Separation and divorce in Singapore

About this site

I got divorced in 2018 after several years of separation from a long marriage with children and shared assets. Getting divorced can be straightforward to extraordinarily messy and complex. Besides the legal process, there’s also a lot of practical decisions to be made about finances, children, and in some cases, safety.

I wrote up a list of advice and information that was helpful to me and some friends who got divorced later on, and now it’s online for other peoples’ reference. It’s all on one-page because it’s easier to update.

If you have useful information to add, you can email me at dale@oggham.com. I can’t and won’t give legal advice or direct recommendations.

Disclaimer

The information provided on this website does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice; instead, all information, content, and materials available on this site are for general informational purposes only. Information on this website ay not constitute the most up-to-date legal or other information. This website contains links to other third-party websites. Such links are only for the convenience of the reader, user or browser. The writer does not recommend or endorse the contents of the third-party sites.  (i.e. talk to your actual lawyer for proper legal advice about your case.)

 

Lawyers

Get a lawyer as soon as possible.

You don’t need to negotiate directly with your ex or work out your divorce ‘amicably’ without a lawyer because your ex says it’s cheaper, better for the children or that they prefer it that way. 

A good lawyer will have seen lots of difficult exes and know when and what to ignore them, and what the actual law for custody and finances are.

They cost money. Usually, the first meeting will be free for you both to quickly discuss your case and see if you and the lawyer both agree and want to work together. You should feel like your lawyer takes you seriously and understands your goals for your divorce.

How do you choose a lawyer? Recommendations from friends who’ve gone through a divorce help. Reviews of lawyers online. But usually it’s the fit – you may want someone super calm and comforting, you may want someone brisk and non-nonsense. What works for your friend and their divorce may be a total disaster for you. Think about your aims and how well the lawyers you interviewed meshed with them.

Also important: your lawyer is not your therapist. Talk about your marriage, your parenting problems and other emotional problems with your friends, family and therapist. Someone who isn’t costing $400 an hour!

Lawyers cost $250-$400 an hour. You will be asked to pay a deposit of $1,000-$5,000 upfront and then they will go through the retainer or request more funds. A straightforward divorce with children and finances under 1.5 million (more than that, like an expensive divorce goes to High Court, which isn’t that much more complicated, just more forms if both parents agree on the division) will cost about $6,000 to $14,000, paid over 1-2 years.

A fast divorce can be done in 6 months. With a difficult ex, it can take 1-3 years.

Talk to your lawyer about your bills up front. Tell them to notify you when you get close to the retainer. Ask to deal with most matters by email or phone to keep face-to-face meetings down to save costs. For paperwork, ask what you can prepare by yourself to save the lawyer’s time and costs.

The bills increase with conflict. Your lawyer will give you the best advice about when it’s worth spending the money on fighting your ex for custody or financial support, or when it’s smarter to just ignore and ‘lose’ that battle so you can survive the divorce to get your long-term goals

Process of Divorce

In Singapore, divorce comes in two stages: first the marriage is divorced, and then the matters of the marriage, children and finances, are decided. You can make an agreement (interim judgement) with your ex to agree on children and finances, or you can agree to let the court make a decision after hearing two conflicting sides (which is usually 2-3 days in court, super expensive and only comes after mandatory mediation sessions and months of delay…. Avoid!)

Most divorces with children in Singapore do NOT go to court. They end up being an interim judgement with both parents agreeing to joint custody, or sole custody (if one parent has totally given up and left).

With young children, at least one parent must go for mandatory parenting classes before the divorce application. This is three days of basic workshops on parenting children after divorce at a family services center. They also have classes and childcare at the same time for children, which are quite helpful. The classes are free, and actually pretty helpful.

Grounds for immediate divorce other than the usual 3 years of separation with consent (4 years without their consent):

  1. Adultery
  2. Unreasonable behavior (not just physical abuse, but emotional abuse too)
  3. 2 years of desertion

The “unreasonable behavior” guidelines in Singapore is pretty fair and covers many types of abuse. You will need to write a timeline of your marriage and document the major incidents that led to you leaving the marriage. It should end up being 2-6 pages max, with dates and times for the incidents.

For adultery, you need documentation like a private detective would get or an admission from the ex or emails/whatsapp messages etc. that explicitly admit to adultery.

The unreasonable behaviour document doesn’t count for much for child custody and support. The courts treat the breakdown of the marriage as a completely separate thing from the matters of custody and child support. This can feel very unfair if your ex was cruel to you, but like most modern courts today, the idea is you can be a terrible spouse and a great parent, and the children’s interests need to be considered separately from the parents. Outside of an abusive parent, an on-going relationship with a not-so-great parent is still usually better than no relationship at all for children. 

So, if you file under separation, adultery or unreasonable behavior etc, you still start over for custody as a different matter.
Personal protection orders and domestic exclusion orders do count as a paper trail to show a history of abuse. This can help for establishing that your ex is not safe for unsupervised visits.
However, in Singapore just like in most countries still, the courts don’t think an ex’s abuse to their partner makes them a risk to their children.
Now – if your spouse has been abusive to you and your children witnessed this, that is traumatic for the children. And generally, abuse of a spouse also increases the likelihood of abusing children. However, what people call abuse is not the same as the legal/court definition of abuse. That is a much higher bar to clear. This can be very frustrating and depressing, especially if you’ve kept quiet about abuse for a long time as it can feel like yet another denial.

But it is what it is. Understanding of trauma has improved, but you will still need to have evidence. You have to prove direct harm to your children to get them protection. You will need documentation of bruises, cuts, or other injuries, or video documentation of the child being injured or the child being able to talk about the abuse to a third-party.

Also, talk with your lawyer about the impact this can have on your children who may feel like they’re betraying the other parent or are overwhelmed at the idea of being involved in legal proceedings. Sometimes, it’s better to work out supervised visits or other arrangements that protect your children long-term rather than try to hold your ex accountable.

And as painful as this is, when you are divorcing someone who has made it very clear that they do not care about your children because of personal damage, you must keep a calm and clear mind open about the possibility of sexual abuse. It is fortunately rare, and if your children are comfortable and have healthy attitudes about their bodies, then don’t worry. But if your children are acting uncomfortable with their bodies in a way that makes you feel worried, talk gently with them and take them to a child therapist. Talk with your lawyer BEFORE making any accusations. These are serious charges and your first priority should be your children’s well-being and safety, not justice/punishment for your ex.
Flowchart of divorce process
I downloaded this from a website about divorce procedures, but can’t locate the original source anymore. If this is your flowchart, please let me know.

Counselling

If you have a personal protection order, you won’t have to go through the required marriage counselling before the divorce procedure. If you went for marriage counselling during your separation, that can count as well. Otherwise, you will need to go for the sessions, but the counsellors are used to manipulative ex-partners and will not force you into a reconciliation. Instead, they will focus on how to get along in parenting after divorce.

You should get counselling as divorce is an exhausting and challenging process. A therapist will help you figure out how you feel and what you want in your future in a safe space where you don’t have to worry about judgement.

Generally, Singapore private psychologists charge $150-$350 an hour. You can get a personal recommendation or look for a listing from one of the expat counselors in The Finder. You can also get counselling online through Skype/Zoom which is cheaper ($60-$100 an hour) with a counselor who speaks English or your own language. Psychologists can’t prescribe medication, only psychiatrists. Private psychiatrists are expensive, and private prescription meds are expensive too. You can get diagnosed privately and then switch to the public system for subsidized meds, it just takes time.

If you’re a Singaporean or PR, you can also ask for counselling through the hospital psychologists (NUH’s neurology clinic) or through a polyclinic referral to the IMH system to get a referral to a counselling center closer to your residence. Counselling through the government subsidized system is about $35-$65/hour and will take about 1-3 months from your first request and is usually limited to 6-10 sessions for therapy. Medication is a lot cheaper through the government system.

You can also get some family therapy sessions through your local Family Service Center if someone in your family is a Singaporean or P.R. The FSCs are great for connecting you to other local social services and financial aid.

Until you get divorced, you do not need both parents to agree for seeking medical help like therapy for a child. Part of the divorce custody settlement will include how decisions about medical care are made, but while you are technically married, you can go ahead and arrange therapy. Note that your ex can also do the same – it’s best to be transparent about therapy if you can.

Generally, therapists with children will not have the parents present. After the first session where you have a detailed chat about the child, you will just chat with the therapist a little at the start or end of the sessions to hear recommendations or update them about the child. A good therapist will not share with you what the child says without a) asking the child’s permission first or b) it’s very serious like suicidal threats. Don’t try to eavesdrop or badger your child about their therapy – they need someone to talk to as well.

For your children, if they show signs of severe distress, you can get a referral through a polyclinic or a pediatrician for play therapy at either the Child Guidance Clinic or the Singapore Association for Mental Health. The sessions are about $40 each and will be every 2-4 weeks usually. There is often a waiting list and they triage, so if your child is moderately distressed – no self-harming, no suicidal ideation etc – you will have to wait longer. They’re excellent therapists but the time is limited due to demand.

Private art/play therapists who work with children are plentiful in Singapore, but expensive at $120-$300/hour depending on their center. Recommendations are best, but you can also check the Honeycombers and Little Day Out sites for recent lists. There’s almost never a waiting list and they can see your child more often if needed.

I’m recommending play and art therapy for children because it works well for younger children and even younger teens. Older teenagers may prefer talk therapy.

You should also talk to your child’s school about their counsellors. Depending on the school system and the individual counsellor, they can be very helpful for school and child friendship issues that flare up during a divorce.

Parallel parenting and co-operative parenting

 

Most ex-partners are good at working together for the best interests of the children. Most divorce guides are written for people with a decent ex who wasn’t a good partner but is a good parent and cares deeply about the children too.

If you are parenting with someone who doesn’t care deeply about your children and puts themselves first, you should research parallel parenting. Also, keep calm and patient and boring – what your children need is a safe ordinary home they can rely on. Don’t badmouth your ex, even if they are dreadful and your children are openly badmouthing them too. Be neutral and calm, because after your children forget that they yelled about their parent who forgot to pick them up, they’ll still remember you agreeing that that parent is awful and feel torn loyalties.

Also, the more boring and indifferent you are with your ex if they’re narcissistic, the faster they will lose interest in ‘winning’ the divorce, and will generally start voluntarily cutting down on custody demands themselves.

Custody

Custody in Singapore is almost always joint to both parents. Sole custody is only given if one parent has abandoned the family or has abused a child. Even with abuse cases, if it is physical abuse only, the other parent may still get supervised visits depending on how good your lawyer is and the rather random draw of who the judge assigned is. 

Joint custody does NOT mean that you share time and care and financial support 50%. It simply means that both parents still have a legal right to decide major decisions about the children’s future (usually about education, religion, where they live, not day to day things like what they eat and wear – that’s care and control).

Who the children live with can be decided privately by the parents. If the parents don’t agree, then custody gets decided by the courts. It is much much cheaper and less difficult to decide custody by the parents. Your lawyer can help you draft a custody agreement. Usually your ex will argue details so it’s a good idea to ask for a lot more than you can live with and negotiate down to something reasonable.

In Singapore, children under the age of 6 are expected to stay with their mother. Overnight stays with the other parent usually only start at age 5 or 6 and are for 1-2 nights. Usually the father will have visits one afternoon or evening during the week, and a full day (9am-5pm type) on a weekend.

Day to day physical custody of the children is “Care and control” and that is usually given to just one parent. For a four-year-old and a one year old, that will be care and control by the mother. That means you decide and manage all the regular things like what the children eat, how they spend their day, what time they go to sleep, taking them for regular medical checkups or for an upset tummy, what classes you sign them up for, etc.

After the divorce agreement is signed, you will have to discuss and mutually decide with them for major decisions like changing your child’s school, if your child needs an elective operation (in a medical emergency you can go ahead first, informing them afterwards) or want to change your child’s religion. If you disagree, your divorce agreement may require you go for mediation or to court to get a ruling.

However, you don’t need your ex’s permission for your parenting, and their opinion has no legal weight. You can ignore everything they say and you don’t have to tell them anything about the day to day matters in your home or your children’s lives.

Remember – this also means they don’t have to tell you about their parenting decisions. For example, if your household is vegetarian, they can feed your kid steaks on their custody time. They can sign your kid up for music lessons and don’t have to tell you.

What you need to remember the most is this: there is nothing you can do to make your ex go one way or another. If you could have made them a better parent when you were married to them, it would have happened. You can’t do anything about your ex, but there is plenty you can do for your children and yourself.

Aim for calm neutral communication about your children and be willing to negotiate fiarly and compromise. If they’re very difficult, just stick to exactly what the custody agreement says and ignore the rest.

Police

When you go to the police to file for a harassment or report something, expect them to be polite and of limited immediate help. You will get paperwork that you need to copy over to your lawyer. Whether it turns into a case is not up to you, but rather the authorities. They may only offer to file a report, or tell you how to apply for a protection order.

Still, it’s always a good idea to go to the police if you get harassed. That way you get a paper trail. It also tells the police there’s harassment occurring. You may get the impression that you’re wasting their time – you’re definitely not. The more abused spouses speak up and say something, the more seriously spousal abuse is taken. You’re helping the next spouse who has to go in and ask for help.

All this goes double for child abuse. I would highly highly recommend talking to your lawyer if you plan to file a child abuse report so that you have support in place already. Singapore’s police have officers trained to work with children so you may find you get referred and have to go to a different station to talk to the specialists.

If you have bruises or injuries of any sort, don’t go to a police station first. Go to the A&E and ask for a police report to be filed from there. Every A&E has a police officer able to file a report there (and a medical social worker who can help too).  You should get photographs of the injuries and a doctor’s report.

HDB

HDBs are considered marital property if they are bought during a marriage. Even if your ex bought the flat with someone else, their share is marital property. The only things that are excluded are inheritance basically, if the flat was inherited or given. Renovation costs and downpayments, mortgage payments – all that counts towards a share of the HDB.

Your lawyer will be able to give you the best advice. Usually the parent with care and custody will keep the family home so the children have less disruption to their life. However, if you have to move, and your lawyer thinks that is a better solution, your ex may have to pay for the rent, especially if they have an ability to stay with family and you don’t.

If you can’t afford to buy over your share of the HDB or don’t want to, and your ex can’t either, you can ask for a forced sale of the HDB and the proceeds will be split appropriately. Most people do sell their flats as part of the divorce. The HDB now allows divorced parents to immediately apply for a new flat or buy one by resale, and you can get the grants. You are considered a family unit as a divorced parent if you have the care and custody of young children.

Finances

Practical things:

  • If you have moved addresses, contact everyone you used to get bills and invoices at to notify them of your new address.
  • You can go to the post office and get your incoming mail to your name forwarded to a different address, if your IC shows that your address was at the previous place (ie: you live there). It costs about $40-$70 for a few months and helps while you get address updated.
  • Switch to online bills if you can.
  • You can rent a very small storage locker to store things if your ex throws your things out and your new place has no storage. Most storage places have a 1-3 month trial period.
  • Keep track of your finances, and be frugal. Like starving student frugal.
  • Apply for whatever support you can like CHAS, working mother discounts on childcare, etc.

The best case scenario is to not need financial support from your ex and to be as independent as possible. In Singapore, parents are responsible for a child’s maintenance to the age of 21, or when the child finishes tertiary level education. Even if a parent doesn’t have custody or care and control, they are still required to support their child.

For expenses like child support and alimony, you will need to show what your previous lifestyle was, so try to get hold of your past budget records for the household to prove what your support was. If you think your ex has been hiding assets from you, try to photocopy or email yourself as many copies of everything you can get access to. Write down any bank account names, investments and significant assets you know about.

One really good strategy if you can swing it financially, is to set the funds your ex gives you for financial support into a separate account for your child and save them up for them in the future (college fund!). That way when your ex is late with payments or reduces them, you aren’t relying on them and your daily life and your child aren’t affected.

Singapore doesn’t have alimony payments from wives to husbands so far. Alimony from husbands to wives is increasingly limited, and usually for women who have given up careers for their rich husbands or who have skill or health issues. Usually alimony is now time-limited to give the wife time to return to her career. For a wife who can work in a relatively short marriage, alimony will be very little or none, with financial support given to the children, unless you made a significant financial sacrifice for the household.

You also need to confirm what’s happening for your insurance. While the divorce happens, you should be covered under your ex’s workplace insurance. The children should remain on his insurance. If he had insurance policies for you and the children, your lawyer can add that those policies either get signed over to you as part of the settlement or that your ex agrees to continue them until your children are 21.

If your ex’s medical insurance covers the children, talk directly to the insurance agents to find out more information.

If your ex is a civil servant, up until your divorce, and after the divorce for the children, you qualify for multiple benefits at different government services. Find out the full range and ask for either access or in lieu of substitutions.

You also need to write a short will with a trusted friend as an executor, and to name two people at least, with one in Singapore, to be your children’s guardians if anything happens to you. Email a copy to your lawyer and to a friend you can trust to keep a copy.

You may want to go to the CPF board and nominate your CPF to go in equal shares to your children or to otherwise go to someone other than your ex if you are worried about the court case taking a long time.

Personal security and stalking

It happens sometimes that ex partners stalk or harass. You will need to report all the incidents of harassment that cross the line. Check with your lawyer on when you should report something, and when you need to just log it in your email.

Privacy during a divorce is a big deal – it’s a really good idea to open a brand-new email account with a different name than you would normally use so that you have something you can use for super important emails.

With a difficult ex, it’s a very good idea to lock down your Facebook, Instagram, and other social media. Block them and all of their family and friends. Keep your public and private postings polite and friendly. Don’t post anything you’d be embarrassed to explain in court

 

Passwords

I use LastPass, and there are other free password managers. You only need to remember the master password and you can nominate someone like a trusted family member or friend as a backup. You can often keep secure notes like bank account details in it. 

Go in and change all your passwords to new passwords. 

The other important thing (once you have a new telephone number) is to turn on 2-factor encryption for your Gmail, Facebook and other cloud services.

From your Google account page, for example, click Device activity & notifications to see computers and phones that have recently accessed your account. On Facebook, go  to Security and login from the Settings page to see active sessions and log out from them.

 

Cleaning up your phone

If your iPhone is not jailbroken, all you need to do is run a factory reset (plug it into a laptop with iTunes and choose Restore iPhone) to clear anything.

For Android, usually the setting is in Backup & reset/Factory data reset.

Changing the SIM card is helpful. I didn’t change mine for work reasons, and I was able to check nothing weird was installed. I would be more careful with an Android and switch phones. If you can change your number (If most people contact you through Whatsapp, it automatically updates new numbers) then I would go ahead because it’s pretty cheap and lets you feel more secure.

 

Keeping your home safe

Check with your lawyer. You may not have to give your ex your home address if you have a protection order. They don’t have the right to go into your home (including if you have the HDB with care and custody, even if they are a co-owner – you can get an ex domicile thing, and you can reasonably request that they make an appointment and give you advance notice so you don’t have to be present.) You can transfer custody of the children somewhere else, like at a Family Service Center, a neighbourhood police station, a playground or another public place if you don’t feel safe having your ex come near your house.

 

Talking to people about safety

Tell people when you feel unsafe. If you get harassed or feel unsafe, refuse to go away from a public place. Refuse to continue talking or engaging with your ex, and take the children and go towards a crowd, especially with other children and parents. Tell them loudly and clearly, “You are harassing us. Go away or I will call the police.” Then call the police. It’s enormously embarrassing and terrifying the first time it happens. The third and fourth time, it’s just exhausting and stupid, and you will see your ex as a spoilt brat. It will get better and other people can be mostly very kind about helping.  

The Hague convention is mostly a good thing because it stops parents from taking a child and running away to another country with no way for the other parent to ever see their child again. It says that it is very important for children to have their emotional ties to their culture and society respected. If both parents agree, then the parents combined can overrule the Hague, e.g. the child can live overseas for a year. If one parents disagree, the child stays here all years. The Hague applies to the age of 16.

Note that while Malaysia is not a signed country to The Hague, any parent who takes a child to Malaysia to keep them there against a child custody agreement (parental kidnapping), would still be committing a crime, and wouldn’t be able to return to Singapore. Some parents have moved to Malaysia with their children to do just that, but it is very very rare.

Foreign Spouses and Singapore Divorce

So much harder. Yes, you will have to worry about your visa while you are getting divorced. If you are on a work visa or P.R., you should be okay. However if you are on a dependent’s pass, you really need to talk to your lawyer. I would also recommend getting advice from a lawyer in your home country on all your divorce and custody options.

During the divorce process, you will generally get extensions and stuff from the ICA to help you remain in Singapore. If you end up with sole custody of your Singaporean children, you can apply for a long term pass as their carer. However, with shared custody, you really do risk having to do an international back and forth if you can’t qualify for a Singapore visa on your own.

Definitely get help. It’s not uncommon for the visa status to be held over the foreign spouse by the Singaporean spouse to intimidate them, so you are not alone. International custody arrangements are almost always messy and difficult.

AWARE, a local Singapore women’s right organisation, has been active in research and support for foreign spouses: Migrant Spouses | AWARE

And, as long as someone in the family unit is a Singaporean or P.R., you can ask for help from the Family Service Centers too.

Resources

The NLB and of course Kindle will help you get ebooks you can read without your spouse seeing them. NLB’s online library through the Libby app has a lot of divorce and parenting books.