There are two answers to why marriages end in Singapore, and confusing them causes a lot of unnecessary distress. The legal reason is one of six facts you must prove to satisfy the court that the marriage has irretrievably broken down. The human reason is what actually happened between two people, which is usually slower, messier and harder to put in a sentence.

Most divorces are filed on unreasonable behaviour, which tells you almost nothing about the marriage: it is the legal category broad enough to hold almost anything. This page separates the two: what the law requires you to prove, what genuinely drives marriages apart here, and how much the reason affects what you walk away with.

Singapore has one ground for divorce: that the marriage has irretrievably broken down. You prove it with one of six facts.

  • Adultery, where you also find it intolerable to live with your spouse.
  • Unreasonable behaviour: behaviour such that you cannot reasonably be expected to live with them.
  • Desertion for a continuous period of at least two years.
  • Three years’ separation with your spouse’s consent to the divorce.
  • Four years’ separation, where no consent is needed.
  • Divorce by mutual agreement, added on 1 July 2024, where both parties agree the marriage has irretrievably broken down and file a written agreement with the court.

These are proof mechanisms, not explanations. Nobody’s marriage ended because of “section 95(3)(b)”. Our detailed comparison of the six facts and which one to rely on covers what each requires and how to choose. The point for this page is that the fact you plead is a legal choice, often made for tactical or practical reasons (speed, cost, and how much damage the document will do to a co-parenting relationship) rather than a description of the truth.

That is why unreasonable behaviour dominates. It requires no waiting period, it covers everything from emotional withdrawal to financial recklessness, and until 2024 it was the only realistic route for a couple who simply wanted to separate without waiting years. The introduction of divorce by mutual agreement was intended in part to relieve that pressure, by giving couples a way to end a marriage without one of them being written down as the cause.

The human reasons marriages end

What follows is drawn from what is commonly reported by family lawyers, counsellors and family service agencies in Singapore. It is not a ranked list and there are no percentages attached, because the honest position is that most marriages end from several of these at once, compounding over years.

Communication breakdown

The most commonly described starting point, and the one that underlies most of the others. It rarely looks like arguing. More often it is the gradual disappearance of conversation that is not logistics (schedules, bills, the children’s schooling) until the couple no longer know what the other thinks.

Financial stress and conflicting attitudes to money

Housing costs, servicing a mortgage on two CPF accounts, supporting parents on both sides, and the cost of raising children put sustained pressure on marriages here. The corrosive part is usually not the shortage itself but the mismatch: one spouse saving, the other spending; one carrying debt the other did not know about; disagreement over how much goes to whose parents.

Infidelity

Often the presenting reason rather than the root one. What tends to matter more than the affair itself is what it reveals about how long the relationship had already been empty. Note that infidelity as a human reason and adultery as a legal fact are different things: adultery has a specific meaning and evidential requirement, and many people who have been cheated on file on a different fact because proving adultery is harder and more expensive than it sounds.

In-law and cultural pressure

This appears far more here than in material written for Western audiences. Multi-generational households, expectations about caring for ageing parents, differences of religion or race the wider families never accepted, and pressure about when to have children all place a third party inside a two-person relationship. The pattern that does the damage is usually a spouse who will not set boundaries with their own family.

Growing apart

People who married at 25 are different at 40. Careers diverge, priorities separate, and the shared project of raising children reaches its end. Empty-nest separations are frequently amicable, which is exactly the situation the mutual agreement fact was designed for.

Addiction and compulsive behaviour

Gambling, particularly online gambling, along with alcohol and substances. What ends the marriage is often less the behaviour than the financial destruction and the repeated broken promises around it. Where family savings or the flat are at risk, this becomes urgent rather than merely painful.

Family violence and abuse

Physical violence, but also the sustained controlling behaviour, intimidation and financial control that people are slower to name. This is different in kind from the reasons above, because safety comes before any question about the marriage. If you or your children are in immediate danger, call the police on 999. The National Anti-Violence and Sexual Harassment Helpline is 1800 777 0000. A personal protection order can be applied for independently of any divorce, and our guide to family violence and protection orders in Singapore explains how.

The translation step is where people get stuck. You know why the marriage ended; you now have to express it in a form the court recognises. A few common mappings:

  • Growing apart, or a mutual decision. Usually divorce by mutual agreement, or one of the separation facts if you have already been living apart long enough.
  • Emotional neglect, constant conflict, refusal to contribute to the household, controlling behaviour. Typically unreasonable behaviour, which is the broadest fact and the one most often used.
  • An affair. Adultery is available but requires proof, which is often expensive to obtain. Many people in this position plead unreasonable behaviour instead and include the conduct as part of it.
  • Addiction, gambling or financial recklessness. Usually unreasonable behaviour, with the financial dimension raised separately when assets are divided.

One reason can support more than one fact, and the choice between them is strategic. It is worth thinking about which document you want your children to be able to read in ten years.

What the official data does and does not tell you

Plenty of confident-sounding statistics about divorce in Singapore circulate online, and many are lifted from a report years old or presented without the definitions that make them meaningful. The reliable sources are the Department of Statistics, which publishes annual data on marriages and divorces including duration of marriage and the legal grounds relied on, and the Ministry of Social and Family Development.

Two cautions when reading them. The data records the legal fact pleaded, not the reason the marriage failed, so a high figure for unreasonable behaviour is a fact about court filings, not about marriages. And year-on-year movements are affected by procedural changes, such as the introduction of a new fact. Our overview of what the divorce statistics actually show goes through the published data and its limits.

Does the reason affect the outcome?

This is the question underneath most searches on this topic, usually asked as “he had an affair, does that mean I get more?” The short answer is: less than you would expect.

Division of assets

Division under section 112 of the Women’s Charter is based on the parties’ direct financial contributions and indirect contributions, including homemaking and caregiving, weighed across a list of statutory factors to reach a just and equitable division. Moral fault is not one of the main drivers. Conduct becomes relevant in narrow circumstances: where it is both extreme and obvious, or where it has a financial dimension, such as a spouse dissipating assets on gambling or on a third party. In that second situation the court can take the dissipated sums into account. Our guide to how matrimonial assets are divided sets out the structured approach.

Maintenance

Maintenance under sections 113 and 114 is assessed on a list of factors including income, earning capacity, needs, the standard of living during the marriage, contributions and the duration of the marriage. Conduct can be considered where it would be inequitable to disregard it, but it is not a punishment mechanism and it is rarely the deciding factor.

Children

Here the position is clearest. The welfare of the child is the paramount consideration, full stop. A parent’s infidelity does not make them a worse parent in the court’s eyes, and courts are alert to attempts to use children’s arrangements to punish a spouse. What matters is parenting capacity, stability, the existing pattern of care and the child’s own needs. Conduct becomes relevant only where it affects the child: violence, neglect, addiction that impairs care, or exposing a child to an unsafe environment. Our guide to custody, care and control in Singapore explains how those decisions are made.

The practical implication is worth stating plainly. Building a case around proving your spouse was the bad one usually costs a great deal, delays the matter, and changes the financial result very little. If the marriage is genuinely over, the money is better spent on getting the ancillary matters right. If it is not yet over, and you are reading this trying to decide, marriage counselling services in Singapore exist for exactly that stage and are far cheaper than the alternative.