The Divorce Act was voted into law by the Canadian Parliament as a federal law. The Alberta divorce law says that in order to get a divorce in Alberta, you have to approach the apex court of a province as only such a court has jurisdiction to handle divorce petitions. The Act stipulates that the only grounds for divorce is a breakdown in marriage and provides three basic ways for proving it. They are as follows.

Before applying for divorce, it is imperative that both spouses should have been leading separate lives for one year. There is no difficulty in proving this. You can get on with the divorce proceedings at any time during the period of separation, but the court will grant the divorce only after the 12 months are over. This period of separation should not be interrupted at any time, except for a reconciliation period of 90 days allowed by the act; but such periods do not sort of reset the clock on your separation.

It does not matter what the reason is for your separation if you want to get a divorce in Alberta; the only thing that does is the fact that you are separated. At this point it is good to note that you and your spouse can deem yourself leading separate lives although you are staying at the same dwelling place. Unfortunately this is not a matter that is easy to prove. In such a scenario, your lives must be totally independent of each other, like cooking your own meals, doing the laundry, keeping the house in good order etc, but never sleeping on the same bed.

The second way is to show that your spouse has indulged in extra marital sex. Under the law prevailing in Alberta, it is not incumbent upon you to mention the name of the person with whom he/she had sexual relations or find your spouse in bed with another person, The only thing necessary is to establish a possibility that such a thing has occurred, for instance your spouse spent the night with another person in a motel room. This becomes real easy, if your spouse doesn’t mind admitting the fact by signing an affidavit. Alberta is most particular in one thing: you must swear in court that there is really no collusion or connivance between the couple. This is in order to show that you have not concocted an act of adultery for the only reason of getting a divorce.

In order to get a divorce in Alberta, adultery must have actually taken place without you condoning it in any manner. Extra marital sex can be proved by an examination of discovery and appearance in court. But you cannot rely on such methods to show that an adulterous act has indeed taken place. The court is no position to compel your spouse to answer questions concerning the offence because he/she is secure from self-accusation under the Evidence Act and Alberta divorce law.

Lastly, to get a divorce in Alberta, you must prove that your spouse has been emotionally or physically cruel to you, in an insufferable manner. Alberta courts consider cruelty as cause enough to make living together unbearable. Under the circumstances, if your spouse has caused you needless hurt whether physically or mentally, you have very good grounds for divorce. So if you decide to go forward with cruelty as cause, it will be necessary for you to prove that the said cruelty is of a grave and weighty nature and not due to any minor incompatibilities or temperament between you and your spouse. After all, the test of cruelty is very subjective in nature and so may differ much by individual situations and those who are parties to the same.

Find out more about how to get a Divorce in Alberta.

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