About Divorce

Divorce is a legal process that couples engage in if they wish to officially end a relationship that has been legally sanctioned by marriage. The marriage may have taken place with either a religious or civil ceremony.

Divorce Statistics in Australia

"In 2017, there were 49,032 divorces granted in Australia, an increase of 2,428 (5.0%) from the 46,604 divorces granted in 2016".

Total divorces granted in Australia, 1997-2017

Ref: Australian Bureau of Statistics

"Based on the divorce rate prevailing at the end of the 1990s, projections for the years between 2005 and 2025 indicated that almost half (46 per cent) of all marriages in Australia would end in divorce, nine per cent of marriages would be over within five years, one in every five marriages would be over within 10 years, and that more than one in every three marriages (35 per cent) would be over within 20 years."

Ref: ABS (2000); see also National Centre for Social & Economic Modelling Projections for 2005-2025, Income and Wealth Report, issue 10 (April 2005), p6.

Application for Divorce

The separation and/or divorce process usually entails arrangements involving division of assets acquired throughout the relationship and if children under the age of 18 years are involved, how they will be cared for following separation and/or divorce.

The law requires that a couple be legally separated for 12 months before divorce can be granted. Legal separation occurs on the date that a couple cease being a couple even if they continue to reside under the same roof.

The application for divorce is made the Federal Circuit Court of Australia and incurs a filing fee.

Divorce application forms can be completed by one party and lodged with the Court or you may prefer to engage the services of Family Lawyer.

The process of completing forms, lodging forms with the Federal Circuit Court of Australia, the hearing and court process can all take up to four months.

For more information and divorce forms and kits please visit the Family Law Courts website.

How to tell if a couple will get divorced

"Twenty years ago psychologist John Gottman and a team of researchers set out to determine why couples split up.

They recorded 80 married couples talking about a recent disagreement they'd had, the Scientific American reports.

Next the researchers coded the 15 minute conversations to identify all the behaviours the couples displayed when talking, such as defensiveness, anger or humour.

Fast forward 14 years. The researchers kept tabs on which couples were still together and which had divorced. And they noticed that there were four behaviours in particular that could predict which couples would divorce down the line. With 93 per cent accuracy."

Read more about John Gottman's Six criteria for predicting divorce.

Other Resources

Atkinson Vinden Lawyers have a special Family Law Team to help you through the divorce process.

divorce.com.au and Watts McCray offer a considerable amount of information about divorce and Family Law.

Christine Bennett offers Family Dispute Resolution and Marriage Counselling in Crows Nest, Central Coast NSW and online.

Divorce in Australia
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