Yes. If you filed for divorce in Texas and want to stop it, you can voluntarily dismiss your own case by filing a Notice of Nonsuit under Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 162, and you can do so at any point before you finish presenting evidence at trial. You do not need the judge’s permission or your spouse’s agreement to stop a divorce after filing in Texas. The catch is that a nonsuit only ends your own claims, so if your spouse has filed a counter-petition, the case can keep going without you.1Texas Courts. Texas Rules of Civil Procedure March 1 2026
How a Nonsuit Works
Rule 162 gives the petitioner a nearly absolute right to walk away. As long as you have not finished putting on your evidence at trial (rebuttal evidence aside), you file a Notice of Nonsuit and the court must accept it. No explanation is required. No hearing is required. The clerk enters the dismissal into the court minutes and the case ends.1Texas Courts. Texas Rules of Civil Procedure March 1 2026
That right belongs only to the party who filed the claim. You control your Original Petition; your spouse controls anything they filed. A respondent cannot force the petitioner’s case to be dismissed, and the petitioner cannot dismiss the respondent’s claims.
If Your Spouse Filed a Counter-Petition
This is the most common way people are surprised. If your spouse answered the divorce by filing their own counter-petition asking the court to grant a divorce, your nonsuit only removes your requests. The case continues under their filing, and the judge can still grant a divorce based on it. Rule 162 says a dismissal “shall not prejudice the right of an adverse party to be heard on a pending claim for affirmative relief.”1Texas Courts. Texas Rules of Civil Procedure March 1 2026
To stop the divorce entirely when both spouses have pending claims, both spouses have to agree. The right document then is an Agreed Motion to Dismiss Without Prejudice, signed by both parties, with a corresponding order for the judge to sign. If your spouse will not dismiss their counter-petition, you cannot keep the divorce from moving forward on their side of the case.
How Long You Have to Change Your Mind
Texas Family Code Section 6.702 requires a 60-day waiting period, measured from the day the Original Petition was filed with the district clerk, before any court can sign a final divorce decree.2State of Texas. Texas Family Code FAM 6.702 That gives you a guaranteed minimum window of two months during which no judge could finalize the divorce even if both spouses wanted it done.
Most divorces take longer than 60 days, so the practical window to nonsuit is often much wider. The hard cutoff is not a date on the calendar. It is a courtroom event: once you finish presenting your evidence at trial, the right to nonsuit is gone.
Family Violence Exception
The 60-day floor does not apply in two situations. A court can grant the divorce sooner if the respondent was convicted of, or received deferred adjudication for, a family violence offense against the petitioner or a member of the petitioner’s household. It also does not apply if the petitioner holds an active protective order or magistrate’s emergency protection order against the respondent based on family violence during the marriage.2State of Texas. Texas Family Code FAM 6.702 If either exception fits your case, the divorce could reach a final hearing faster than usual, so a decision to nonsuit needs to happen quickly.
Filing the Notice of Nonsuit
You need two documents: a Notice of Nonsuit (sometimes titled Notice of Nonsuit Without Prejudice) and a proposed Order of Dismissal for the judge to sign. Free templates are available on many district clerk websites and through Texas Law Help.
Match the documents to your Original Petition exactly, including the cause number, the specific district court, the spouses’ names as they appear on the petition, and the original filing date. A mismatch can cause the clerk’s office to reject or misfile the request.
Most Texas counties require electronic filing through eFileTexas or a commercial e-filing service. Pro se filers may still be able to hand-deliver paper filings to the district clerk in some counties, but e-filing is the default.3Office of Court Administration. eFileTexas.Gov Official E-Filing System for Texas File the Notice of Nonsuit first, then submit the proposed Order of Dismissal. You will get a file-stamped copy back; the judge’s signature on the order can come the same day or take several business days.
Serving Your Spouse
Rule 162 requires you to serve the Notice of Nonsuit on any party who has answered or been served. Delivery follows the standard Rule 21a methods.1Texas Courts. Texas Rules of Civil Procedure March 1 2026 Keep the proof of delivery. If a question ever comes up about whether the case was properly dismissed, that proof settles it.
What Happens to Temporary and Standing Orders
Many Texas divorces involve temporary orders for child support, spousal support, exclusive use of the marital home, or restrictions on community assets. Many counties also impose automatic standing orders when a divorce is filed, blocking both spouses from hiding property, destroying documents, or taking the children out of state.
When the case is dismissed, those orders lose their legal force. A standing order exists only while the case is pending. Temporary orders rest on the court’s authority over an active case, and once there is no case, there is nothing for the orders to attach to.
That has real consequences. Temporary spousal support stops. Exclusive possession of the home ends. If you rely on any existing court order, think through what the day after dismissal looks like before you file the nonsuit.
Court Costs and Pending Motions
There is no separate filing fee for a nonsuit. But Rule 162 has two financial wrinkles. When the dismissal ends the whole case, the clerk can tax the accumulated court costs against the party who filed the nonsuit.1Texas Courts. Texas Rules of Civil Procedure March 1 2026 If you already paid the filing fee and nothing else has piled up, this is usually a non-issue. If costs have grown during the case, you may owe them unless the court orders otherwise.
Any motion for sanctions, attorney’s fees, or other costs that is already pending when you nonsuit survives the dismissal. The court keeps authority to rule on it. You cannot file a nonsuit to get out from under a sanctions motion your spouse has already filed.1Texas Courts. Texas Rules of Civil Procedure March 1 2026
Can You Re-File Later
Yes. A standard Rule 162 nonsuit is a dismissal without prejudice, which means neither spouse is barred from filing for divorce again. A new Original Petition starts a new case with a new cause number and a fresh 60-day waiting period.2State of Texas. Texas Family Code FAM 6.702
A dismissal with prejudice would permanently bar re-filing the same claims, but that is rare in divorce and generally happens only by court order as a sanction, not through a voluntary nonsuit.
Nothing from the dismissed case carries into a new one. Temporary orders, discovery, and interim agreements from the first case have no binding effect the second time around. If you re-file, you are genuinely starting over.