A claim for ED must be filed prior to absolute divorce being granted. Your friends are correct. If the papers do not say that ED will be decided at a later date then no claim for ED was ever filed by either of you. That means what you have right now is yours and what he has is his and you can not go back to get more.
Refusing complaint service only holds things up for a short period of time and it was within his rights to serve you by publication if you were not able to be served.
I’m not sure whether service by publication allows temporary preservation of the ED claim, though, as per NCGS 50-11(e). Check w/ an attorney, though.
However, even if your claim is not immediately dismissed out of hand, I think you’d still have to explain to the judge why the current arrangement (what’s STBX’s is STBX’s, what’s yours is yours) is inequitable, in light of your avoidance of service.
Are there any options available to me to get ED after the divorce has been finalized? I find out that I was divorced this past Friday and nowhere in the Judgement I was given is there any reference to ED. I refused his attempts at complaint service thinking that it would hold things off. I was told that I was finally served by publication which I knew nothing about. I haven’t formally asked the court for ED either. I’ve asked friends about this and they tell me that now that we’re divorced what’s mine is mine and what’s his (401K, retirement, stock,…)is his. If that is true then I think I screwed up big time.