Both:

• must be at least 21 years old. Those between 18 and 21 are required to obtain consent from their parents or guardians and attend a Marriage Preparation Program.
• must be unmarried.
• cannot be of same gender.
• must follow marriage rules of solemnisation.
• cannot be too closely related.

At least one of the parties is a Singapore citizen or Singapore permanent resident

Either or both spouses are:

• domiciled in Singapore at the point of divorce commencement;
• habitually resident in Singapore for at least three years, before divorce commencement; or
• married at least three years, unless spouse suffered exceptional hardship or exceptionally unreasonable and cruel behaviour.

Stage 1 deals with meeting the legal requirements of divorce.

Stage 2 deals with child custody, the division of matrimonial assets and spousal maintenance.

Dissolution of Marriage – The parties must satisfy the legal grounds for divorce in order to dissolve the marriage.

It has to be shown that the marriage has irretrievably broken down due to one of these facts:

• adultery – defendant has committed adultery and plaintiff finds it intolerable to live with defendant;
• unreasonable behaviour – defendant has behaved in a way that plaintiff cannot reasonably be expected to live with defendant;
• desertion – defendant has deserted plaintiff for at least two years; or
• separation – parties have separated for either three or four years, depending on whether defendant consents to divorce.

Ancillary Matters – The couple come to an agreement regarding the children and financial matters.

Custody

• Custody – to determine who has the authority to make major life decisions for the child, in areas such as education, health and religion. Parents are usually given joint custody.
• Care and control – to determine who the child lives with on a day-to-day basis.
• Access – to determine when the parent without care and control is allowed to spend time with the child.

Financial matters

• Division of their matrimonial assets.
• Maintenance payments for spouse.

Assets acquired:

• during marriage;
• before marriage by one or both parties and used by both parties and their children while the parties are living together; and
• before marriage by one or both parties which has been substantially improved during the marriage by either or by both parties.

The court may order a man to pay a sum of money (maintenance) to his wife or former wife, or order a woman to pay maintenance to her incapacitated husband or incapacitated former husband.

When a couple is considering divorce, they may consider Marital Mediation with the intention of working things out. The mediator assists parties in identifying the main issues in the marriage and facilitates a discussion and agreement between the parties as to how they think the issues may be dealt with.

When Marital Mediation fails, it will evolve into Divorce Mediation where one of the main goals is help the couple come to an agreement regarding custody and financial matters, so as to end the marriage in a more amicable way. A desired outcome is an uncontested divorce where no court attendance is required. This minimises stress, time and cost.

Private mediation

• These sessions are voluntary.
• The parties may go through mediation before filing any court papers (pre-writ). If they can agree to all the ancillary issues, they can proceed to file on the simplified track (uncontested divorce).
• Mediation can also occur post-writ. If a settlement is reached, the parties can proceed to record the terms of the divorce in a court order made by consent, at the next available date given by the court.

Court-annexed mediation

• These sessions help divorcing couples agree on ancillary issues and focus on cooperation as opposed to being involved in lengthy, costly and acrimonious court proceedings.
• The sessions also seek to help parents understand the impact of divorce on their children and how to minimise this impact.
• Where there are children under the age of 21, parents are mandated to attend such sessions.
• If an agreement is reached, the Judge-Mediator can record the court order by consent, immediately.