Man, 90, fails to get maintenance from 89-year-old ex-wife after 64-year marriage

She also said that she was the primary caregiver for her children, cooking for the family and supervising the various domestic helpers and overseeing the repairs and maintenance of the household.

The husband sought an equal or near-equal division of indirect contributions, claiming that until retirement, both parties had pooled their incomes in joint accounts.

From these, all the household expenses were paid. After retirement, he said the expenses were paid from their pooled savings in joint accounts, and thereafter from his wife’s joint accounts with their son and oldest daughter.

He said he did his “fair share of being involved in the care and upbringing of the children”.

Justice Gill said the indirect financial contributions for the first half of the marriage were difficult to determine, given the couple’s differing versions of events without objective evidence.

However, the position is clearer for the second half of the marriage after their retirement.

It was undisputed that the man had no income beyond his monthly annuity of S$485.75 from insurer NTUC Income, and that the only income stream was the woman’s monthly pension of about S$2,400, of which she gave her husband half.

The woman also produced payment records showing that she paid the property tax bills up to 2024, as well as receipts for household bills she continued to cover on her own.

WIFE CONTRIBUTED GREATER SHARE

The judge also found that the wife contributed the greater share in indirect non-financial contributions, with detailed evidence of her caregiving and homemaking.

She was the primary caregiver of her children from birth and even when she worked, helping them with their homework and managing their schooling and activities.

She also ran the household, cooked for the family, organised family gatherings, and trained and supervised the various domestic workers they hired.

“The husband, on the other hand, does no more than assert in general terms that he did his fair share,” Justice Gill said.

“He descends to no particulars of caring for the children, their schooling, their health or their emotional needs. 

“I also consider it significant that the husband neither disputed most of what the wife says she did for the family nor offered any competing account of his own.”

He assessed indirect contributions at 70:30 in favour of the woman.

The woman sought a 2 per cent increase of her share of the matrimonial pool, saying that her ex-husband had illegally excluded her from the home from March 2025 and placed a padlock on the gate.

The man, however, claimed that his ex-wife and their oldest daughter moved out of their own accord.

Justice Gill noted that this complaint of illegal exclusion surfaced for the first time only in written submissions, and both parties would obtain substantial sums from the pool in any event. He declined to raise the woman’s share of the assets on this basis.

In total, the ratio across direct and indirect contributions was computed to be 60:40, in favour of the woman.

Accordingly, she was to get S$3.5 million, while her ex-husband obtained S$2.4 million.

The man sought maintenance as an incapacitated former husband under the Women’s Charter, pointing to his medical and mobility issues, his inability to earn a livelihood, his minimal income and his wife’s departure from the matrimonial home. This has left him to cover the home’s expenses alone.

If he did not get maintenance, the man asked for a lump sum equivalent to 5 to 10 per cent of his share of the matrimonial assets.

The judge rejected the man’s claim for spousal maintenance and his request for the lump sum payment.

He said that both parties are in the twilight of their lives, with neither having any earning capacity nor any expectations to improve their financial positions through work.

Both of them rely on monthly pensions or payouts as their financial source, and they will each have very substantial sums from the matrimonial pool, Justice Gill added.

The sum of more than S$2 million that the man will obtain is “more than sufficient to meet the needs of a 90-year-old retiree for the remainder of his life”.

“Once the division takes effect, he will be amply provided for. In these circumstances, I do not think an order for maintenance against the wife, herself an elderly retiree living on a pension, would be just or necessary.” 

The man sought reimbursement from his ex-wife’s share for the property tax he paid on the house for the years of assessment 2025 and 2026, saying that she had paid nothing since moving out in March 2025.

The judge acknowledged that the man should not necessarily bear the entire property tax simply because he lives there, but found his argument for his ex-wife to pay the full bill untenable. 

He said that the property tax for the two years must be borne equally by both parties.

The home is to be sold on the open market within six months, with them having joint conduct of the sale.

Each side will bear its own costs.