Divorce proceedings are often frustrating and emotional, but they don't usually take six years. Unfortunately for Carolyn Appell, that's how long it took her to get a divorce in Jewish rabbinical court, due to the refusal of her ex-husband to sign a religious divorce document called a get.

She finally was freed from her marriage with the help of Rabbi Jeremy Stern, the executive director of the Organization for the Resolution of Agunot, which seeks to help the "shackled" women known as agunot with their divorces.

She spoke to HuffPost Live about the six years it took her to get divorced, during which she said, "I could not get on with my life."

The plight of agunot has reached the ears of those outside of the Orthodox Jewish community as desperate women use unorthodox means to gain their freedom. Gital Dodelson, who just received her get after a three year struggled, turned to social media with a #FreeGital campaign to publicize her plight.