To think friends STBEXH is delusional??

[Paddymcpaddy]

Friend and her DH of 20 odd years are separating - they have 2 school aged kids.

When they met they earned similar amounts but friend went PT when kids were born, earned less for 10 years but now works FT. The DH did little childcare, has a great career earns 3/4x more than she does.

The DH wants to sell the family home and spilt the equity - about £400k each- and then pay some maintenance towards the kids. But they’ll be 50/50 custody he reckons so not much.
HOWEVER his pension pot is close to £1m, friends is £300k as she earned less, went on maternity etc.

He says - we’ll be leaving the pensions out of any financial settlement. The kids will get his if he dies. She’s now worried how she’ll get a new house and mortgage on her salary even with that £400k deposit as they live in London.

I have told her she is MAD if she agrees his pensions doesn’t come into it! They’ve split all the bills 50/50 all these years, which left her without much extra and he put loads of his spare cash into pension and savings.

Should it not be assets + pension + savings added together then divided by 2??? Everything they have was earned when they were together .

Update: Friend has had a chance to speak to other friends and realised that not only should she be looking at 50/50 but that they’re actually in a lucky position, once they spilt everything both of them will have enough money to have a decent place in their town, and some money to spare.
She’s asked to speak to him in a proper sit down pre booking a mediator but apparently a mutual friend who works in personal finance was asked for advice by the DH and pointed all this out. They’ll both have enough, and the priority should be the kids future and it absolutely doesn’t need to get too messy.

100% pensions are taken into a consideration in the division of assets. He’s totally deluded if he thinks they aren’t. Their respective abilities to be adequately housed and their mortgage capacity is taken into account.

That sounds positive - hopefully your friend will be OK. It will still be worth her getting legal advice though. Her STBX needs to realise that from a marital pot POV, there is no his and hers - it's all theirs.

I know so many divorced dads who are furious about having g to ‘give’ the ex a share of pension or share of house equity when he earned loads more. They all have kids.
Yet none of the divorced mums could be described as being flush in any way!

There was a thread on here some time ago about this very subject and so many posters spoke of their regret for their poor frugal childhood because their mother didn't fight for a decent settlement and allowed themselves to be completely screwed over.

It had an enormous impact on posters childhood as their fathers had second families that had a vastly different standard of living.

They absolutely blamed their mothers for not fighting for them.

Point that out to your friend.
When she fights for every penny she can get she is actually doing it as much for her children as herself.

Men often promise to be fair unofficially but once a new partner comes on the scene that is the first thing to go out the window.

Hard cash in a legal settlement is the only way to go.

Ok my friend was going through a split up. She was going to agree to a completely unfair divide. I told her not to be a tool and get a lawyer asap Don't agree to anything. She listen to me and she got out in a good position. She said me calling her an idiot helped her do something. lol

This is the issue with married people who think that if something is in their name, that means it is theirs

They haven’t got their mind round the fact that as a married person it is all marital property

They didn’t give away what was theirs. They distributed marital assets.

When people realise this they might think twice before putting their marriage at risk.

She needs to speak to a solicitor, not friends

It will get messy if she doesn’t have someone to fight her corner

Something tells me that dh has heard she could be awarded more than 50% so of course he is going to go for an even split and hoping she hasn’t wised up

This your friend needs to lawyer up asap. She is entitled to way more than 50% Like so much more. he is hoping to God she never finds out.

I couldn’t be amicable with a man who kept his whole much larger pension so that ship would have sailed anyway, especially if THEY deemed it most efficient AS A FAMILY to contribute more to his pension. Split it fairly. Thats being a good dad seeing as it’s your kids home and the woman who brought them up while you worked.

I have been going through a divorce for two years. We share a house around £400k my ex was awarded a critical illness payout even though he has no lasting effects which my solicitor advises will go into the matrimonial pot, he has a pension of around 100k which he can withdraw 100% and only started paying into the majority of it after we met. I on the other hand have a local government pension which I started 23 years ago in 2001. We met in 2008 and married in 2011. I stopped paying into my pension in 2015 due to stopping work to raise our family. My pension I can only withdraw a lump sum and then get an annual amount paid monthly. He is going after 100% of my pension. Despite me only contributing for 4 years whilst married and 7 together. For context we separated because he committed an offence for which he is still being investigated and if charged is likely to be sent down for around 14 years.

so my advice to your friend would be go for everything unless of course she’s the cause of the split (sorry haven’t read all op’s responses).

I agree, but she said he doesn't want the kids to move far so hopefully once the reality hits in he will compromise (if he means what he says of course)

Don’t forget that those she considers her friends might not be her friends after the divorce.

They might have their own agenda when it comes to having her accept just 50%

If he wants his dc to stay in the area then he needs to go to court for this to be argued and put down in a compromise agreement

All very well him saying he doesn’t want the dc to move too far but realistically how much will he want to give extra for them to stay

I think he has a list of wants that he won’t compromise on but aren’t legally his to keep

As PP have said... she needs a bloody solicitor!!! Having them involved doesn't automatically make it acrimonious but it will make sure she isn't blindsided/screwed over..

For the sake of a couple thousand (which is the max she would pay if it genuinely isn't messy) it's worth it to have everything covered.

Doesn’t matter who caused the split when it comes to financials. Every party gets a fair award

what I actually meant was more a moral stance.

No fault. They drifted. Not that it matters.

It actually can matter. If one parties conduct has affected the other financially then the court would most definitely take this into account, that’s my personal experience.

There IS NO fault. Separating by mutual agreement. No affairs, no abuse, just two people who no longer want to be together