Till death do us part

Is it coincidence?

Two weeks ago, we get a front page article in the Straits Times newspaper about the Singapore Court of Appeal altering their stance from not recognizing Prenuptial Agreements to one that they “may be considered in a court’s determination of what is a fair result, along with a host of other factors”. Here is an International Family Law article on the case.

It pertains to a prenuptial agreement signed by a Dutch man and his Swedish wife in the Netherlands. The case was heard here because they had moved to Singapore with their children. The court determined that the Singapore courts should accord “significant (even critical) weight” to the terms of a prenuptial agreement between foreign nationals that is governed by and valid according to a foreign law, unless its terms violate the public policy of Singapore.

Today’s Straits Time Home front page has a High Court judge telling off a 60 year old divorcee for living beyond her means and lacking “good sense in money matters” and threw out her claims for maintenance from her ex-husband. She receives a civil servant pension of S$2131, while her husband has one $224 more than her. However, she has a monthly expense of over S$4000, frequently buying jewellery and having beauty treatments which were “hardly essential in the lifestyle of a 60-year-old retiree”, the judge said.

She spent S$62,356 from their joint account in 2 years, and her daughter chalked up $62,000 of credit card debts buying branded goods during her first year of work. She is also claiming $1696 for her son who is currently serving his national service: housed, clothed, fed and paid by the Army.

Who knows?

The prenuptial agreement article got some columnists scrambling to to dampen any hopes that Singapore now fully recognises prenuptial agreements and states that the Woman’s Charter is still King, or incidentally Empress Dowager. I really do wonder if the government has got some focus group data that states that Singaporeans are avoiding or putting back marriage as a result of the Woman’s Charter and maintenance payouts.

Just the other evening, I was having a discussion with some acquaintances about the divorce of Glenn Ong (local radio DJ) and Jamie Yeo (local TV actress), and how it was his second divorce, he must be living off peanuts at this stage. I guess all Singaporean guys of a marriageable age must have had this conversation with his friends. How they would see half their assets and half their salary disappear if/when they get a divorce, seeing as 3 out of every 10 marriages end in divorce in Singapore. Guys should get a quick look at our Matrimonial Assets laws to see if you can get any wiggle room. I bet the Courts are getting increasingly difficult divorce cases these days.

The fact is that many women are now financially independent, if not wealthy. It is common for couples go into a marriage each with their own portfolio of property, assets and high salaries. And when the relationship sours and people get vindictive, it is understandable that they would grasp at any legal means of getting back at their partners. I am sure quite a few men breathed a sigh of relief when they read the newspaper this morning. The world has changed since the time when the Woman’s Charter was penned.

I think the majority of married women are still making significantly less than their spouses and in the event of a divorce, would require maintenance payouts, and deservingly so. With relationships the way they are now, and couples not wanting to have children, it is no wonder that some men decide not to get married and just have a long term girlfriend. Perhaps someone can enlighten me on the rights of “common-law-spouses” in Singapore. As far as I can see, they only refer to foreigner workers and permits for their “common-law-spouses”.

What is my stand on the institution of marriage?

I used to think it was quite cynical to have prenuptial agreements, but I was young and naive and incidentally had no assets. The divorce rate in Singapore is sobering. At my age of 30+, I can see around me the all sorts of examples of strained marriages, divorces, people opting out and so forth. It is not easy to maintain a marriage relationship in this day and age, especially with financial and social independence meaning that marriage can be flipped on and off like a switch. I will worry about that when I get to it.

Realities in an online game

I was moved to write about this because one of my guild mates just lost her unborn baby to a miscarriage during a car accident. She never talked much with us, this being her first MMORPG, but we all knew about her pregnancy because her husband, who is also a guild mate, would come on vent and talk excitedly about their pregnancy. He even had a thread on our forums offering game gold to whoever guessed the gender of the baby correctly.

It was from him that I heard about the miscarriage, and also that his wife was alright but recovering in the hospital. I can still remember his excited happy voice when talking about his baby, but I cannot imagine how painful it must be for them now, and can only hope that she makes a full and speedy recovery and they will have many children in the years to come. I cried when I was talking to him yesterday, and it would not be the only time I cried over someone I know over the Internet.

As sad as this story is, it would not be the most harrowing situation to have befallen a fellow guild mate in a game I have played: I used to be in a guild that was run by a husband and wife. He was an IT specialist in the US Air Force, and she was a housewife with two lovely kids. The kids occasionally play as well, and we had to keep our potty mouths to ourselves in their presence. Their gaming time reduced when he was posted to Iraq, and after some months, she told us that their marriage was on the rocks, then there were months of radio silence until we happened to encounter her on MSN.

Her husband, our former guild leader and friend, had shot both their children and himself. She barely made it out with her life. I was shocked when I heard this, I have been online long enough to know that people tend to fabricate their lives behind the anonymity. But this is no bullshit, it was national news for a while, and articles on the case are still on news and US Air Force websites. How someone turns from a decent bloke you play a video game with into a monster that kills his own children is completely beyond my comprehension. The pain of a parent losing both her children can only be worse because the person who killed them was someone she loved, and someone she trusted with the safety of her children. How is anyone supposed to trust her own judgment after all that? I can only hope that she will recover enough to re-engage herself with society and attempt to live our the rest of her life as normally as possible. That she will be able to love and trust again.

One of my close online friends was date-raped in her teens, and I also lost another friend, an admirable young man who had a lust for life, to a car accident. Of course, I have experienced my share of loss and misfortune with the people around me as well. In a way, people play video games to get away from realities for a while, but with online gaming, we are plugged into how the real world can be as dramatic, as moving, as sad and as violent as video games.

I can only sit on the opposite side of the world and can only spare a thought for those that are lost, and those left behind.