical advice: put the full relationship history in front of your attorney at the first meeting - when you combined finances, bought property, raised children - and make the argument explicitly rather than letting the marriage certificate speak for itself.
The civil union you may still be in
Before 2015, many couples formed civil unions or domestic partnerships - and then married later without ever dissolving the earlier status. Here is the trap: a divorce that dissolves only the marriage can leave the civil union intact, with its support obligations, inheritance rights, and benefit entitlements still legally alive. New Jersey practitioners warn about exactly this; Illinois law keeps jurisdiction over its civil unions even after both parties leave the state.
So the first question in any same-sex divorce is an inventory: every marriage, civil union, and registered domestic partnership either of you ever entered, in any state, converted or not. Tell your attorney about all of them, and make sure the judgment dissolves all of them. Some states auto-converted civil unions into marriages; many did not.
Parentage deserves belt and suspenders
Pavan settled that the marital presumption of parentage applies to same-sex spouses on equal terms - both spouses on the birth certificate, both presumed parents. In a divorce, custody and support are then decided like anyone else's.
But where one parent is non-biological and never did a second-parent adoption, do not rely on the presumption alone, especially if the relationship is turning hostile. A presumption can be attacked; an adoption judgment essentially cannot, and it travels across state lines without argument. If you are the non-biological parent, raising this with your attorney on day one is the single most important thing on this page.
Social Security and the years you could not marry
The ten-year rule for claiming on an ex-spouse's record measures the legal marriage, and it contains no exception for years a couple was barred from marrying. A 25-year partnership with an 8-year legal marriage does not qualify.
One accommodation does exist, and it points the other way: after Ely v. Saul, SSA must consider survivor benefit claims from same-sex spouses who could not meet the nine-month marriage requirement because marriage was legally unavailable to them - the question becomes whether they would have qualified but for the ban. A second nationwide ruling, Thornton, reached survivors who never married at all because the ban prevented it. You may see a November 25, 2020 cutoff attached to it; that date bounds who was in the original class, not who can be helped, and Social Security instructs its own staff to give someone who files later the same consideration under Thornton. If that is your situation, apply rather than assuming the door has closed. Nothing equivalent has been extended to the ten-year divorced-spouse rule, so if you are near that line, the timing question is the same one every couple faces, with less room behind you.
The divorce process is identical everywhere; the marriage-date, prior-status, and parentage questions are where same-sex divorces need specific attention, and the answers vary by state. An attorney who has actually handled same-sex divorces will know these three without being prompted - asking about them is a fair way to interview one.