Since the Supreme Court's 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges, which held that the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses require every state to license marriages between same-sex couples and recognize such marriages performed elsewhere, divorce for a same-sex married couple generally follows the same state court process, and the same general rules on property division, support, and custody, as divorce for an opposite-sex couple. A small number of situations can still play out differently, most often involving how a court treats a relationship that began before marriage was legally available, and separate legal questions about parentage.
What Obergefell established
Obergefell v. Hodges held that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry and that states must recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states. Since that decision, no state can apply different substantive divorce rules to a marriage simply because the spouses are the same sex; the process for filing, the grounds available, and the general framework for dividing property and awarding support are meant to apply the same way regardless of the spouses' sexes.
A wrinkle, relationships that began before marriage was legally available
Because same-sex marriage became legally available at different times in different states before Obergefell made it universal, some couples had long-term relationships, and sometimes registered domestic partnerships or civil unions, for years before they were able to legally marry. In some cases this has raised the question of whether a court should consider the length of the actual relationship, rather than only the length of the legal marriage, when addressing issues like support that often weigh marital length heavily. Courts in different jurisdictions have approached this question differently, and it remains an evolving area rather than a settled, uniform rule.
A separate issue, parentage
Questions about legal parentage, meaning who is recognized as a child's legal parent, can raise distinct issues for some same-sex couples depending on how a child was conceived or adopted and what legal steps were or were not taken at the time. Parentage is a substantial topic on its own and is addressed separately in this library rather than within general divorce process information.
Why the details still call for individual review
Because the core divorce process is now the same nationwide regardless of the spouses' sexes, but a handful of situational questions, like how to treat a long pre-marriage relationship or how parentage was established, can still meaningfully affect a case, those specific questions are worth raising directly. A licensed family law attorney can address how these issues apply to a specific marriage and family situation.