Woman who ‘brought nothing but grief’ to brief marriage with millionaire gets $5k in divorce
The judge said it was fair to award the woman a lump sum of $5,000 for maintenance as a “clean break”. PHOTO: ST FILE
Selina Lum
Senior Law Correspondent
UPDATED
FEB 28, 2024, 11:54 AM
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SINGAPORE - At the age of 58, a Singaporean widower who had more than $10 million in assets met a 40-year-old woman through a dating agency in Taiwan.
He convinced her to move to Singapore and marry him here, but the marriage was short-lived.
Six months into the marriage, the woman returned to Taiwan and spent 10 months there. She flew back to Singapore after the man sent her $19,300.
After living with him for less than two months, she went back to Taiwan. He never saw her again.
The man succeeded in getting a divorce in Singapore.
In dividing the matrimonial assets, High Court judge Choo Han Teck said: “Given that she brought nothing but grief to the marriage, and added nothing to it during its brief span, there is nothing that can be awarded to her.”
In his judgment on Feb 27, the judge ordered that each person would retain the assets that were in their sole names.
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As for maintenance, Justice Choo said it was fair to award the woman a lump sum of $5,000 as a “clean break”, given such a brief marriage.
“There is no evidence of what the defendant had done in her sojourn in Singapore, except that she was given $400 to $800 a month as allowance, in addition to the $19,300 that the plaintiff gave to cajole her to return to Singapore,” he said.
Justice Choo also commented on a lament the man had made in his affidavit.
The man, who has two adult children, said he had “longed for a supportive and peaceful relationship in (his) sunset years after being widowed, and this short-lived marriage has caused (him) much grief”.
The judge said: “Fifty-eight is hardly sunset; it is more like mid-afternoon, so there should be no rush in looking for wife number three.”
The man and the woman met in October 2018, and they had a long-distance relationship for a year.
She was sceptical about adapting to life in Singapore, but he convinced her to move here in November 2019. They married on Dec 1, 2019.
The man worked as a manager and earned more than $66,000 a month. She has a degree in costume design, but did not have a known job.