Guest post: 'Spousal maintenance matters - we should be worried about the 'get a job' ruling'

[MumsnetGuestPosts]

On Monday, the Court of Appeal supported the ruling that the ex-wife of a millionaire, Tracey Wright, should 'go out to work'. Lord Justice Pitchford said that Ms Wright had no right to expect 'an income for life' at her former husband's expense.

No shocks there, you might think. And about time too, perhaps. But the judge went on to make specific comments about working versus stay-at-home mothers:

"There is a general expectation that, once children are in year two, mothers can begin part-time work and make a financial contribution."

There's a perception that the English Legal System is sympathetic to wives – or, as my solicitor put it, "the courts here are soft on women". But this certainly doesn't fit with Pitchford's assertions, and I think that his words have undermined how essential spousal maintenance is to many single mothers.

When I divorced, I managed to avoid going to court. I have ended up with a small monthly spousal payment, as well as child maintenance. In practice, it means I have a smaller house than my ex, even though I look after the children for the majority of the time. My income is less than his, and yet I have to pay for everything to do with our kids.

I am lucky – my kids are of an age where I can work four days a week, and we're fine, really. It was my decision to walk away from the marriage, and believe me; I would rather be happy and poorer than better-off and miserable. But I still feel aggrieved, because I chucked in my well-paid career to have and raise our children. I took years off, and now there’s no going back.

And this is the crux of the issue for many divorced women: it is pretty bloody difficult, actually, to return to work when you've had years off to raise the children. To find a job that will let you work flexibly enough to be the sole carer during the week, or that pays enough to make it worth the after-school childcare. Fancy being a teaching assistant? Join the back of the queue.

Regardless of the specifics of Tracey Wright's case, we should be worried about this ruling, and we must ask what it means for women who are in unhappy or abusive marriages and have young children. Reading Pitchford's words, they may now be thinking: I cannot earn enough to support myself and my child. So I can't afford to break away from this marriage. I am trapped.

It's interesting that the judge put an age on it, too; that at seven, your child is obviously old enough for you to go out to work. Maybe he assumed that they have settled in at school, can dress themselves after a fashion, and have learned how to use a knife and fork.

What he certainly hasn't taken into account is that single mothers constantly walk a tightrope - whatever the age of the child. You want to be there for them when they need you (and they need you more than you think, even when they're older), but you need to provide for them too, which sometimes makes the former impossible.

You feel guilt, constantly. I certainly cut corners - I don't generally stick to the 48-hour tummy bug rule because I can't take extra time off (sorry, but if your son or daughter starts barfing, it could well be my fault). I have crow-barred my eldest to school when he had a migraine, with just a couple of paracetamol, a wing and a prayer that I won't get the 'come and get me' call two hours later.

I find that my boys, aged 14 and 12, need me more now more than ever. My 14-year-old wants to endlessly discuss his options for GCSEs, as well as the confused feelings that puberty brings and the problems that he's encountering on social media. My 12-year-old has spent a term trying to get used to a new school; has woken me up in the night crying, saying he is worried he has no friends. Pitchford's 'year two' is completely arbitrary.

Maintenance from your ex can help you find the right balance, which, in my view, needs to be sustained for the entire time your children live with you. This is why I hope that English law doesn't take a blanket view on this knotty issue. Each case is different. In Tracey Wright's case, I think the judge was right. But in others, where money is tight and support is non-existent, I hope that courts are able to see the bigger, wider picture.

[glenthebattleostrich]

I do disagree with spousal maintenance but I do think that the resident parent should take more financially from the divorce to take into account their sacrifice / increased costs for the time a child is in education.

I do think the major problem is with child maintenance though. A friend of mine receives £200 per month for 2 kids. This doesn't cover 1 weeks childcare which is nuts. The minimum should be increased and there should be stronger measures to enforce it.

[maggiso]

I agree that this has set a potentially dangerous precedent, that could affect others. I have a disabled child and am in a longstanding marriage but can see the difficulty in blanket rulings - ds's year 2 (the one the judge has nominated as time for mothers to be back in FT work) was ds's last at MS school and I only kept my by then very part time job by the skin of my teeth as he was so often sent home, or I was asked to keep him off for a school trip they knew he would struggle with. My earnings certainly could not have supported us had DH and I not survived those extremely difficult early school years as a couple!

[nevy79]

I have a slightly different view on this one - I come from the stepmother camp and although the kids' mum refers to herself as a 'full time mummy', the kids are at school 30+ hours a week and we have them between 2 - 5 nights a week (alternating weekends plus weeknights). Their mum has no desire to work and my partner & I are contributing financially to the kids' upbringing when she isn't, paying maintenance. She has lost touch with the working world and places a lot of demands on us to give her more of a break, when it's just not possible when we're holding down a job - and she has her break while they're at school. We work full time + overtime to survive ourselves and still have the same demands of being homeowners and parents, while contributing to society through taxes and NI. Blanket rulings wont suit every scenario, but on a case by case basis I do agree that parents should be expected to contribute to society and their kids, financially, in situations like mine.

[mrsravelstein]

completely agree and i shouted at the newspaper (always helpful) when i read that apparently in year 2 it suddenly becomes incredibly easy to 'find a part time job' and go back to work. every local part time (minimum wage) job that comes up locally to me is applied for by tons of massively over qualified mums... former highly paid women having to queue up for the opportunity to do menial tasks for a pittance... i've been looking for a part time job for months, and have as yet been offered nothing that would actually cover the cost of holiday childcare (not that i even want my kids to be in holiday childcare, i'd actually quite like to spend time with them funnily enough) so i'd only just break even. you need to be extremely highly paid or have a lot of free help from grandparents to be able to go back to work, that's the reality for every working mum i know.

[Sonnet]

Hang on - wasn't this case about paying spousal maintenance for the rest of her life and her ex husband worried about having to pay it when he retired?That is a very different proposal from paying spousal maintenance until the children have left home/don't need your support.

[OTheHugeManatee]

I think the ruling is fair, and it's reasonable to ask a SAHP to be back in employment after a reasonable period of time providing

a) in the divorce settlement the SAHP gets a substantial lump sum as compensation for the opportunity cost (loss of earnings and earning power) of their mutual agreement that s/he stay at home with the children and
b) the child maintenance agreement allows for a reasonable proportion of childcare costs and any other expenses that would logically be incurred in a household with both parents working.

[Sidge]

I agree.

I have spousal maintenance, along with child maintenance for my children. It's not a huge amount but is a bit of a 'cushion' financially.

My solicitor advised spousal maintenance as I am in the not-uncommon situation of having a child with physical and learning disabilities. Her special needs limit the hours I can work weekly, the childcare available to me. I think it is only right that my ex-husband bears some of the financial implications of that.

It would have been lovely to have had more of a 'lump sum' when we divorced, but we had no property to sell, no assets to split. So I think it's only right that monthly he gives ME some money to enable me to provide our children with a reasonable standard of living.

I work, it's not about sitting at home filing my nails whilst he busts his guts earning a wedge to pay me. It's about not financially disadvantaging me whilst I raise his child.

[FamiliesShareGerms]

Well, income support finishes when the youngest child turns five, so this ruling is only reflecting the fact that at some point children are old enough to be at school and that frees up time for the parent to seek paid work. I completely take the point about it being hard to find part time work that fits around school hours, or full time work that is financially viable, but this isn't a problem unique to single income families.

In general I think a presumption that if you are a SAHM to small children you should never have to go back to work is actually pretty damning to women who want to work and fight assumptions that they will jump off the career ladder onto the baby train forever all the time...

[juneau]

I agree that in that one case the judge was right. However, this kind of thing MUST be dealt with on a case-by-case basis as everyone's situation is different and when a woman has taken years out of her career to raise a family, thereby supporting and enabling her DH is getting ahead in his, there has to be some kind of financial balance. Having a millionaire DH living alone with pots of cash while his former wife struggles on one part-time wage and has the DC most of the is clearly not fair or equitable and therefore in cases such as these spousal maintenance is a necessity.

[Viviennemary]

I'm not in agreement with compulsory spousal maintenance long after the marriage has ended at children are at school. I think we should be assuming that adults must be financially responsible for themselves. Whether or not they should seek a job is up to them. But nobody can live on fresh air. Perhaps it's time for a financial agreement to be drawn up between those couples where one partner earns a vast amount and the other stays at home. I wouldn't be happy supporting another person financially for the rest of their lives. I'd think it was grossly unfair.

[FragileBrittleStar]

it is difficult. the judgement reflects the view that having one partner at home is a luxury - many couples can't afford this.
The guest post doesn't seem to acknowledge that the problems she has are true of any family where both partners work

[MovingOnUpMovingOnOut]

I also agree it needs to be judged on a case by case basis. I think the court was right on this particular issue.

I also think we're hand wringing at the wrong people. The issue occurs long before the divorce because our society is set up to restrict women's choices. The burden of childcare automatically falls to women and it starts with the expectation (and facilitation of the state) that women will take majority if not all of the time off work in the first year of a child's life.

We need to think about how we can enable families to make choices that work for them and then ensure that those who made sacrifices for the benefit of the family unit are not unfairly disadvantaged if that unit then breaks down.

[heidiwine]

This case is about long-term spousal maintenance. Why, after a relatively short marriage, should this lady (who appears to have worked during the marriage) receive £30k+ in spousal maintenance when the payer of that maintenance is not receiving an income from working (he's retiring).
In my opinion this judgement was right. I don't think it means that spousal maintenance will stop ring awarded but hopefully it will put an end to joint lives orders.

[2468Motorway]

Childcare cost cost should be equally split and in addition to child maintenance. As it stands it seems that the 20% from the nrp in most cases wouldn't cover half the cost for a nursery place not including food and other costs.

[Notcontent]

I agree with everything you say. The facts of the case were quite unusual, but the comments made by the judge were I think misguided.

The simple truth is that the vast majority women pay a very high price for making certain decisions about their career once they get married or have children. I didn't have a career break but the fact that I have had sole responsibility for my dd since she was a little baby means my career came to a dead end.

Like you, I have a private arrangement with my exH (who is very well off) - giving me and dd decent support - and I work four days a week. Even with that, we live in a tiny house, but are ok. Without it, it would be really difficult.

[Lucyccfc]

Lottie Lomas.

Great article, however 'you' chose to give up your career. Your Ex-H can't be blamed for that and be made to pay spousal maintenance forever-and-a-day, when you are capable of working.

I agree with the judge in this case. She walked away with a mortgage-free house, a huge amount of maintenance for the children and a very large amount for herself. Why can't she go out to work if her husband wants to retire. Women like her (grabby) give the rest of us a bad name.

[BoffinMum]

TBH I don't think we will ever have true equality until we decouple spousal incomes, and see women completely equal to men in terms of the workplace. but that having been said, it probably won't happen in my lifetime.

[BoffinMum]

A good test of fairness, by the way, is if it was flipped around and the man was in the position of having indefinite maintenance while the women went out to work, on the basis that he had decided to give up his career and so on, what would it look like? Most people would expect him to get a job. Yet for some reason women are not. It's rather odd (and yes, I have been a single mother myself).

[whomovedmychocolate]

We agreed no spousal maintenance only child maintenance and a lump sum because frankly while I think he should pay towards his children, I could work and I didn't want to be tied to him with the threat that if I lived with someone else the money would be taken away as 'punishment' for getting on with my life.

I did however get a lump sum I can live on and compared to most am very comfortable.

Perhaps our scenario would suit others more as an option.

BTW we did not go to court but sat down together and negotiated instead which saved us money and dealing with the misogyny of the court system.

[GibberingFlapdoodle]

It does sound to me as if the judge was assuming that children are the responsibility of the mother. Therefore she shouldn't expect to be kept for life, etc etc. Spousal maintenance is as much for the kids as the spouse. Men do need to take responsibility for their children whether they live with them and their mother or not.

The irony of telling anyone that they should go out and find work at this period of time when there are so many people chasing so few jobs is not lost on me either. That is spiteful. Even those that are classed as being in employment only need to be working 1 hour a week on a zero-hour contract. They're even talking about applying sanctions to the universal credit system now, so if you don't manage to find full-time work where there's none available you are shafted.

And yes, the eternal problems of having to fit one in around school hours - it is hardly good for society to have kids who never see their parents, this is half of why we have so many problems with feral kids in Uk - while having sacrificed your own chances of a decently-paid job, let alone career.

This verdict is definitely a very worrying development.

[giddly]

I don't have a problem with spousal maintenance being tailed off as children get older. However, in many cases it should mean that child maintenance payments are increased as child care costs may well be incurred, and these extra costs should be shared between both parents.

[tumbletumble]

Lucyccfc

Re your comment 'you chose to give up your career - your exH can't be blamed for that'.

I was a SAHM for 9 years. When the original decision was made that I would leave work, it was a joint decision and in fact my DH was even keener than I was, because he really valued the benefit to the kids of having one parent at home with them in the early years (I know not everyone agrees with this - I'm just saying that was strongly his opinion).

It's not really relevant in my case because I went back to work (part time) when my youngest started school, and DH and I are still together. But I just want to point out that, if we ever did split up, I would suffer financially resulting from a decision that was both of ours.

[springalong]

Excellent article. Particularly about the very few part time jobs being chased by large numbers of very overqualified women. I can only assume that this judge doesn't have children, let alone children with needs.

As I keep stating elsewhere the decision for one party to assume more of the childcare responsibilities and to give up a career is taken by both people in the marriage with no expectation that the marriage will end. The decision is still valid even after the end of the marriage. It was taken jointly.

[Pannacotta]

What I find really worrying about this is that the judge fails to see the difficulty in combining work and childcare as a single parent.
I am divorced with two young DSs and my ex is a very high earner who is not able to so much shared care due to work commitments (late nights and working away).
He expects me to become financially self supporting after 10 years out of the job market and yet also cover nearly all out of school child care, sick days, training days and school holidays and any time he has a meeting.
I don't want to work full time and have to stick my kids into after school care and holiday club so he can avoid paying to support us which he can well afford.
And I agree it is important that women strive to become independent after divorce, if you have been a SAHP then of course you are at a massive disadvantage and should not be punished for that, as ultimately it is damaging to the children involved.

[juneau]

As I keep stating elsewhere the decision for one party to assume more of the childcare responsibilities and to give up a career is taken by both people in the marriage with no expectation that the marriage will end. The decision is still valid even after the end of the marriage. It was taken jointly.

Yes, completely agree with this. The decision for me to give up work and care for our DC full-time was made by me and my DH together, but if we were to split not only would I probably retain primary custody of the DC, but I would then be expected to work to support myself, after seven years out of the workplace, when I'm finding it hard to find even a crappy PT job, AND while caring for the DC as a single parent. That thought is terrifying!