The only requirement for eligibility for a divorce is the need to have been separated from your husband for at least 12 months.

If you try to file for divorce earlier you and your husband will have to attend counselling sessions to try to resolve your marriage breakdown.

To make an application for a divorce, you have to fill out and file the application with the Federal Circuit Court of Australia including the required fee and the Family Law Registry. If you think this is too difficult to do on your own you can seek legal advice and an experienced family lawyer can prepare the divorce application for you.

At the same time you can ask for assistance regarding the care of your children, spousal maintenance and property division. These few things always involve agreement problems more than the divorce itself. The first point of dispute might well be who is going to continue living on in the family home.

Once your lawyer has prepared your divorce application it is sworn (signed by a Justice of the Peace or your lawyer) and filed with the Federal Circuit Court of Australia. The application is given a date for the hearing, which is approximately 2 months from the date of the filing of the application. When the hearing takes place the court will decide if a couple has met divorce requirements. Once the granting of the divorce has taken place it legally takes effect after one month has been reached.

What should be pursued in the meantime is who will care for your children, where you are going to live and how to divide up property assets. If you are able to come together with your husband either in person or email or letter then it’s better than getting the court to make a decision for you. The court will want to know how your children are going to be cared for.

If you are unable to communicate with your husband at all you can arrange for mediation through your lawyer. A mediator will then try to bring you together to draw up an agreement on the relevant issues. You can get your lawyer to act on your behalf if you can’t face communication at this stage.

If you still cannot reach an agreement, then the court will have to make the decisions for you and then issue you with a parenting order which you will need to follow.