Wife wants divorce because hubby cant afford a car.

SG WIFE DIVORCE HUSBAND AS NO CAR & CONDO. WANT ALIMONY 70% OF SALARY

By Raging Siam Kia

January 24, 2021

A Singaporean guy recently shared his story after his wife wanted to get a divorce with him as he did not have a 5 figure salary or a car. She was not happy that her husband did not try to fight for his parent’s money so they could get a bigger cut when his parents passes away.

Here is the full story.

Hi everyone here, I need some help and advice here, please. My wife wants to get an alimony and will like me to pay 70% of my salary to her. Can I check if there is a proper way to work out the amount that I should pay her as I will like the payment to be backed up with certain reasons and justifications? I’ll accept paying more than 70% if it is being backed up with certain reasons and justifications. 70% seems quite high to me as CPF contribution is 20% leaving 10% (100-70-20) behind which will leave me with nothing after giving my parents monthly allowance. We have been married for 2 years.

We are both in our late 20s, no kids, co-owning a HDB unit. I have not been giving her allowances until recently, 20% of my income each month. The reason why I have not been giving her allowances was because she used to earn almost the same amount as me previously and more than me recently.

The main reasons for us to get an alimony were the following (hope it helps in deriving the proper alimony I should be paying her):

1) She felt that I was biased towards my family and favour my family over her. An example is let’s say if my parents were to pass on (touch wood) and if I get lesser compared to my siblings for some reason, I should fight for it now. I disagreed as I do not want to cause some trouble within my family. However, she shared that me not wanting to cause trouble for my family will cause her displeasure as she is not assured of the money that I would get and eventually the money she would be getting.

2) I was unable to provide for her financially and provide a car. She mentioned that a guy nearing late 20s should be earning 5 digit a month and to be honest, base on my career projection, I’ll not reach that before 30 years old. She also mentioned that I have wasted her youth when she could have been with a guy who treated her better (unbiased against her) and it is a duty of the guy to provide a car and earn more to provide a landed/condo.

3) We quarrel quite often over issues such as forgetting to empty the rubbish, boiling the water and the pent up anger on her side builds up. When she takes the bus or has to walk under the rain due to the lack of car, she would snap at me and tell me that I’m better off dead.

4) Last year, when she started to earn more income than me, she would express her displeasure over this issue and call me useless and I should listen to her as I am obviously an idiot (because I earn lesser). Very often, I’ll try to negotiate around certain issues to let her see and understand from my POV but that has resulted in more conflicts as she finds it a waste of time listening to me.
On a side note, I always like it when Prof Ben comments on NUSWhispers post as it can offer very useful life advice and can be entertaining too. I understand that we should try to work on the marriage as far as possible and love the one we marry but the more I try, the worst things get. My wife doesn’t think I’m trying at all to be honest as I am not earning more and providing a car or anything else. 

Hope to get some useful advice.