Divorce delayed: Fear of losing assets keeps Vietnamese couples trapped in loveless marriages

Thanh, 40, lives with his wife in HCMC. They had spent their youth building a successful business together. Love faded after 10 years of marriage, and they became strangers living under the same roof. Yet the divorce was postponed time and again as they failed to reach an agreement on asset division.

He says: "She only supported me early on in my career. After that she stayed home. All the land and five houses were solely the result of my effort."

Thanh offered his wife two of the houses while he would keep three and all the securities they had, but she refused. He consulted multiple lawyers, but to no avail. Thanh eventually chose separation and moved in with his new partner, a relationship not acknowledged by the law. The couple’s child is now four years old.

For the past three years Tran Toan, 45, has lived in a rented room instead of filing for divorce, fearing he would lose the apartment he spent a lifetime saving for.

The apartment in Xuan Dinh, worth over VND4 billion (US$150,000), was the product of years of hard work and saving by both spouses. Neither can afford to buy the other's share if they go through a divorce. If they sell it and split the proceeds, their children would be left with nothing, Toan fears.

He also refuses to hand the apartment over to his wife: "If she remarries, I’d have no control over what happens to the house." With no intention of starting over, he keeps the marriage legally intact to minimize risks.

"If I cannot give my children a complete family, at least I will leave them the home," he says.

A couple going through a divorce. Photo by courtesy of Pexels

According to 2019 court statistics, more than 90% of divorcing couples in Vietnam went through a period of separation before filing. Some were separated for up to 10 years. The main reasons were concern that the children would grow up without both parents and unresolved disputes over asset division.

"Some couples fail to move on with their divorce because they cannot reach an agreement on the assets," Ngoc Nu, lawyer and head of the Tri Viet Law Office in HCMC, says.

Dr. Nguyen Thi Minh, a psychologist and lecturer at the Academy of Politics Region II, says there are four types of families: the warm nest, the cold nest, the thorny nest, and the broken nest. Couples like Thanh and Toan, who no longer love their partners but stay together for the sake of assets, fall into the "cold nest" category. "They are emotionally detached, disconnected and mentally hurt each other. This is also a form of abuse."

Psychologist Hong Huong of the Vietnam Association for Protection of Child’s Rights, believes that both parties agreeing to remain married on paper to avoid asset division and refrain from conflict may be understandable in today’s society.

Her clients have included a man with two children from another relationship who could not divorce his legal wife. He would provoke arguments to find an excuse to stay with his new partner, while the wife gossiped and criticized him behind his back. She refused a divorce because he was the family’s breadwinner while he clung to the marriage to avoid scandals that could affect his career.

"Children look to their parents as a model of what marriage means. They will have a distorted view if that model is just a cover." For children in their formative years, learning that their parents live together only for the assets can lead to feelings of inferiority and emotional detachment. Some may seek early relationships as a way to find affection.

In such cases, couples can proceed with the divorce first and settle the property dispute later in civil court, Ngoc Nu advises. But this approach requires much time, effort and cost, and so few are willing to countenance it.

In Toan’s situation, she suggests transferring ownership of half the apartment to the children and requesting guardianship over that share until they reach adulthood. If the wife wants to sell the home after the divorce, she would need the guardian’s approval.

"Money should not be the reason to hold each other hostage in an empty relationship," Dr. Minh adds.

*Some names have been changed to protect the privacy of people