Ex husband worth a million and offered me only £7000 financial claim

[AmyJahabee]

Hi all,

I made a financial claim against my ex husband and he offered me £5000 and he is worth almost a million. Is this suppose to be a joke.

we were married for 7 years I was not working at the time so he pay for everything whilst I look after the house, no children involved in the marriage. Is that all I get because I didn’t contribute financially? It’s been 3years since the divorce, he has put in so much lies about me towards his statement. I’m going to decline the offer.

can I just decline or ask for a reasonable amount?

In the 1990's, in the UK, women would study, get an education and work until they get married. Then they would becomes wives and mothers

what now? That’s far from true. I was there. Trust me, yes that happened, but it was the 50s really, early 60s. Not the 90s.

I would look to keep your self respect & earn your own money. You were only married for 7 years & you didn’t work, while he paid for everything. It’s time to work full time & look after yourself.

@NannyAnabela

I graduated in the 1990's and I can assure you most women in the U.K. worked, women didn't give up work on marriage unless they were incredibly rich, royalty level rich. We are considered very comfortably off and yes I still work!

I'm guessing your experience was rather niche

A lot of you are judgemental:

this guy verbally and physically abuse me throughout the relationship. So you expect me to stay forever with torture?

he treated me with so much disrespect and humiliation throughout the marriage and relationship, he’s 20 years older than me I was 18 ( I had no family just me living by myself with no one looking out or guiding me. I was isolated) when we met, I was young stupid and naive. This was 17 years ago. He would constantly rape me, physically beat me. No one in his family respected me, I was cleaning cooking and his mum refer to me as the maid of the house.

when we got divorced I was aware I can make financial claim against him, got no legal advice or nothing.

for me it’s not about the money is the way I was treated like a trash and nothing!!

I have a good job so I can maintain myself but that’s not the point here. Why was I treated like that?

Op, I agree with this. Unless you had a prenuptial agreement or are in a place that you can claim alimony, I’m not sure you have any standing ground here.

no kids, didn’t work… I mean? 🙄

She was a stay at home wife - first, and mother - second.
She was lucky to be able to have children, so she became a mother.
She stopped working before the wedding, she didn't even know if she could have children or not.

I know of people who weren't that lucky and couldn't have children.

They are only stay at home wives, they didn't have the priviledge to be mothers.

I have a friend whose husband is infertile. She has chosen to stay by his side and not be a mother, instead of dumping him and hitching a fertile husband.

Some of you here are nasty bits of people. I wonder if you apply the rules to yourselves.

By the way, a person who looks after children in their houses is a nanny, like me, it is a profession, you do it for a wage. You get taxes paid, retirement, a job, a career, etc.

I hope that you are not saying that if you are married your husband grants you the right to not have a job, a profession, an income, professional financial and personal indepence, just to use you in bed and as free cleaning, cooking and childcare services.

That is not what you are saying, right?

In the 1990's, in the UK, women would study, get an education and work until they get married. Then they would becomes wives and mothers. Some worked part time for peanuts.

Very occasionally a woman may choose that now. But it absolutely wasn't required in the 90s - my mum and most of my friends' mums worked full time! I think you might be getting the 1990s confused with the 1950s tbh.

It was still very common in the 80s

In the 1990's, in the UK, women would study, get an education and work until they get married. Then they would becomes wives and mothers. Some worked part time for peanuts.

That is absolutely not true. I went to uni, started work, and had my children in the ‘90s. I worked all the way through, and never gave up my job. It was also not the “done thing” to get married before having children. “Everyone” had children first. Only years later did we realise our mistake and get married.

Op it sounds like you need to report him to the police for what he did to you? Have you spoken to rape crisis or woman’s aid?
his violence doesn’t mean he owes you money but he does deserve a criminal record

No it wasn’t. Yes there were more stay at home mums now, but in the 80s women were free to work. It was a choice, in the 50s it wasn’t.

Another bright spark here, are you?
I am in my 50s. You will note by my name and when I have said "where I originally came from" that I am not british.
You need to speak with you mother and grandmother if you think one would need to go back 200 years for things to be experience those events.
I am talking about the 70's, in Europe, bright spark!

This is so funny @NannyAnabela
I graduated in the early 1970s and went into a professional job.

Your knowledge of history of Europe is very odd indeed.

My mother is almost 100 and her life was not as you think. She wore trousers (yes, we have the photos to prove that!) she didn't wear mini skirts until the 1960s, she did walk down the street alone in the 1920s and she even had the vote, as did my grandmother who was born in 1896.

The legal queen on tiktok gives family law legal help and has a discord

OP, so you are already divorced?
Many years ago? Are you looking to get the financial order done that was not done at the time? Is it something else?

Sounds like the criminal courts will bring you the results you want rather than the civil ones.

In the 1990's, in the UK, women would study, get an education and work until they get married. Then they would becomes wives and mothers. Some worked part time for peanuts.

I think you’re mistaking the 1990s for the 1950s and even then many women continued to work after having children.

@AmyJahabee I’m sorry you had such a hard time in an abusive marriage. Unfortunately the law doesn’t adjust settlements based of the behaviour of either spouse, so as awful as it was your experience doesn’t change your entitlement under law. You do need some legal advice here though to make sure your rights are respected.

Because the actual divorce petition and financial settlements run as separate processes.
legally you do not have to agree a financial agreement when you divorce…but you’re fairly idiotic not to. Without a legal financial agreement your ex can demand money you’ve acquired since divorce at any time.

most people do the process in parellel and ask the court to “seal” (approve) the legal fancial agreement at same time as Divorce final order (old decree absolute). You can’t submit it till after the interim order (decree nisi as was).

The court requires BOTH of you to complete and sign a financial declaration (D81 in very least, form E and others if court making decisions) . Not completing this accurately , knowingly, is 2 offences: contempt of court and potential fraud. It is a serious bit of form filling. No agreement should be made by either party till this has been complete on both sides.

many people posting on Divorce board are stuck for years running up huge financial bills with solicitors becuase their spouse mucks around and won’t complete these forms. It causing a lot of delays and stress .

i imagine the OP’s partner didn’t want to do thst at time, avoided financial agree,ent, divorced and is only now waking up to risk he took. He’s now trying to persuade OP to accept something before the legal fancial declaration has been completed. She should tell him to complete forms, legally decalring ALL his assets (and she’ll need to do same ) including pensions, business, investments, cash, income etc etc , and ONLY then will she begin discussions.

@AmyJahabee You should have reported him to the police.

Did he isolate you from others?
Did you not have friends to confide in?

Did no one suggest you went to the police at the time?

I don't know how you can expect a settlement now, 3 years after divorce.
Is your divorce finalised? Decree absolute?

You will not have any claim now if it is.

This is a good post op. He needs to declare all of his finances. As others have said, you cannot afford not to get a solicitor.

OP, you’ve posted on AIBU…this is where you ARE asking for Judgement not help.

I’ve made a post telling you to move to DIVORCE. board, post there for helpful advice. Not here. A lot of people here are spouting unhelpful or incorrect advice based on god knows what

click on link at top of that board to ADVICE NOW. Then read the guides. Read them agian . And agian until you are clear on process, your rights, how the law actually does work.

Of course women were free to continue working, it's not like in previous decades were women had to stop working when they got married - there are older women in my family who refused to marry their partners because they didn't want to stop working - but in the 80s, a decade I remember well, it was still very common for women to be stay-at-home mums. It was very unusual amongst my school friends and neighbours for the mum to work an actual paid job, and we were working class. Don't we hear so much these days about how families used to be able to buy a house etc. on a single salary?
I appreciate that my opinion on this is based on my experience, but I'm sticking to 'it was still very common in the 80s' for women to be stay-at-some mums.

Anyway, I don't want to continue to derail.

By law .. 7 years of marriage is classed as a long marriage.. ( this is to your advantage)...5 years or less is short.
You definitely need a solicitor.

Factors are Children.
Who paid for the majority of the house.
Who paid bills.
Loads of factors to consider.
It's worth paying a solicitor a few grand to gain a lot lot more .

It didn't apply much even in the 1950s.

The law that forbid married women to work in certain professions after they married, changed in the mid 1940s.

I was at school in the 1950s.
We had female teachers. My friends' mums were teachers.
Women worked.

I worked in the UK from 1990 until 1995 as an Au-Pair and Mother's Helper.

I am talking about what I saw, experienced and learnt during that time. Real life.
People that existed, people that I worked for while living inside their houses; their friends and families.

Many of those people are still alive today.
I was only 7 years younger that one of those mothers, they are in their 60's nowadays.

I think some people need to go and read some newspapers, magazines and watch some TV programmes to know how things were in those days. Not that long ago. I am talking about 35 years ago. - Or Just talk to their family members!

God your rude!!
Theres many reasons spouses cant work...also...did OP do all housework, shopping, mental load etc.
7 years of that....then charge him that!