AIBU to want half of the pension after divorce?

Who was looking after your three children while you were doing night shifts and working for free?

I’m not angry at the thought of a loyal wife getting what she is entitled to in the eyes of the law. I think calling OP “grubby” is unkind and narrow sighted. I wish you well and hope you find peace

This.

My husband and I divorced twenty five years ago, and my solicitor asked me if I would be expecting a share in my husband's future pension. I declined.
After reading this post I can honestly understand why men can be be a little bitter and twisted after divorce. The original poster on this subject never worked, was absolutely cared for, and is now going to take every single thing her grabby little hands can get hold of, even her soon to be ex husband's pension 😞. Greedy, or what? Just because she can, doesnt mean she should. I don't know how she sleeps at night, I really don't. Gladly, it seems there's a lot of women that agree, and that makes me happy to think we're not all calculating, greedy b**es!

This is what Reform wants to drag us back to - men earning the money and women at home. From the reaction to a lot of posters this wouldn’t be welcome at all.
I wouldn’t ever want to be financially dependent on anyone else, for whatever reason.
OP - you need to see a solicitor and get this all locked down ASAP, your seemingly reasonable DH can quite quickly turn into the ‘it’s my money I earned it’ man if the experience of most of my friends during divorce is anything to go by. He’ll start talking to his mates, who’ll be telling him how unfair it is that he has to give YOU - who’ve contributed ‘nothing’ -all these years - half of his house and his pension and HIS savings.
It’s amazing how people with seemingly successful careers can suddenly have a drop in salary, need to go part-time or whose business are in difficulty and not making as much when divorce negotiations are happening.
Friend’s DH - she was a SAHM- suddenly dropped his hours to 60% during their divorce because of ‘stress’ so his income dropped massively, and all these years financials were done in that amount. So she’s trying to raise 4 kids on peanuts, living in a shitehole and working minimum wage while she upskills into the workforce again. And obvs as soon as the divorce was finalised the exDH was able to go up to fulltime hours again, and overtime so that he and the OW could have lovely hols and nice new cars.
Sounds like your DH has already checked out of your life together - he has no incentive to be nice or even fair to you over finances so you need to be very careful.

I think it’s quite offensive to describe someone for whom being a SAHP and then a housewife as a result of mutual agreement as ‘fleecing another human being’. OP raised kids, kept home and very likely enabled DH’s corporate career and earnings. If that was a joint agreement then why should the division of their assets not be a joint agreement now that the marriage has ended at this late stage. He’s not without responsibility - he’s had the last forty years to consider the consequences of a marriage breakdown and it’s not OP’s fault that it didn’t cross his mind.

Go and see and see a solicitor. Also I wouldn't seek for advice off an open board like this as a lot of younger women and people in general will not be able to fathom your position as a long-term housewife at all, because although it was absolutely the standard for the middle classes in the past, it hasn't been for a while. Here's an example, I distinctly remember as a child hearing my father, a consultant Dr, insist that my mother could not get a part time job teaching sewing in a local school because it would reflect badly on him if people though his wife needed to earn money (she did a lot of volunteering as did many of her friends) and he was generally fairly liberal for the time😬

I dont think the term part time mum is accurate to describe anyone who has children living with them.

This 100pc

Any friends who would help me out. That I would then repay the favour. Very little sleep for years. Any other questions to derail the thread?

She can get a transfer of pension assets and if old enough, can draw down some of that pension, dependent on the pension scheme rules of course.

Of course they are a joint responsibility but that doesn't mean both parents working full time was affordable for families in the 80s and 90s. I earned quite a reasonable salary but still had to take a couple of years off because of childcare costs. I then worked part time for my children's sake. I didn't think it fair on them to be at nursey or after school club from 8 to 6 every day.

Half of the house AND his pensuon is greedy AF when you have spent twenty years not being arsed to work, while he provided everything.

I am at peace. And fully support women getting what they are entitled to. I don’t support women trying to take more and making up affairs. Not wanting to work but wants to make him pay her his future earnings and inheritance. Treating people fairly is what gives me peace. Thanks.

And once again the hypocrisy rears its head. The keeping of a home which is justified as a full time job on other threads, is reduced to ‘pottering around the house’ simply because OP doesn’t work. Which, if her DH had a high flying career and high earnings, is unlikely to be the case. She probably enabled his progression by taking over responsibility for their home and the mental stresses as well as the maintenance of it.

She isn't trying to take more. She wants 50 percent of marital assets.

Do you not see that working, earning, having a purpose and doing things is more rewarding than sitting at home with you. Why would you expect him to give that up?

as for you volunteering in school, fine but that’s hardly “doing stuff” and long term.

You “enjoyed leisure time with him” until he got bored doing nothing. OP you need hobbies, you need to experience things and places. No wonder you are lonely, you’ve allowed this to happen. No wonder he is happy to find somebody to share his life with, you clearly aren’t interested in doing things with him.

It’s astonishing how many posters on this thread don’t seem to understand what a marriage contract means.
I hope none of you are high earners married to lower paid husbands, you’d get a massive shock if he left you for another woman.

Well you should be at peace then because OP only wants 50%. And she wasn’t after his future earnings, she was talking about investments that they made jointly and which haven’t matured.

Does anyone read the Op. I couldn’t care less what they agreed. Joyful for her to have half. But asking if you are unreasonable to want more than half. Trying to make up an affair to get more money. Trying to take future earnings and inheritance. Then the answer is no. That’s not reasonable. And it’s really nasty.

Christ I don’t know where to start with this level of misogyny.

I remember this, it was very common in the small community I grew up in. Wives were supposed to be ‘help mates’ or whatever the term is. There to make sure that all DH had to worry about was his job. The wives did everything else bar wipe their husband’s backsides! Very embarrassing for the husbands if people thought that they couldn’t afford to keep their wives at home.
Obviously this isn’t everyone’s experience, it all depends on the time and place you grew up in.

A friend of my brother’s got divorced and gave his ex-wife the house, provided she didn’t come after his pension.

Did you read my own post ? She’s not trying to take more than half.

So you had friends providing childcare while you worked nights and for free.

I think @Jaxinabox has made her mind up that OP is greedy money grabbing evil queen who has wasted her whole life on her husband just for this exact moment where her cunning long drawn out plan is to steal all of the marital assets. Best we leave her to it!