An annulment returns you to the legal position you were in before the wedding.
What the Statute Says
Under OCGA 19-4-5, a decree of annulment “shall have the effect of a total divorce between the parties of a void marriage and shall return the parties thereto to their original status before marriage.”
The practical result is that you are single, not divorced. For most purposes you were never married at all, and you do not have a former spouse.
There Is No Permanent Alimony
This is the consequence people are most often surprised by. In McKinney v. McKinney, 242 Ga. 607 (1978), the Georgia Supreme Court explained that “[b]ecause no valid marriage existed, permanent alimony was not allowable in an equitable action for annulment.”
Permanent alimony depends on there having been a marriage. An annulment is a judicial finding that there was not one, so the two cannot sit together. A spouse who has given up a career or a home during the relationship does not get ongoing support from an annulment the way they might from a divorce.
Returning to Your Original Status Is Not the Same as Erasing Everything
A decree undoes the marital status. It does not undo everything the marriage set in motion.
The same statute preserves criminal charges and certain responsibilities that the marriage created, and a judge can still sort out property the two of you held together. So the decree ends the relationship as a legal status while leaving some of its consequences standing.
Because of that, the decision between annulment and divorce is worth making deliberately rather than by instinct about which sounds cleaner.
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This post is a quick overview of the law and is not intended as legal advice. Please feel free to contact our office for a consultation if you have questions about this or any other legal aspects regarding your case!