The short answer
There’s now only one ground for divorce in England and Wales: that the marriage has broken down irretrievably. You confirm this in a written statement, and the court must accept it as conclusive. You don’t need to prove adultery, unreasonable behaviour, desertion or a period of separation. The Divorce, Dissolution and Separation Act 2020 abolished those five facts on 6 April 2022.
Search for the grounds for divorce, and you will still find pages listing five reasons. Those pages are out of date.
What really changed in 2022
The old law needed you to pick a reason and, in effect, make a case. If you didn’t want to wait years, you had to blame your spouse. That meant thousands of people writing statements about their partner’s behaviour purely to satisfy a legal formality.
The reform stripped that out. Here is the before and after.
Under the old law | Under the current law |
Five facts to choose from | One statement of irretrievable breakdown |
Blame often required | No blame, no reasons given |
Only one person could apply | Sole or joint applications allowed |
The other spouse could contest | Disputes possible only on narrow legal points |
Petitioner and respondent | Applicant and respondent |
Decree nisi and decree absolute | Conditional order and final order |
The change was the biggest shake-up of divorce law in over fifty years. It has been widely used since. By 2023, nearly three quarters of divorces were being granted under the new legislation.
What irretrievable breakdown really means
It means the marriage is over and can’t be repaired. That’s the whole test.
You don’t explain why. You don’t give evidence. You don’t describe what happened. The court takes your statement as conclusive proof and moves on.
This matters for two reasons. First, your private reasons stay private. Second, you no longer have to open the process with a written accusation. That matters if you will be co-parenting with this person for years.
The one rule that remains
You must have been married for at least one year before you can apply. This has not changed, and there are no exceptions.
If you’re within that first year, you have options in the meantime. You can separate informally. You can enter a separation agreement recording what you have agreed about money. You can apply for judicial separation. This doesn’t end the marriage, but it lets the court make certain financial orders. And where a marriage was never legally valid, annulment may be possible. That route has no one-year rule.
Adultery and behaviour: do they matter at all now?
This is the question people ask most, and the honest answer has two parts.
For getting the divorce: no. Adultery is no longer a ground. Nor is unreasonable behaviour. You can’t cite them on the form, and there’s no box to describe them.
For the money settlement: rarely, but not quite never. When a court divides money, it looks at the factors in section 25 of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973. Conduct is on that list, but only where it would be inequitable to disregard it. The bar is set on purpose high.
An affair doesn’t shift a money settlement. Courts have been consistent about this for decades. What can matter is conduct with a money angle. Hiding assets on purpose. Gambling away savings. Serious abuse that has damaged someone’s earning power. Even then, arguments about conduct succeed rarely.
If you feel your spouse behaved badly, that feeling is real and valid. It is just unlikely to be a legal lever. Chasing it often costs more than it wins back.
Can your spouse refuse the divorce?
No, and this is one of the clearest improvements the reform delivered.
Under the old law, a spouse could defend a divorce and drag it out for years. That option has gone. A divorce can now only be disputed on limited legal grounds:
- The court doesn’t have jurisdiction to deal with the case.
- The marriage was never legally valid.
- The marriage has already been legally ended elsewhere.
- There’s a procedural defect in the form.
Simply not wanting a divorce isn’t a defence. Disagreeing that the marriage has broken down isn’t a defence. Disputed divorces are now very rare.
Your spouse can, but, slow things down by not returning the acknowledgement of service. There are ways around that, such as court bailiff service, deemed service and dispensing with service altogether. It adds time and sometimes cost. It doesn’t change the outcome.
Do you need to be living apart?
No. There’s no separation rule at all under the current law.
Many couples divorce while still living in the same house, often for money reasons or for the children’s stability. That’s fully allowed and doesn’t weaken your form.
Grounds for divorce elsewhere in the UK
This is where a lot of online guidance goes wrong. The 2022 reform covers England and Wales only.
Scotland: There’s one ground, irretrievable breakdown, but you still have to establish it through one of four facts: unreasonable behaviour, adultery, one year of separation with consent, or two years without consent. There’s no joint application and no conditional order stage. A simplified procedure exists where there are no children under 16, and finances are settled. Scottish courts often want the finances resolved before granting the divorce, which is the reverse of the position in England and Wales. Divorce can also be granted based on an interim gender recognition certificate.
Northern Ireland: The law remains fault-based, closely resembling the pre 2022 position in England and Wales. You can’t apply during the first two years of marriage.
Does your marriage have links to more than one country? Which court hears the case can make a real money difference. That’s a question worth asking early, because in some situations the first application filed determines the jurisdiction.
Civil partnerships
The same principles apply. A civil partnership ends by dissolution rather than divorce. The ground is the same: irretrievable breakdown. So is the one-year minimum, and so are the waiting periods.
What the change didn’t fix
It’s worth being clear about the limits of the reform.
The law that governs how your money is divided didn’t change. That’s still the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, now more than fifty years old. In December 2024, the Law Commission published a scoping report. It found that this law lacks certainty and is hard to access. It set out four possible models for reform. The government has yet to decide which, if any, to adopt.
So the divorce itself is now simple and blame-free. The money is still governed by a broad judicial power that is hard to predict from the statute alone. That mismatch is exactly why most disputes now happen over finances rather than over the divorce.
Common questions
What are the five grounds for divorce?
They no longer exist. They were adultery, unreasonable behaviour, desertion, two years of separation with consent and five years without consent. All were abolished in April 2022.
Do I have to say why the marriage ended?
No. You confirm irretrievable breakdown and nothing more.
Can I still divorce for adultery?
Not as a ground. You’re free to tell your lawyer, but it won’t appear on the form.
Does no-fault divorce make it quicker?
Not for simple cases. The minimum timeline is now 26 weeks, which is longer than some fault-based divorces used to take. It’s simpler and less combative, not faster.
Can we both apply together?
Yes. Joint applications were introduced by the same reform and are used in around a quarter of cases.
What to do next
If you’re weighing up a divorce, the grounds are the least of your worries, and that is by design. The application is on purpose simple.
Put your energy where it counts. Work out what you own and what you owe, such as pensions. Think about arrangements for any children. Think about mediation, which is needed in most cases before a court application anyway.
Then speak to a family law solicitor about the money side. The divorce ends the marriage. Only a court-backed financial order ends the money claims between you. That is the part the reform left untouched.
This article is general information about the law in England and Wales, with brief notes on Scotland and Northern Ireland, and isn’t legal advice. The law changes, so check the current position before acting.