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 brief marriage recorded outside the state and now brought before a Missouri court, RICHARD M. FORTNER has asked for its formal end. The petition, filed in the Family Court Division of the Circuit Court of Jackson County at Independence, sets out a chronology that is at once compressed and definitive.

Court records show the filing was sworn on February 17, 2026. The petitioner states he has been a resident of Jackson County for more than ninety days preceding the commencement of the proceeding and, more broadly, for forty-four years. The respondent, the petition asserts, has likewise resided in Jackson County for more than ninety days before the action began. The marriage itself was entered into on March 4, 2023, and registered in Eureka Springs, Carroll County, Arkansas.

The parties separated on October 27, 2024. The petition states that no children were born of the marriage and that the respondent is not now pregnant. It further affirms that neither party is a member of the active Armed Forces of the United States or its allies. There remains, the filing declares, no reasonable likelihood that the marriage can be preserved; it is described as irretrievably broken.

Beyond the dissolution itself, the petitioner asks the court to divide marital assets and marital debts in a just and equitable manner pursuant to Missouri statute, and to set aside non-marital assets and debts to each party individually. The filing maintains that both parties are capable of supporting their own reasonable needs and paying their own attorney fees, and therefore that no award of maintenance should be entered.

In February, when the year’s administrative rhythm has settled into motion, such petitions become part of the court’s steady docket. They do not argue history; they recite it. What follows will be governed by statute and schedule, by disclosures and orders—steps that translate a private contract into a public conclusion under Missouri law.

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