Disclaimer: All facts gleaned from the filings stated hereafter are only as truthful as the petitioner. The tone of this article expresses a style of writing historically employed by America’s greatest writers and, as such, is for opinion purposes only. No intentional harm is due. Do not read if the topic of divorce (even your own) causes you emotional distress. Continue at your own risk.
In a courtroom at Independence, the matter is set down in plain type: a marriage entered, a separation acknowledged, a request for dissolution. The petition was filed February 16, 2026, in the 16th Judicial Circuit Court of Jackson County, Missouri, under case number 2616-FC01135. Eric Matthew Garrison appears as petitioner; Marina Del Rey Strait as respondent.
Eric Matthew Garrison is identified as a resident of Jackson County, Missouri. Marina Del Rey Strait is identified as a resident of Cass County, Missouri. Both are individuals over the age of eighteen. They were married February 25, 2019, and the marriage was registered in Jackson County. According to the petition, they have lived separate and apart since February 1, 2024.
The filing states that irreconcilable differences have led to an irretrievable breakdown of the marriage and that there is no reasonable likelihood it can be preserved. It further affirms that the respondent is not now pregnant and that neither party is serving on active duty with the Armed Forces of the United States or its allies. The petitioner indicates that service may be accomplished by voluntary answer and waiver or, if necessary, by private process server.
The petition asks the court to dissolve the marriage, to set apart to each party his or her separate, nonmarital property, and to divide the marital assets and debts equitably pursuant to Missouri statute. It also requests that the costs of the proceeding be assessed to the petitioner. In mid-February, as the year’s routines begin to take hold, such filings move quietly through the docket—each one a formal accounting of dates, residences, and property, and a step toward a judgment that will conclude what the record now describes as irretrievably broken.
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