stuabroad

It's shit but it's happening. Who else has married a Canadian and the relationship ended, how did you deal with it and what advice would you give.

scrubbedexpat091

I divorced in 2012, married to a Canadian, married in Canada, and divorced in BC.

If you can avoid using lawyers, it's a pretty easy and simply process. We used no lawyers and it was maybe 6 months from filing until the court approved in.

No appearance in court required.

Now we had no kids, and no real assets to fight over and she was in a hurry to get divorced so she could re-marry and move to Australia.

Pulaski

It depends on whether it is an amicable end to your marriage and you're both behaving like grownups, or if it is shaping up to be a §4!t-storm.

Yorkiechef

Relationship advice....none.
Don't blame Canadians or Canada.
Shit happens you know, you could have been married to anyone from any part of the world and divorce happens, unfortunately some folks expectations of what marriage is are often deluded, break ups happen, as does finding new love.

Good luck in any new encounters, but be prepared, divorce might happen again.

Oink

Apart from the obvious advice of don't marry a Canadian, it's best not to feed them too much otherwise they get fat and smelly.

Oink

Apparently chocolate is poisonous as well.

Jerseygirl

I know someone who has just gone through an amicable divorce...Brit/Canadian. Even though there was a child they did not get lawyers involved. Split the assets...agreed on visitation...agreed no child support would be paid.

Almost Canadian

As others have said, if it is amicable there is no need to use lawyers and all of the forms you will need (and an idiot's guide as to the process) can be found here: Divorce forms

Siouxie

Sorry to hear that..

Are there children involved? If not, then you can either live separely for a year before filing or file immediately if there was adultary or violence involved.

Draw up an agreement if it's amicable, going through assets, finances and other stuff like who gets what furniture. If you have a house to sell, I believe there are more stringent rules.

You can read more here: https://www.alberta.ca/divorce-separation.aspx

Provided it's amicable (and I hope that you can do it this way) then it's a simple process with no lawyers needing to be involved. If it's not amicable, then you may have to get some legal advice.

If there are children involved, there is a formula to work out child support etc., and you would need to decide and agree on who has them and when.

Best of luck - it's not easy to go through emotionally, but you'll survive... you were strong enough to come out here and you are strong enough to start again. Don't let it put you off relationships or Canadians - there's always one bad apple in the barrel and you've already found it

Other advice? Don't rush into anything, don't make rash decisions just to get things finished and dusted.. take your time to get it right, else you will feel resentment later. (Speaking from experience).

sharkus

Unsure on wether AB is different from ON, so what I say might not apply.

I was married, we had a son, who was three at the time, and we separated.

I had not seen it coming, and it did upset me quite a bit. I went and saw someone for a couple of counselling sessions, and that did help put perspective on certain areas. Was still crappy, but hey ho.

Living in the same house was ok, but not a bundle of fun. I moved out a few months afterwards.

We did get a lawyer involved to draw up separation agreement. It was very amicable, and we had already decided on how to split the debts and assets, so we had a very simple list of such, we didn't fill out the large form of financial info, both of us took one look at it and rolled our eyes at it.

Separation agreement also specified who had primary custody of our son, and what the visitation arrangements were. She has sole custody, as he lives with her 95% of the time, but I have him once a week and ever other weekend, but that's just what the paperwork states, and we're very flexible with the little fella
It also included the child support payment. There's a chart listing what you should pay. I'm paying more than that, just to account for salary increases, it's more than we had initially listed on the paperwork, but we're both fine with it.

After a couple of years we finally decided to get round to actually getting divorced. Again we did get lawyers involved, didn't cost that much, we split the cost of both sets of lawyers between us. It was an uncontested divorce. She filed against me, I acknowledged receipt of the paperwork, but didn't contest it. After a short period of time, it went to the court, divorce was granted, then we eventually got the divorce certificate.

As said, was all very civilized, but I think we all know situations where it gets very very nasty, and I hope that isn't the situation in your case, and wish you well.

Almost Canadian

The highlighted bit is not correct, but lots of people believe that it is.

A party could file on the day of separation if s/he wants to. They simply cannot apply for a divorce judgment until they have been separated for at least a year, if one year separation is the ground for the divorce. They can use that time to resolve all other issues.

dbd33

My experience was different to those above. We, the parents of three children, one of them disabled, split up in the late 1980s. We didn't pursue any legal action at that time believing that, if we did, the lawyers would be win and we would lose. We anticipated wanting to pay university tuition and were not prepared to risk the ability to do that. We worked out a support arrangement between ourselves and carried on passably well. I borrowed against "my half" of the family home and bought a house, the children came and went between the houses. I lived long term, seven years each, with other people and we behaved as spouses, I even sponsored one to Canada as a spouse despite being legally married to the mother of my children.

In 2009 I came under some domestic pressure to get divorced. I went to see a lawyer who said it was a bad idea for a man to divorce in Ontario, that I should not do it. I pressed on regardless believing that we were only formalizing an arrangement that had served for a couple of decades. It should not be a big deal. My half of the ensuing litigation cost $100,000 over the two years the process took and, of course, we ended up with the exact same arrangement as always only now there's a tax break on the support payments. If I live for another fifty years I expect the tax break will cover the hundred grand.

Siouxie

Yes, true. I filed before 1 year of separation (I had forgotten) but the decree (of divorce) wouldn't be done until 1 year of separation has passed. You can also live in the same property, provided you live totally separate lives (even down to food, laundry etc).

Thanks for the reminder AC, it's been a while.

scilly

I can only say .....

...... try to keep it civil, and remember some of your friends may want to keep in contact with both of you. It is not necessary to blacken each other's characters!

I've only been close to one divorce, and it was nasty ....... a relative came to visit us here, met one of our friends who was also a Brit. They married in the UK the following year and came straight back to Canada. A child was born after about 5 years, marriage split up about 2 years after that ........ and the child became a pawn, but also each had nothing good to say about the other.

Legal separation was obtained about a year later, and then divorce about 5 years after that ........... one partner realised that they had to wait until the other made the first move each time.

Meanwhile, there was keying of and other damage to cars, household items broken, promises to pick up child then not turning up, non-payment of support, etc etc etc

We insisted that we wanted to keep contact, and ensured that their paths never crossed. We had to shut our ears to complaints what he / she had done now, but we managed it.

Many years later, our daughter was to be married, and each came to me and said "if you want to invite him/her, I promise that we will behave."

We took them up on their word, invited them both ............ and they did behave, exchanging the first civil words in about 20 years.

The mother of one of them was the problem ............. never ever had a good word for the spouse!



I do know that in BC there is now some automatic sharing of money and valuables accrued during the marriage .......... the amount depending somewhat on the length of the marriage and the contribution made by each partner.