AIBU to ask for more than 50/50 split in divorce?

[ThisHazelCritic]

My husband left Sunday evening, things had been rocky for a few years and I couldn't tell him I loved him when asked so he packed some bags and left. I'm 38, he's 48. We've been married 12 years and have no kids.

He earns significantly more than me, 6 figures, about 4 times what I do. House is in both our names and we paid into a joint account so mortgage payments were split. I have around £20k inheritance in a joint savings pot which he transferred half to his own private account the night he left, despite saying if we ever split I'd keep this if I didn't touch his pension which is quite significant. He's also now saying he'll only contact me through a solicitor. We should make around £100k in the house sale. I was happy to split this down the middle, but now he's taken half of the inheritance, I'm wondering if I should push for more? Am I likely to get more considering this was in a joint savings and would still leave me around £60k post divorce....

You can never say what you would do in circumstances that you have never been in. If you ever have the misfortune of your husband cheating on you and the wrecking of all your future plans, including financial ones, you may feel differently.

So she takes the deposit back and half of the money of the sale ? Doesn't need to go after his pension.

How does she just 'take' the deposit back?
She should do whatever her solicitor advises her to do and they may well advise to go after the pension as a way of recouping her deposit and inheritance etc.

He didn't need to take her inheritance either did he? yet he did, and you're on here calling her greedy, creating a narrative that she only stayed for money and making out she's the bad guy for falling out of love.

There’s a load of misinformation on this thread. All marital assets must be declared. That means wealth accrued during the marriage! High earners often have someone else looking after the house and their meals and house admin while they concentrate on work. In a marriage all wealth accumulated in the 12 years is on the table. The op is not “going after” his money. It’s marital money and it could have been more if he hadn’t spent so much!

No you said OP could spend thousands on legal fees going after more than 50% or his pension. That indicates that you don't think pensions are marital assets, which they are.

People, with the exception of a few who think the man should keep more, are saying that 50% of all marital assets (including all pensions) is the starting point and what is fair given there are no children involved. Neither of them have had to make sacrifices for childcare reasons and neither of them should be disadvantaged. It is very unlikely that the H would get awarded more than OP as it all balances out. Yes, OP is younger, but H is a much higher earner. OP paid the deposit on their home and has shared her two inheritances with him plus paid off his debt. I am sure the H has added monetary value too within their marriage, but we don't have his side of the story.

He seemed happy to take 50% of your marital savings (because your inheritance became marital savings)

Consequently, a percentage of his pension is now up for grabs. He can’t have it both ways and it seems like that £10k is going to potentially cost him 50% of his pension. Ouch 😂

Once an inheritance is moved into a joint account it generally loses its ‘ring fenced’ status and becomes a matrimonial asset. To remain non-matrimonial, it would have to stay in an account in her own name.

It’s grubby to go for half his pension. Not like you can claim that your career suffered by having children and that enabled him to further his career ….you just don’t have the capacity to earn the same as him. That’s life. Why should divorce put you in a better position financially than if you had never met him?

Had it not been for OP paying the whole deposit on their home and paying off her H's debts he wouldn't have any equity. Why should divorce put him in a better financial situation than if he had never met OP?

That’s the marriage contract. Doesn’t matter why the marriage ended.

Yea no ofc. Marriage end for many reasons. Just think there are ways to go about things. Not saying she should stay if she is out of love either. Just would make more sense to have solicitors first try to get the inheritance back via the sale of the house rather than his pension being the first thing she goes for.

Why do you comment on that but make no comment on his having stolen her money?

You need proper legal advice, not the knee jerk responses of amateurs on MN.

It may be in your interests to agree/negotiate a larger lump sum from the house sale offset against his pension, as you are the lower earner and I assume need housing now.

All the “clean him out of his pension” posters don’t seem to realise that’s not money you get now. They don’t cash in his pension and hand you a lump sum! It’s a proportion that’s moved from his pension “pot” into yours.

I'm not sure why you assumed that... I think the vast majority of people who have mentioned the pension appear extremely knowledgeable.

But everything goes into one pot. Equity, savings, pensions, cars etc. It's not that it's the first thing she is going for, you don't treat them as separate things. It's one pot of marital assets, pensions (hers too) being one of them. Sounds like he has been pretty shit with money, so there might not be as much as people on here thinks in his pension pot. Her inheritances are marital assets now because she put them into a shared property and into a shared account so it makes no sense in trying to claw that back now through solicitors and spend thousands in the process.

But that's the law... both of their pensions accrued during the marriage are marital assets. It's not her "going for the pension". It's her legal entitlement and a judge won't sign off on the divorce if the wealth is not fairly distributed.

I wouldn’t say the vast majority! Some, maybe.

And pension sharing also means just that - hers will be taken into account too.

Thats why divorcing couples, even without children, need a robust clean break agreement.

Exactly. Legally this is correct from what I recall as a legal sec when we did divorce matrimonial. They’d often explain parts of the law to me… the only ones I didn’t like were adults with adult kids or adults with children stupidly fighting, which happened a lot. One man I swear he spent more time whinging about his ex wife to my boss, but it was his money to do this!

Agree with robust clean break agreement. Especially in this case. Just to thrash things out. Otherwise it should be a fairly straightforward divorce.

@LadyVioletBridgerton He would have no option but to declare his pension when solicitors are sorting this out. The financial arrangement covers all marital assets and this is one.