Getting a divorce is no fun. As a matter of fact, it can affect several areas in your life: you finances, where you live, where your kids live and even what property you get to keep. All these issues fall under family law and they are dealt with in the Divorce Act of Canada.
It is fairly easy to file for a divorce. One of you or both of you file in the correct court and tell the truth about your marriage — that there has been a breakdown in your union. The way to define “breakdown” is that you have lived in separate homes away from each other for at least a year. This separation must have occurred immediately preceding the filing and you must remain apart while the divorce is being finalized. Another way to get a marriage to end is to prove that the other spouse committed adultery or treated you with physical abuse or mental cruelty.
These are not hard to prove, but you need to inform your lawyer that this is the route you want to go. Proving adultery is a bit difficult because you may need a witness or a series of pictures showing your spouse with another person obviously entering into an entanglement.
Your attorney is, by law, supposed to try and inform you that you two may negotiate all issues in this divorce, from child custody and support to alimony and property division. It will be so much easier if you willfully enter into mediation with your soon-to-be ex-spouse.
You will need a lawyer in order to enter into mediation to see if any type of counselling or guidance can be given to save the marriage. If you don’t want to reconcile, then this person can assist in getting your divorce quickly with no fuss and fuddle.
Source: Canada Justice Laws, “Divorce,” accessed Dec. 14, 2015
