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

[thinkingmakesitso]

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.

It's bloody well not your fault.

Wifework fucks all women up. Yours is a particularly severe example.

I campaign mightily to make women quit doing all the shit work. It never ends well, for any of them.

And see a solicitor

And Fwiw mine cheated too. Try to compartmentalise as much as you can. Yes he was a cowardly lump but this is, like you say a legal thing.

"Well, I knew what he was like, so it's my own fault really..."

It most emphatically is not your fault.

And please don't take straight-talking posting the wrong way. Support is about what you need to hear, not just what you want to hear. Yes, what he has done is horrible. But no, under English law it is simply not relevant. There are so many things in life that we all wish we could go back and do differently, or laws we think are wrong, but as you can't change either of those, what you need to do now is get to the best possible conclusion based on what is actually possible, not what you wish it would be.

And I think pp is right, it'll be half you pension for the number of years you were married. Or at least that will be the start point for negotiation. Spousal maintenance is also short-term these days (unless you are long-married and approaching pensionable age, the recipient gets no more than a few years during which time they are expected to find a new income. That's shit if you abandoned a career which you cannot match after a break, but it sounds like that does not apply here).

You need a better lawyer OP!

You sound like you've only just started looking into the details of your divorce and have been given the worst case scenario, not what will actually happen. It also seems to me it's not so much divorce law that is screwing you over as his knowledge that you would do anything for your children, including let him float around jobless so that he can pick your children up from school and take them there in the morning when you could organise someone else to do that and are only holding off from doing so because you don't want your children to be upset with you. Tbh, you don't actually sound like you have properly separated from him in your mind at all, but want a situation where he remains of some use to you, you look good in front of the kids, but you don't have to fund his lifestyle any more.

His affair is not your fault. Falling for an idle bastard isn't your fault. Choosing to procreate with him and then enabling him to lead a life of sloth whilst chasing your own career dreams is your fault.

Op have you posted about this before?

Was he sleeping with the woman whilst you were at work and your DC were downstairs?

Going through a divorce as the 'lower earner' currently and I see no evidence of being better protected. It just means he can fight over the money for longer than I can as he has more to fight with in the first place.

OP, I'm sure there was a case recently which set a precedent whereby the SAH was expected to work after the children were mostly in school...do ask your solicitor about that.

And they will look at your individual case in terms of custody and what you do for the children, I wouldn't assume he will get the kids. I also would t guess he'd want them without live in help!

You've got a lot more info than was in your original post. I can see you're having a tough time and I hope things turn out well for you.

financialwizard Thanks for the PM - I've tried to reply but it's not working. Just wanted to say I'm sorry to hear of your situation and I hope you get a good outcome.

Thanks for the supportive posts. Divorce is horrible for most people who go through it I'm sure, but it really is shit when you have to pay a fortune to get rid of someone who has shat all over you and then paints themselves to look like a martyr.

and to all who are going through this shitty process.

As someone who paid a lot out to a husband who made no career sacrifice and worked full time as we both did I do think divorce law is unfair. He also claimed maintenance for life from me although he received more than 50% of the assets to buy out those claims so we had a clean break with no obligation for him to support the children. So you end up with 1. paying ex husband, taking on massive new mortgage 2. having the chidlren 365 days a year as many of these men after divorce choose not even to have the children one night a year 3. supporting them alone whilst doing much more of the things one does with children than if you were together as the courts do not force any contact on men ever. So their father could have 8 weeks off school and I would work full time all summer but take the children away for a week of that and he wouldn't see them once kind of unfairness.

Anyway it simply is unfair. What you really need to be sure about is the children. I saw a divorce lawyer and paid for an hour of advice before I divorced to ask if I would lose the children - their father did a little over 50% of the care but I paid for our daily nanny and their father worked full time so it was not surprising the lawyer said the old children could choose (they no way wanted to be with their father - they were asking me to divorce him) and the youngers would be kept with the older one. Only when I was sure I would not lose the children did I divorce. Many many men stay in very unhappy marriages with awful wives (yes awful wives exist out there) and tolerate wife's adultery even because they do not want to lose the children on divorce. I can understand their position. As King Solomon had to decide in the bible you cannot cut a child in two so it's going to be hard whatever the situation. Good luck with with it all.

So sorry you married a free-loader but I think you need a good solicitor. I can't quite see how he would get 100% access to the children and you nothing. Usually these negotiations start at 50/50 as there are two parents. When the reality of childcare dawns on him he might not want it anyway (it'll certainly cramp his style for generally sitting around).

Definitely get some advice and as the MNer above says, maybe work out the best timing for you?

Yabu but then my dh and I do not agree with divorce except in cases of abuses so I/we feel very secure.
We married because we live each other, finances were/ are irrelevant.

Thank you train that is just what I think. Marriage is discussed as being all about flowers and hearts and big dresses, when really it is a financial and legal agreement, but that is just glossed over.

Exactly OP, it's got absolutely nothing to do with love, you can be in love and not be married, you can be married and not be in love, and then there are marriages that happen so that someone can get a green card (or whatever we call it in the uk). One of the reasons why the facts are glossed over is cos so many companies either get rich or get by from providing wedding services. Being in love (or thinking you're in love) is often what prompts people into considering marriage, but it's at that point that they should be given the facts in an unavoidable way - one way of doing this would be to make it a condition of marriage that the couple have to decide how things will be divided if they split up. There should be much more on TV about the hell people go through when they're splitting up, and how avoidable it could be. Some kids don't suffer through divorce but some do and part of that could be avoided if marriage was seen for what it is and not "flowers and hearts" as you say.

Really we should be taught about the facts of marriage at school and then informed properly when the law changes. We need a system that protects kids better and formally, financially recognises the important roles that parents play in childcare and community (this does not include spending your whole life indulging your creativity whilst the rest of us have no chance to).

I think in your situation op I would not have him in the house. Not sure why you're agreeing to that. Surely children can go to breakfast club or childminder ?

If it was normal for both parents to work part time so they could share child care equally, then surely a lot of divorce unfairness could be avoided.

Many parents have no choice but to give up/not seek work because they can't find a p/t job that matches their skills or child care is too expensive.

If one parent earned significantly more than the other, then in the event of a divorce, the difference could be divided by two and awarded to the lower earner. Anybody not happy with that should decide to not marry a lower earning partner.

Imagine if op was man posting about his soon to be ex wife.

The law protects the primary carer who is invariably the lower earner and until recently was almost always a woman.

Seemed to suit people fine when that was the case.

I read law so am well aware of what marriage really is. Which is exactly why I got married,actually.

I think it is the definition of primary carer which the OP objects to. She has been told that this is the person who takes them to and picks them up from school. She does virtually everything else.

Also, this is a person who has never had a career before or after meeting the OP. It was suggested that he got a part-time job when the children were at school but thought this was beneath him as he is a musician/writer/free spirit.

I think in the same circumstances, I certainly would be saying the same thing whether the primary carer was male or female.

agree with you OP , it serves the higher earner very badly in the event of divorce

I agree. The courts maintain the status quo. In our case we both worked full time although i wqas around a little less but because my children were doler and could choose they chose to live with me (although I would have been content with 50/50). As soon as you let your partner work part time or shorter hours you run the risk whatever your gender of losing your child in divorce hence why countless men and some women tolerate an awful marriage as being better than losing the chidlren.

"Usually these negotiations start at 50/50 as there are two parents." No, the courts really start with the status quo so that the mother tends to have the children living with her and the father has them every other weekend or perhaps a day at the weekend, nothing like half and half. Also if you want 50/50 as i did the courts won't force that either so even though I work full time, their father pays nothing, I paid him on the divorce he is allowed to choose not to have the children even one night a year so he gets 365 nights a year "child free" and I get zero, not that I am saying it is awful to have the children but one night a year without them might be nice.

The solutions are always both work full time and if you are the higher earner don't marry, just live with someone and have your own assets in your name.

I'm sorry for your personal situation.

I would say don't worry about the timing and not acting on his being a cheating arse - makes zero difference to whether you can divorce him or what the settlement will be.

General point:,I don't think it can be said that people are uninformed about the possible consequence of marriage financially. The phrase "take him to the cleaners" is surely common parlance? Doesn't everybody know that marriage involves a financial link that includes divvying up on dissolution?

Family law strongly protects the primary career, and strongly penalises the higher earner.

Many thousands of hard-working, bread-winning divorced fathers would agree completely with the OP's point.

I'm no expert, but from other situations I've seen, I would imagine that joint custody would be awarded. You have both contributed to the upbringing of the children in a valuable way - he has been the one to bring them up on a day to day basis while you were at work (I know you say he did nothing, but surely he looked after them before they were at school?), and you are the one who worked to provide the roof over their heads and food on the table, so you are both equally valuable to the lives of the children and they deserve equal time with both of you.

About your pension and house, again from what I've seen, I would imagine that he would get half of the equity in the house, and also half of the pension contributions that you paid during marriage - not half of your total pension! Courts try to arrange clean break settlements nowadays, so you'd probably have to remortgage and pay a settlement to cover the pension and his share of the equity

Do try to think about the advantages - it could actually work out quite well for the children if they have their Dad looking after them when you're at work and you the rest of the time - far better than being left with childminders.

The problem is that I may not be able to afford to remortgage to give him his settlement. And if I can, it will be very tight. Then, if he decides he no longer wants to provide the before and after school childcare and I have to pay someone else, I will probably be stuffed financially. If I don't pay him anything, I can fairly comfortably afford the childcare, though dc obviously like him doing it.

I'm so tired of it all. He brought them back from his mother's today, an hour later than planned with no phone call, and took his shoes off and mentioned 'after lunch' to the dc, obviously intending to stay. I said 'What are you doing?' and he stormed out. I got anxious waiting for them to come back, and have been anxious ever since he left in case he doesn't come on Monday morning.

I just hate. hate hate that he is seen as the primary carer when he acts like a total prick and I am in every sense of the word the default carer, and happy to be so, while he sees it all as doing me a favour. Eg, he usually has them on a Sunday, at my house, though, but if he can't he just tells me so. If I wanted him to have them on a Sat (has never happened yet) I would ask, with notice. It is always assumed it is me who will have them, and him taking them is an 'extra'. Surely that makes me the primary carer, not who gives them a bowl of cereal in the mornings?

Well, he didn't give up work to support your career did he? He never worked because he didn't want to. That is very different than a SAHP who gives up work so the other partner can concentrate on their career.

I am really sorry for what you are going through OP. You made some unwise decisions with him but many of us do throughout life and that doesn't make you any less deserving of sympathy.

Good luck to you