One thing is you cannot get an annulment just because you had a short marriage. To get an Annulment you need to show that your marriage is something that is called “Void” or avoidable. That means that if you were not legally allowed to married in the first place and then the state would never approve such a marriage, it is called “Void Marriage.” If you are not legally permitted to marry, because of a particular issue, but the state will allow you to choose to remain married you have a “Voidable Marriage”.

They have certain requirements under the law and you have to prove that your marriage was void or voidable and that is the reasons why you are asking for an Annulment. You cannot just use it as the reasoning. If your marriage is void, one of those things is if you are married to someone else. On the Annulment Complaint form, this is called “Bigamy”, but if the person asking for an Annulment knew that their spouse was already before they married them, they have to request a Divorce and not an Annulment.

Another one, is if it is a close relative or close relative by marriage, that is one that can be an Annulment, but there are some specific reasons and those are under the “Void Marriages”.

For Voidable Marriages, those are one if your spouse did not have the mental capacity to consent to the marriage at the time. An example of that might be depending on if the spouse had a mental illness; or may have been drunk or incapacitated.

If the spouse is not physically capable of sexual intercourse. If the spouse is not old enough to get married. In Massachusetts you need to be 18 years old to get a married unless you have permission of the parents and the court.

If there was fraud involved in getting married and here it is not a general allowance. The courts are pretty strict about it and only if it goes to the heart of the marriage. So if it was focused on sexual relations and the inability to have a children; sometimes there has also been if there are purely ulterior motives for the marriage. For example, immigration reasons that one person was marrying for the other person did not know. A lot of deceptive or fraudulent acts while reasons to seek a divorce are not grounds for an Annulment. In addition, if they determine if you knew or that a reasonably person would have known about the fraudulent conduct and Annulment typically would not be granted.

If you were eligible, you would file something called the “Complaint for Annulment” and you would need a certified copy of a marriage certificate and some other forms that are downloadable from probate court.