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Growing up, I was, like many people, told that a whopping 50 per cent of marriages end in divorce. Being 12 years old, I didn’t really question it, other than to think that it all sounded pretty grim and wondering if the failure rate was so high, why people opted to get married in the first place.
Turns out that 50 per cent figure was a complete furphy based on dodgy statistics and projections that for some reason stuck, likely because it did sound so astounding, plus it made for good conversation.
Splitting assets during a divorce can be tricky and time-consuming.Credit: Monique Westermann
In reality, divorce rates aren’t anywhere near that high. The Australian Bureau of Statistics doesn’t provide a flat percentage figure, but its “crude divorce rate” in 2020 was 1.9 divorces per 1000 residents. Overall, the divorce rate has been trending down since 1990.
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What’s the problem?
However, there are still some 50,000 divorces granted every year, and each one of those brings a great deal of both personal – and financial – anguish.
Extricating your assets from another person’s can be an extremely complex and time-consuming process, made more so the longer you were married. Plus, any disputes about the process can leave you paying even more for lawyers and the like.
