Why is no-fault divorce a settled issue in every state?

[Fuzzy Bear Loves Christian Missionaries]

Proving fault is a difficult thing in a divorce case, especially when, in many cases, there are prior bad acts to go around on both sides.

The, too, there is the bias of judges.  Prior to no-fault divorce, my mother divorced my stepfather.  The reasons she had were not overwhelming, and he did not want a divorce (although he went along with it in the end).  She hired a lawyer and filed in the neighboring county.  The lawyer (the wife of a well-connected Republican State Senator) was able to shop for a judge and got the case before the moderate Jewish Judge instead of the conservative Catholic Judge.

This conservative Catholic Judge had recently presided over a divorce action brought by a woman who had been in an abusive situation for 20 years.  The Judge asked the woman why she hadn't filed before this.  In denying the decree, the Judge said:  "If you can stand this man for 20 years, you can stand him for the rest of your life."  This was the early 1970s. 

I don't believe that people ought to get divorced for frivolous reasons, but I don't believe people ought to have to stage incidents in sleazy motels to provide "evidence" of grounds for divorce.  We have no-fault divorce because there are people in marriages who (A) have made mistakes and (B) are legitimately unhappy because one party wasn't who they said they were (not to mention vicious acts of abuse that merit criminal justice intervention).