Are we being unreasonable to think she's being unreasonable

[jadeycakes666]

I am back from a late lunch with long standing friends. One of whom has recently split with husband of 19 years. She cheated on him with one of his friends. Her and husbands friend are not together and she and her husband tried for a while after she told him what had happened.

August last gone she messaged us all to say she had taken his keys and told him to get out as she couldn't stand him being so miserable. We were all slightly taken aback by the attitude seeing as she's the one who broke his heart but it's not our relationship so hey ho. We all have known her husband since they started dating and she asked that we all blank him from our lives.

When he left he stayed in hotels for a while and she told him he wasn't seeing the kids (3 of them) in a hotel until he had a stable home. He found one and she told us all she wasn't letting them go round as he didn't have enough furniture bar a sofa TV and beds for them.

She has told us herself that he has left her the house, the car and all furniture and electronics that he purchased in the house. They also had a joint account with around 22k in which she gleefully told us she had emptied and told him so and he has said no worries keep it for the kids. He also pays her £800 a month CM and sends the kids £50 Weekley for any treats etc they might ask of her so it doesn't dip into maintenance.

At Christmas she very smugly told us she was making him drop his kids presents two weeks early as she didn't see why he should be seeing them over Christmas as she was doing all the work with them, we asked how he was supposed to when she kept rejecting him asking to have them. She got annoyed.

Anyway today she has asked us all for lunch and told us she has served divorce papers and will be going for full spousal maintenance so he has no chance of getting himself on his feet and meeting anyone as he'll have to pay this on top of his voluntary maintenence. She found this really funny. She told us she's better off herself now as UC are paying a fair chunk of her housing fees.

Everyone kind of made a face and another friend sat back and told her she was being extremely insane considering the circumstances.

She stormed off after we settled the bill and has gone home and removed herself from the group chat.

I would want to stay close to her so I could feed info back to the husband

What a horrible vindictive woman, I hate nasty people and I really hope karma bites her in the arse

The story sounds like it's written by a man who feels very wronged by his evil incarnate ex. He sounds like a complete saint! .. but is it ever that black and white? It sounds like there are omissions , why would anyone let theft of 22k go and just shrug and say "No worries, keep it if the kids need anything" that sounds too designed to pull at the heartstrings. Just doesn't add up.

Why would she hate him so much and want him to suffer? Why would she be "gleeful" at hurting him. If this is all true (and I'm not doubting that some people are actually evil) then I agree with a previous poster that she must have some information on him and he's bending over backwards to placate her.

She sounds terrible but there's just holes in the story.

Yes, spousal maintenance exists (I received it on divorce over 18 years ago!)
BUT the other party is 'normally' a very high earner with substantial assets. In my case my ex stupidly stated the judge that he'd consent to 'giving me £10k' (total no maintenance) when he earnt c£75k minimum, had a very healthy pension and owned 2 houses, all whilst also stating to the judge that our 2yr old ds should go and live with him and OW because he 'wasn't allowed to live in a flat' .... Still not sure how the judge kept a straight face.
So, yes it can be awarded when there are massive inequalities.
I'm assuming she has earning potential? What age are the children?
Unless they are pre school age or younger, she will be expected to get a job (both by the judge AND universal credit (who will sanction her if she's not actively looking for work) Of course she could have convinced universal credit that she needs to be in the Limited Capability to work or work related activity, but even that is monitored.

What a vile human being! She has shown her true colours so listen and cut her off. Husband has been cheated on, forced out his house and now being rinsed for everything he has including his girls!!

Cut her off and tell her why. Absolutely disgusting behaviour!!

@74Violette you're absolutely right, nothing in divorce is ever that black and white. Exes of either gender are capable of screaming, shouting, dishing the dirt and think that will get them what they want. Sadly, sometimes it does.
A judge said to my ex that he needed to understand what he was implying when he repeatedly stated he should have sole custody, simply because he wanted to treat ds like a parcel. I was commended for putting my ds first and centre.
The thing being is that unlike back then, the premise is now 50/50, cases HAVE to go to mediation first, legal aid is only available for documented domestic violence cases and the expectation is that 2 adults will be able to come to a reasonable agreement without a judge basically telling them to 'play nicely'

There are gaps in everyone's story, as a friend said, there a 2 sides to every story and the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

This lady should probably stop sharing all her plans to bring her ex down and the ex should probably realise that rolling over won't make her stop, unfortunately in divorce either party can take up a stance and refuse to budge, resulting in nothing more than huge legal bills and a need to prove they have been 'wronged' in some way.
Courts don't care, solicitors really don't care and maybe if she climbed down of her high horse things would be much simpler for their shared dc.

Sure, friends should tell their friends when they're behaving like utter arseholes, but let's be real-someone as nasty, vile and cruel as OP's friend is very unlikely to care what other people think or say.

Typically, people that far gone don't ever see their actions as wrong. OP's friend likely feels entirely justified in her actions and somehow thinks it's her "due."

OP, if I were you, I'd be putting as much distance between myself and this "friend" as possible. I'd let her know in no uncertain terms what I thought of her and her actions-and cut the friendship there and then. I'd advise the other friends to do the same.

It's unlikely to sway her behaviour any, but hopefully she'll not have anyone left to boast to and her loneliness can be her punishment. The STBEX needs to stop allowing her to do all of this-he has rights-to the house, the assets and most importantly, the children.

He needs to see a lawyer immediately, and start fighting her. At the minute, it sounds like he's being a doormat and allowing her to take everything from him. Stuff that he's entitled to-or at least, half of. He needs to find out his rights and start pushing back on her utter insanity.

She's a cunt. I hope the guy wins the lottery after the divorce and leads a happy life.

She cheated and is now behaving this way?? What an absolutely horrible person. I hope her ex hires a really good lawyer, shops her to HMRC for ripping off UC and goes for shared custody/costs. And I hope all of you who met for lunch cut her loose and let her rot in her own misguided life!

Spousal Maintenance is claimed as part of financial settlement, particularly if one person is stay at home parent. I think it can be limited to be paid until the divorce finalised

This story doesn't make sense. She has £22k from a joint account but gets universal credit? If that's true she's going to have a criminal record soon. The DWP can access claimant's bank accounts nowadays and with £22k in the bank you cannot claim.

The whole spousal maintenance thing is even crazier. Consider the facts:

1. Potential payer's (PP) gross income is about £50k;
2. PP receives £3.3k net a month maximum income;
3. PP never has overnights with his three children;
4. PP will therefore pay £760 in child maintenance a month;
5. Potential recipient (PR) is reliant on universal credit;
6. Universal credit is reduced by £1 for each £1 of unearned income the claimant receives;
7. Spousal maintenance is classified as unearned income;
8. PR doesn't work. With three children she will be eligible for around £1k of universal credit a month (assuming 2 child cap);
9. PR will also get around £260 child benefit a month.

Doing the maths, before spousal maintenance the husband is left with £2.5k and the wife £2k a month. If the husband then paid the wife £1k in spousal maintenance, the wife would be no better off but he would be left with only £1.5k to live on. No court would entertain such a silly outcome, not least because it is not in the children's interests to make their father dirt poor with no advantage to their mother.

The wife will also almost certainly be told she has an unexploited earning capacity and can go and get a job if she needs more money. It sounds like she has engaged with a crap solicitor if they are even thinking of asking for spousal maintenance.

It may not make sense. I am only going off what I have been told by both parties. None of these I would say are hard facts, obviously both sides skew the truth. I was just posting because I have cut her off now and was checking it was justified x

There are always 3 sides to a story...

Hers
His
The truth

No one will ever get the truth, not even the 2 parties involved, either because they are in denial of blinded by their own story.

Only one person told her she was insane ? Because the whole situation with this woman sounds like she needs sectioning.

I hope karma bites her on the arse real hard.

I work for a family law firm. The OP's story is implausible to me although I acknowledge it is second hand to her too, from her friend.

For a start, no decent solicitor is going to tell someone with decades of working life ahead of them and divorcing someone who earns £50k that they can expect spousal maintenance, especially when the potential payer already has an obligation to pay child maintenance for 3 children. Throw the fact that the recipient receives universal credit into the mix and the advice is borderline negligent. Granted spousal maintenance from someone on £50k can happen but the facts would have to be different (think longer marriage, adult children, recipient with limited working life remaining etc).

I also find this "friend" to be too much of a caricature. In every conceivable way she is a "villain" in divorce. She cheated, she refuses to work, she demands unrealistic levels of spousal maintenance not because of need but a desire to stop the other person moving on, she has the FMH and doesn't care about the other party's housing needs. I mean, really? I definitely see attributes like this in divorcing spouses quite often but not all at the same time! Even when I do see clients who want an unrealistic settlement (think modest case, not having to work, spousal maintenance, Mesher Order) this is normally driven by their fear, not by spite.

If she does exist, she is in for one hell of a shock if her ex takes the matter to court. However, I suspect that in reality her position is more nuanced. If she exists at all then it's probably bravado rather than what she knows is actually going to happen.

You can apply for spousal maintenance in the UK. My brother has just been through a divorce. He was married for 2 years, is in his late 30s earning £60k (not as wealthy as some may think… paying the higher tax plus £1000 a month to travel to the country where the Ex has taken child so he can see her for a few days every month) and had 1 child with his ex. She quit her job on advice of solicitor so she looked “financially in need” so he had to pay her £80k from equity (sale of house) and all his savings in order to avoid paying her spousal maintenance for life. His ex is on UC, bought a house from her Dad (he owns several), works for him cash in hand so UC isn’t affected and gets £600 a month in CM. Court will prefer a clean break so more often a lump sum is settled upon rather than tying a person to payments for life. Typically, the lower earner in the lower earner may be entitled to spousal maintenance from their former spouse with the higher income if they are unable to find a standard of living similar to what they have been accustomed to.

My brother had to pay £80k to his ex to avoid spousal support and she is on UC now. The rule is that they can continue on UC provided the money over the threshold is for a house and is put into a house within 6 months. Maybe this woman is planning on paying it into the mortgage? My brother’s Ex used the money to buy a house. Definitely still on UC and the judge at no point suggested she could or should get another job (she quit it at the start of divorce proceedings on advice of her solicitor as she wanted to take the child to another country (she did) and wanted to maximise money in the settlement by being more financially in need).
Weirdly the family high court judge suggested to my brother that he could move to this other country also as a “solution” to their custody dispute and give up his job as “many paupers manage to bring up children”…
Judge also held him having a job against him in the custody arrangement as putting a child into childcare isn’t as “beneficial” as being cared for full time by an unemployed parent. It’s all a bit crazy… you’d think there would be societal reasons to encourage parents to work and support their families… not according to this Judge!

Weirdly the family high court judge suggested to my brother that he could move to this other country also as a “solution” to their custody dispute and give up his job as “many paupers manage to bring up children”

Surely the reply to this was along the lines of why then was the exw applying for spousal maintenance when living where she was with children she was more than capable of being a pauper and raising their children without any income

I'd dob her in. She deserves it.

She definitely does exist and she has shocked us all as well by becoming this spiteful. I think from conversations I have had she thought he would be kicked out and then think oh shit and stop being so miserable, beg to come back and just crack on with their lives. However he didn't beg and now she has lost 'the lifestyle' she was so used to having.

Totally get where you're coming from. I think that it is good to always be critical and make sure you have two sides to every story, but I will say that there is never really a rational 'reason' for abusive behaviour. I think (completely unintentionally) your post suggests that he must have 'done something' for her to abuse him like this. Maybe that is the case, but the fact is that a lot of abuse happens without any 'provocation' from the victim. Abusers usually abuse not because of anything the victim did, but because of their own trauma/personality disorder/lack of empathy.

I also get where you're coming from about his behaviour being irrational. But I think the problem is that he is in a really vulnerable place - his wife cheated on him, and is treating him terribly. That's enough to make anyone act in an irrational way, because they aren't in their right mind. For example, when divorcing my abusive father, my mum was willing to give him all her money and me and my sister had to stop her from doing this. This wasn't because she had done anything wrong and was trying to cover it up by bribing my father (as I have seen some posters imply), or because my father hadn't abused her. It was because she was an abuse victim and had been gaslit and abused so much she really didn't know what was the correct course of behaviour. All she wanted was for my father to not be cruel to her, and at that time she thought that if she gave him her money he would be kinder to her.

I think we often take male abuse of female victims at face value ('she did nothing wrong', 'he's a monster'), which I think is the correct response. However, I think that we fall down a bit when it comes to discussing male victims at the hands of women ('what did he do to deserve it'). I don't say this in a 'men's rights' kind of way (I'm a staunch feminist), more in an analysis of patriarchy way, which makes us believe that men are 'strong' and women are 'weak'. There are 'holes' in this story, in the sense that the husband's behaviour does come across as complicit in his own abuse (giving her money, not 'fighting' for his kids). But this is what abuse DOES to people - it makes you unsure of yourself, it makes you feel small and weak and like you can't fight back. I don't think his behaviour suggests that he's the real villain in the piece or that he did anything wrong at all. I think it's typical behaviour for an abuse victim.

This isn't intended as a criticism of you at all as I think you raised some fair points! I might be totally wrong and you might be correct in your analysis, but I thought it was worth raising the fact that abuse victims can act irrationally too.

@theallotmentqueen It is a possibility that this is all his "punishment" for not doing as is expected from an abusive partner. He was meant to be kicked out and come back begging and hasn't.

I'm still skeptical though because if the wife was abusive (and in some ways she sounds it) then normally she would do a better job covering it up, not brag about it to her friends. Granted, society can be more tolerant of women abusing men (I noticed the Daily Mail ran an article just the other day promoting checking their men's phones which just boggles the mind and would never get past an editor's desk if the roles were reversed) because the abuse is less likely to be violent. Nevertheless, abusers normally do a much better job of covering their tracks than this friend.

Hmmmm, fair point there. Either she's genuinely stupid (she's given a lot of evidence to her friends about her malicious intent, meaning they can be easily cited as witnesses), or there's some level of cognitive dissonance (genuinely doesn't consider her behaviour to be abusive/wrong). Or, as you say, something has happened to her which has caused this behaviour as a kind of breakdown.

This. The poor guy.

But you said further up that shes said shes better off now? So how has she lost the lifestyle she was used to having?

She told us she's better off herself now as UC are paying a fair chunk of her housing fees

I'd tell DWP she's lying to them. And tell the husband you're happy to tell the court she emptied the bank account too.