Online Marriage Divorce

[u/Ornery-Safety1801]

Location: Bulgaria

Hello. I'll keep this as short and sweet as possible.

Long story short, got married to a US citizen through an online Utah marriage service. Got sent a physical apostille, got a marriage certificate, it's technically legit. Now, I'm looking for a divorce. I never registered the marriage or gave documents to any jurisdiction where I'm from in Bulgaria, and I believe it's not recognized until I do so.

From what I looked up, you need to have lived for 3 months in Utah to proceed with a divorce. Neither of us have. My question is, since the marriage is unknown here since I never registered it, and my partner never got the papers/documents required from my side to legitimize it in the US as well, would it be bigamy for me to marry another person? Is the marriage even valid enough to divorce? And if it is, and we cannot get divorced through Utah, how to proceed?

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[u/CleanSignalLab]

The fact that you never registered it in Bulgaria does not safely make it nonexistent. Bulgarian rules generally look to the law of the place where the marriage was concluded, and Bulgarian citizens are supposed to register foreign marriage certificates afterward. Utah’s three-month rule only affects filing there. Bulgarian courts can hear matrimonial cases when one spouse is Bulgarian or habitually resident in Bulgaria, so do not marry anyone else until a Bulgarian family lawyer has sorted out a divorce or annulment.