What are the legal grounds for ending a marriage?
The Divorce Act, the governing federal statute, provides that a court may grant a dissolution of the marriage on the ground that there has been a breakdown of the marriage. Marriage breakdown is deemed to have occurred where: 1. the spouses have lived separate and apart for at least one year immediately before the divorce judgment is obtained; or 2. the spouse against whom the divorce proceeding is brought, has, during the marriage, committed adultery (has had sexual relations with another person outside the marriage) or treated the other spouse with physical or mental cruelty of such a kind as to make it intolerable or unbearable for the spouses to continue living together. The vast majority of divorces granted in Ontario are based on one year separation. This ground does not require proving fault on the part of either spouse and proceedings based on this ground often take less time to complete than those conducted on the fault-based grounds of adultery or cruelty.
