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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

That marriage is just a financial transaction that serves many women badly and want to warn others before they take the leap?

136 replies

thinkingmakesitso · 30/10/2015 19:12

I just don't think it is made clear enough that marriage is all about money and that people who marry people who do not earn as much as them stand to lose so much and do not realise it.

My stbex was a sahd but had never had a career before he met me - he didn't want one as he sees himself as a musician/writer/free-spirit/free-loader. I am a teacher and have struggled over the last 8 years to excel as a mother and a teacher, cramming as much work as I could into my dc's sleeping time and devoting all my free time to my children, pretty much.

Following his infidelity, which I cannot divorce him for due to not 'getting my head around it' during the designated 6 months the law allows, partly as a result of his failure to disclose the whole truth, I must apparently give him half my pension and, though our house has insufficient equity to make it worth selling it, should consider him a primary carer as he still takes the children to school and picks them up. Yes. Because he has no job as he doesn't want one. I have had three child-free days this week and have spent them working, Christmas shopping, cleaning dc's bedrooms and buying them bedroom furniture and rearranging their rooms to accommodate it. I am exhausted. He has spend his child-free days (6 days) writing his novel and hanging out with friends. Yet he is the main carer because he takes them to school and picks them up. WTF. All organising, thinking, planning is done by me. Yet if he wanted the dc (I am almost certain he doesn't, but will find out for sure when I raise the 'd' word with him) I should accept that he may well get them and I would therefore have to subsidise him to enable that to happen.

I have a friend who is about to enter into a very similar arrangement that I had with ex and I want so much to warn her. Of course, she and her dp are happy and in love now, but I did not marry and procreate with ex thinking that he was a shit who would do me wrong, yet he is and did. I know I WBU to say this to her, but I really think many people enter into marriage unknowingly.

OP posts:

NorthernLurker · 30/10/2015 20:36

They are his children too.

I know you are very hurt and angry but it's not helping anybody if you persist in regarding your children's father as a waste of space.

How could you position things so you would feel he was making a better contribution to parenting? If he does school pick ups then he also needs to be playdate arranging/after school activity/dentist visit booking. Lay it on the line that that is his job too.

noeffingidea · 30/10/2015 20:36

His infidelity is irrelevant to any financial or childcare arrangements.
It was kind of surreal to read your OP, because I've read the exact opposite on other forums, that marriage benefits women fiancially and that there's nothing in it for men.

BrandNewAndImproved · 30/10/2015 20:36

I'd never be with someone who sponges off of me. Your situation is terrifying.

Original poster

thinkingmakesitso · 30/10/2015 20:36

So all there is to parenting is taking them to school and then picking them up again? Pouring out a bowl of cereal that someone else has paid for into a dish that someone else has washed, and then dressing them in clothes that someone else has bought, laundered and hung up?

OP posts:

TheAnimatedRemainsOfMaryz · 30/10/2015 20:36

You are better off as you have a career you can continue with for the next 30 or 40 years.

He, on the other hand, doesn't have a career and will have to become self-supporting once the children are adults.

Financially your future is much more secure than his.

AliceInUnderpants · 30/10/2015 20:37

OP was this some sort of a test for us? Were you expecting people to side with you because you have a vagina?

He has been the SAHP, he should be protected like a SAHM would be.

aprilanne · 30/10/2015 20:37

thinking .if i were you honestly .i would give him half the pension /house/ car if he wanted. as long as he lets you have the children to hell with the rest

EdithWeston · 30/10/2015 20:37

"Why are some people ignoring all mention of his infidelity?"

Because the law ignores it.

Settlements are 'no fault' whatever the reasons for irretrievable breakdown of the marriage.

Original poster

thinkingmakesitso · 30/10/2015 20:38

I know his infidelity is irrelevant, but I don't think it should be.

OP posts:

AnyFucker · 30/10/2015 20:40

Op, I don't understand why some people are giving you a hard time

This is a support site, no ?

Yes, you have made mistakes but you know that. It looks like you could pay dearly for them. On what other thread would people basically say "you made your bed, you have to lie in it"

I am sorry you regret posting, op. I hope you find a way to make sure he doesn't fuck you over.

merrymouse · 30/10/2015 20:40

Re: pension - there was a lot of discussion earlier in the year about the sahp not being awarded ongoing maintenance if it was felt that they could earn money - wasn't there a case about a woman with a daughter at boarding school having her maintenance reassessed?

Wouldn't this also affect entitlement to pension?

BrandNewAndImproved · 30/10/2015 20:40

I don't think it should be irrelevant either. No blame divorce is very unfair.

noeffingidea · 30/10/2015 20:40

Why do you think that, OP?

NorthernLurker · 30/10/2015 20:42

There's more to parenting than laundry and washing up too.

Op - try reading back your posts and imagining they were written by a wage earning dad about his wife. You know that people on this site would spend a lot of energy pointing out that there was more to the sahm's contribution than escort duty. You have to concede the same and if you were married to a man who never did the washing up or operated the tumble dryer then all I can say is more fool you.

SplatterMustard · 30/10/2015 20:43

Marriage is, often, a disaster financially and personally. It's wise to make sure your assets are protected before you go into marriage so that they can't be touched in any divorce.

BrandNewAndImproved · 30/10/2015 20:43

I really empathise with the threat that this cocklodger can now take your dc and your money! What a dick!

Is there anyway you can play the long game and be smart about it.

Tell him you really want to make things work but your stressed being the only earner. Get him a job and take the dc to breakfast club and then 6 months down the line bring about divorce.

EdithWeston · 30/10/2015 20:44

"So all there is to parenting is taking them to school and then picking them up again? Pouring out a bowl of cereal that someone else has paid for into a dish that someone else has washed, and then dressing them in clothes that someone else has bought, laundered and hung up?"

Emotive language will not cut it in divorce negotiations, so better you do get it out of your system now. If you think you can make a case that he was not the main carer, then this will be recognised in the future arrangements for the children.

But if he has been there looking after them, before they were school age and then before and after school, he will have a strong case. And you would be unwise to ignore this. (Focussing on what you have bought may well, BTW, weaken your position as you will be agreeing he is your dependant).

AnyFucker · 30/10/2015 20:44

Fwiw, if this one breaks down I will never get married again.

Scremersford · 30/10/2015 20:46

There is one way of looking at family law actually, and that is to see it as quite old fashioned. It assumes that a non-working partner is usually female and therefore cannot has not had a career because of child rearing responsibilities. Obviously this right cannot be denied to men because that would be sex discrimination. Even European case law on immigration is biased in favour of this old fashioned view that male migrants' right to a family life entitles their family to move with them, because they would be unable to work if the female did not stay at home to look after the children. This actually forms part of the wording of very recent judgments and is noted by commentators on that branch of the law.

The fact that many couples with children do both work full time is overlooked.

If the law were based more on economic disadvantage, then the lifestyle and employment record of the non-working spouse could be taken into account, and would catch out the golddiggers and feckless, as the OP considers her stbex to be. So the stbex in this scenario would maybe get a few thousand at most to set him on his feet for moving into rented accommodation, because he has suffered no financial loss during the marriage, as shown by his unemployability before going into it.

Of course, the best thing to do is not to marry someone who is economically much different from yourself in the first place, as its not as if its unknown to you what will happen if you divorce.

I always think its a good question to ask if your partner would still be with you if you weren't a much higher earner than them/owed a nice house, etc.. If you have any doubt over the answer to that at all, then it might be nice to keep them as a partner and not a spouse.

Original poster

thinkingmakesitso · 30/10/2015 20:49

Thanks Anyfucker I normally get lots of support on here, just not so much tonight.

My point is, I do everything: buy everything needed, organise all parties etc, take charge of all homework, think and worry about stuff, clean it all, out it all away. all he does is come into my space and look after them mornings and afternoons. I could pay someone else to do it, but the dc like him doing it so that would make me a bad guy.

While we were together he did more, but also fitted in a lengthy affair. I think no fault divorce is an absolute disgrace. Once dc 2 was 2 we often discussed h getting a part time job but they were all beneath him. Had he got one, he would be in a better position now, but that would have eaten into his shagging time. Well, I knew what he was like, so it's my own fault really...

OP posts:

miaowroar · 30/10/2015 20:50

Thinking I know this is a shit situation, but isn't he only entitled to half your pension so far - for the period whilst you are married? Of course I don't know for sure - your solicitor should advise you. If not, if he can go on taking half of your pension until you retire, then there would be no motivation for you to work at all - you could do the same as him and stay at home and write a novel.

I was threatened with this, but in the end, luckily for me, he didn't claim any of my pension (at least he hasn't so far - and signed an agreement which I drew up saying it was a clean break and neither of us had any further claim on the other). He also moved abroad and so I got custody anyway.

About the custody - well that's just awful, but I perhaps when he is solely in charge he might not be so keen - presumably you won't be there to do as much as you do now.

Like you, I was a teacher and although my ex was a SAHD, like you, it made no difference to my career - I would have done the same in the same time scale. The fact that I was the main breadwinner allowed him to do four years' full-time study and then step down from a little promotion he got at work because he "didn't like it".

You don't say how old your children are, but I assume they are still very young - but that won't last forever, they will grow up and he will have to take his sorry arse into some kind of paid work to keep himself.

Don't despair, please - have you tried posting in Relationships?

miaowroar · 30/10/2015 20:53

Sorry - I look like have contradicted myself there - my Ex was a SAHD for a few years due to keeping losing his job, then he did a degree and got more work (but not graduate level sadly). I know it's not exactly the same situation.

ahbollocks · 30/10/2015 20:53

I woukd think you would get 50/50 custody tbh. I can't see why you wouldn't.

I think you are getting a rough time. When I met my ex he had a job, a car etc etc but within 5 years he turned into a lazy jobless dream chaser slob fucking musicians

If I was you I woukd start looking into childminders for drop offs and pick ups etc. Get yourself organised.

financialwizard · 30/10/2015 20:56

thinking I am NEVER getting married again (see PM). I completely understand why you feel the way that you do but trust me in time you will need to direct that anger in a more productive way likefightingforyourpension

MerryInthechelseahotel · 30/10/2015 20:56

He's a lazy bastard op and you will be well rid. I hope things work out for you

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