My story of despair
I am a Singapore PR, who has lived in Singapore for ten years. I am happily married to my wonderful Singaporean wife and have re-established a good life for myself here. However, until 2016, I was married to my now ex-wife (also Singaporean) and mother of my son. We married in overseas in 2011 and had a boy, 9yo (born in overseas Singaporean citizen), in 2013. After the solemnisation, she started becoming more and more physically abusive. She had, even before we got married, been verbally abusive, not just to me, but to my children from my first marriage, my parents, employers, friends, and others who would oppose her. The physical violence would include punching, hitting, biting, scratching, kicking, stomping, and breaking glass bottles over my head. In addition, she would regularly call the police on me, even though I never harmed her in any way, and of course, not my son, either. She would also, at times, take our son to India so she could see her spiritual guru. These trips lasted up to four months, and she would leave without informing me in advance. Family court in Singapore has confirmed that the violence against me during the marriage had happened, but it was more than six years ago.
Finally, I told her I wanted a divorce. She beat me to the courts and filed for divorce in 2016. I decided to stay in Singapore, solely at that time to ensure that my son was taken care of in the best possible way. After a long and acrimonious divorce battle, she decided to appeal to the High Court, where my access rights were upheld, but I was made to pay a high child maintenance ($2,354 per month) and backpay of more than $50,000 plus cost.
After the court rulings in 2018/19, I had mostly been able to see my son as per the Order of the Court, and this continued until August 2022. However, for almost a year now, I have been denied my lawful access. One day, without warning, she suddenly decided that I was not allowed to see my son. She took him on my pick-up day and attacked me with an umbrella. This matter went before the Family Court as a PPO matter, where both cases were dismissed. However, the honourable judge specifically said that my ex-wife had been violent, tended to “exaggerate”, and was not to interfere with my access. She has continued this breach for almost a year, and though I have seen him occasionally, I do not get to see him on the designated days.
She then applied for severe reductions in my access, with me entering a counter-summons. This is the case that has now been concluded with no changes to the court order – two days per week and every other weekend sleepover. So, one would imagine that the mother would now follow the court order, and this would be the end of it. Alas, that is not the case.
Upon requesting time with my son, she said that that would not happen and that she didn’t care what the judge said. To quote her word for word: “I will not be answering and wasting my time on further messages after this. The court doesn’t look after him. They have no clue about what is best for [child’s name]. If a Muslim judge chooses to support a white man like patrichial (sic) chauvinists, I am not going to make my son pay the price for this clear inequality and insanity. You can quote me on that.”
Ignoring the racially motivated attacks on me, this is directly contemptuous to the court and the judgement. This shows a woman who thinks she is above the law and does not intend to follow simple rulings that have been put in place for the protection of her child. This is the main problem here – not the law itself. There are very few consequences of these actions.
I feel that I have received very little help in my matter. There have been many empathetic people in the courts, my local Family Service Centre, etc., but no one has actually been able to do something. Even spending a fortune on lawyers has only gotten me to status quo. I believe this should be a matter for Child Protective Services, but it seems that even though everyone understands the predicament, the answer is always to go to Family Court, but Family Court’s answer is (summarised), “We have issued an order. That order is to be followed.” However, unlike in most court orders, there is no effective system to ensure compliance.
Photo is not related to the story, for illustration only.