Hello, my STBXH is telling me that my expectations for spousal maintenance are completely unrealistic, but I honestly am just sick of him being unreasonable, so I was hoping someone could confirm that what I am asking makes sense and/or provide some advice.
So some basics:
-I am 35 and he is 38
-Married 10 years with a five year old son
-I will have my son 67 percent of the time and he will have him 33 percent
-Separated in Sept - he petitioned last month (Feb) based on my unreasonable behavior (beat me to the punch and his reasons are BS, but no point fighting as I want the divorce, too)
-Going through mediation now
As for our finances:
-We don't own a home; we rent in London
-In terms of assets, we don't have much to split up, as when you factor in debts, it basically evens out what we have in our bank accounts - we have maybe 45k combined between our separate banks accounts (he's got like 33k and I've got maybe 12k), but an equal amount in debts that were accrued during the marriage for our joint benefit (I do accept that), but are in his name only
-We have small pensions not even worth mentioning as we only started saving a few years ago
-He earns a high salary, but that's a kind of a recent thing - he is on 143k a year plus a 35 percent bonus on top of that, so obviously a high salary. This time last year, though he was on 98k with a 30 percent bonus, so it's gone up quite a lot
-I earn 51k a year with an 8 percent bonus, so he obviously earns much more than me and can clearly afford to pay spousal maintenance
-We both work permanent, full time jobs and our jobs are very secure in fields that are in demand, so I don't worry about either of our ability to stay gainfully employed
-He was offered a restricted stock award in January of this year (a few months after we separated) that would be worth like 80k after taxes now at the stock price today, but he won't get it until December 2019 and the stock is unvested until then. He argues that because the company offered it to him as a retention mechanism based on achieving some goals in 2017, 2018, and 2019 (years in which we will have not been together at all as a couple) and because it was offered in Jan (after we were separated) that it hasn't been earned yet and isn't a matrimonial asset even if it was - he called it a future income stream. He has showed me the online account, and it does list current value as zero. He has submitted everything to the mediator, and there is a provision that he will forfeit the stock if he is not employed by the company on the vesting date in Dec 2019 (even if they eliminate his role for no reason), and the paperwork does speak to performance over those years. Anyway, I don't really care about the provisions. The bottom line is that we were married when he was offered it, even if we were separated, so I think the 80k should be considered when we divide assets and I should get at least half of the shares if not more. He disagrees.
We don't own any cars or anything like that, so there really isn't much to divide up. I am going to need money over the next few years to buy a car and for a downpayment to buy a house or a flat, and I think that he should be helping with all of that.
He has offered me 1,200 a month in child maintenance, which seems fine. I would like another 1,250 a month in spousal maintenance and for him to pay another 650 a month for child care costs (after school pickups and a couple hours of child minding) - our son is in primary school. That feels very reasonable to me. I would like both the child and spousal maintenance until our son is 21 (assuming he's in uni), or 18 if he doesn't go to uni, and the child care costs for as long as he needs it.
My ex is being totally unreasonable and believes that we should have a clean break, which I think is ludicrous. He actually offered me 20k from his bank account now, and that he would take our debts completely, and that he would give me half of the stock award that I mentioned above assuming that it vests, so in theory that would be another 40k in three years, but then that's it! No spousal maintenance, other than he said he would agree to nominal maintenance until our son is 18, which, again, I think is ridiculous. I obviously turned him down. He earns so much more than me that it seems unfair that my lifestyle should be negatively impacted when he can clearly afford to pay.
At this point, I feel like I will have no choice but to let the matter go to court, but I am very curious what people think. Should I be asking for more given that we don't have much by way of assets now? Is it even worth continuing to mediate with him being so unreasonable? I welcome all thoughts. Thank you.
