In Canada, divorce is always based on the ground of ‘marital breakdown’, and there are three ways to show that your marriage has broken down. These include:
- One year’s separation from your spouse: living “…separate and apart for at least one year immediately preceding the determination of the divorce”
- Adultery: “the spouse against whom the divorce proceeding is brought has…committed adultery” (this means you cannot apply for divorce based on your own adultery – it has to be the other spouse who committed it)
- Cruelty: “…physical or mental cruelty of such kind as to render intolerable the continued cohabitation of the spouses.” This means that the cruelty had to have been of a serious nature, and you could not continue to live with your spouse as a result.