To think he can’t get away with this? Marriage breakdown.

[SheIsStuck23]

I posted this on the Relationship board yesterday but only got two replies so I’m now posting it here because I’m desperate for help and advice.

I’m posting because of all the fantastic knowledge and support that is offered on here to women who want to escape shitty relationships and because I don’t know how to help my friend.

I’m going to see her in a few days time and I would love to be able to give her some guidance.

The back story of her and her husband:

Together for 13 years.
Married for 7 years.
They have two children aged 11 and 8

My friend was a SAHM until the youngest started school and then she started a college course in order to get into a career. She should get her qualification late next year.

Her husband works in banking and she thinks he earns about £95k.

My friend has never had any access to his earnings and all she has had since the birth of their first child eleven years ago is a monthly “allowance” that he gives her, as well as the child benefit.

He pays for the mortgage and bills and keeps the rest of his earnings to himself.

Their marriage has been very rocky for about 3-4 years (he’s awful) and a few months ago my friend told her husband that she didn’t want to be with him anymore. He made lots of promises about how he’d change (which he’s already been promising for many years with nothing changing) but she said enough is enough.

A year or so ago she had suggested marriage counselling but he wouldn’t pay for it and still won’t.

Their house is worth £400k and she wants to put it on the market but she knows he won’t agree. They are still living there together (separate rooms) and my friend says the atmosphere is just horrendous. She wants to start divorce proceedings but is terrified about how he will react and she doesn’t have access to any money to pay solicitor fees anyway.

He has now stopped giving her a monthly allowance (out of spite I imagine) and so all she has now each month is the child benefit money. She has to use this to buy things for herself and for the children, and for her travel costs back and forth to college.

He’s treating her so badly and it’s just a mess. It’s just awful. He’s telling their daughters that my friend wants to break up the family and he’s the victim…..

Surely he can’t get away with this?

She has no other family nearby and she feels completely trapped.

How can I help her

Countless times, oh yes!

Yes, you fight the power, Superdude! Crusade against the evil of double standards by joining a forum and whinging that people tell their own stories without a full range of witnesses for cross examination! Show your devotion to truth and honour by choosing Mumsnet as presumably the only website on earth where this happens and complaining that the husbands aren't on it!

Incidentally, pompous self-aggrandisement posing as superior morality is another trademark of you guys.

Completely avoiding answering my question. Good tactic 👍

Take your victim blaming, women hating, crap somewhere else 😂

Sorry OP, just read your updates. It's good that your friend has got some legal advice.

I would also recommend that she speaks to Women's Aid and the Citizens' Advice Bureau. I wonder whether she would be entitled to have child benefit paid directly to her and/or to receive universal credit if she can demonstrate that she and her husband are no longer together even though they are living under the same roof and that he is not financially supporting her or the children.

Do you know what the solicitor said about fees? Can they be paid at the end out of your friend's share of the financial settlement?

If you are in a position to lend your friend any money then you could potentially draw up an agreement setting out a repayment plan which can start once she is earning, if that would make both of you feel more comfortable. My mum's cleaner once asked if she could borrow some money in quite similar circumstances and since they had known each other for a long time my mum lent her the money and they made a written document setting out the hours the cleaner would work to pay off the loan and that's what she did, over a couple of years I think. And then once they were quits my mum went back to paying her as usual.

Also, for all the people asking what the OP's friend has done to contribute to the marriage breakdown, please give your heads a fucking wobble.

Nothing justifies financial abuse.

I answered it and didn't victim blame anyone

Just try and take the rose tinted spectacles off a bit 😂

You didn’t answer it.

So to clarify, if you have a woman who has left her marriage because her husband is physically abusive to her, or because he has been cheating on her, or because he’s got them in £1000’s of pounds worth of debt, you would tell her that you find it hard to believe she isn’t somehow at fault for his actions?

You would find it hard to believe that an abused woman didn’t in some way, play a role in the abuse she has been getting?

Cool, now I just need "insane" and "pre menstrual" and we'll have the full bingo. Come on mate, we're almost there!

I know!

I’m trying to do some online training for work and I’m finding his ridiculousness very distracting.

He’s more amusing than my training so I’m finding it hard to focus 😂

I guess MN doesn't have pages to get stuck together.

😂 brava.

Bloody hell sone of the replies on this thread! It's blatantly bloody obvious this is financial abuse!

Christ on a cracker!

😂

Yes all those 2 threads!! But why let the truth get in the way of narrative...

That might have worked it was 1995 😂

Still keep going...

it's a fact that divorce settlements can take into account inheritances by either party In Scotland, inheritances are not classed as matrimonial property...........

Please be wary of taking legal advice from well-meaning strangers on the internet. Womens Aid can offer good advice

I doubt your tastes have changed much since then.

You’ve avoided answering it again. Stop trying to be clever.

Everyone on here can see you’re avoiding answering the question with either a yes or a no and we all know why. All you’re doing is making yourself look like a knob 😂

We are never going to agree because you think the behaviours of shitty men are in some way the fault of their wives whereas I believe that some men are just utter shits simply because they are.

For these two reasons I will now back away from engaging with you because you’re distracting me from my work by infuriating me and amusing me on equal levels.

I will continue to enjoy watching you look stupid with all your future arguments with other posters though 👍

Thanks for the Friday morning laughs 👍

He's boring now and probably enjoying the whole thing far too much. Sorry for my part in the derail, OP. Let him carry on yammering about the misandristic double standards of a website that doesn't require a full range of witness statements every time someone asks for advice and get the information you need to help your abused friend.

Look up (on gov.uk) the laws on coercive control. Your friend is being coercively controlled through financial abuse.

@SheIsStuck23 i have read this whole thread and whilst I have no further advice I just wanted to say you sound like a wonderful friend. Your friend is very lucky to have you in her corner. 😊

If he was paying for the bills, mortgage, food and taking care of his family and giving her allowance on top of the child benefit money then he has done his role as a husband. He's still paying for the mortgage bills etc I'm assuming.

There is no mortgage and she pays for the food.

He pays the bills because she used her inheritance to pay off their mortgage.

In terms of “taking care of his family” I guess it depends on what you mean by that? He has nothing to do with the children, all the responsibility for them (looking after them and paying for anything they need) are “her job”. She is also responsible for everything to do with the house, for example the housework and cooking etc.

If paying the water, gas and electric bill every 3 months and doing absolutely nothing else, including not needing to look after his children, is all it takes to fulfil the role of a husband then I guess he’s a great one.

Thankfully most of us have much nicer ones 👍