Are my SIL's divorce expectations unrealistic?

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In short, my brother and SIL intend to divorce but she wishes to continue being a SAHM. Their children are 19 (away at uni), 14 and 13.

They separated 4 years ago and were cohabiting until SIL started dating a new man. My brother has quite a well paid job and managed to buy a 4 bed flat in the nearby city. It needed a lot of work but is finished now. He WFH a fair bit so has the kids there when needed. He does at times have to travel overseas for work.

My brother has also recently started seeing someone new. So, brother and SIL have started to discuss selling their marital home (SIL is still living there with the children).

SIL has been a SAHM since the children were born and this had been the source of a lot of friction in the marriage as the children got older. My brother had no problem with SIL not being in paid work, but she is a big spender. I have been at their house many times when numerous boxes of stuff arrived from Amazon. My brother eventually set a budget that SIL was not delighted about. She also has some debt of her own, my brother has paid some of it off.

SIL went back to work 3.5 days a week when they separated. This job suits her perfectly and she can sometimes work from home. However, a few weeks ago she started talking about 'burn out' and has now resigned from the job. She has no intention of finding a new job but is saying that she wants to sell the house, that her share should be 70% because she has the children living with her, and needs to buy a 4 bed house in the town we live in (which is expensive). She wants a sum of money to put into a savings account and she wants her new mortgage to be paid by my brother.

They are amicable (at the moment). My brother told me last night that she is now asking him to go to financial mediation because she thinks he is hiding funds. He has told me that he isn't, and has 2 savings accounts and his pension - which she knows about.

AIBU to feel that I've never really heard anything like this? When my exH and I separated, I immediately upped my hours at work to full time and my children were also teens.

They were both happy for her to be at home.
But how did it in reality help her husband and his job ? Seriously. He could afford childcare. So I don’t see how having her at home impacted at all.
She just didn’t want to or need to.

Burn out from being a florist. I am sorry but really.
If you had said firefighter, or working in a prison or something I could understand it. But flowers.

I’m playing devil’s advocate - purely because we don’t know the details of their marriage.

But what you often find is the successful DH who often travels with work is very happy that the wife gives up work when the kids are younger. He focuses on his job and the kids and home are looked after. Then they get a bit older (but still at school). And suddenly the wife needs to get a full time (yet flexible around school hours and holidays), well paid job but still do all the school drop offs and pick ups and juggle the holidays and cover everything at home (especially if he’s travelling). And this becomes a source of contention.

It’s never as straight forward as it seems. We don’t know the dynamics of their marriage.

She’s been working 3.5 days a week since the youngest was 9. I don’t get your obsession with her being a SAHM in the past, she hasn’t been a sahm for 4 years and yet you have mentioned it so many times.
Why is it your business that she’s burned out from her job? So what if she wants to take a break for a while?

I’m surprised your DH was able to purchase a 4 bedroom house with joint funds before the finances have been split.

All this agro because a woman wants financial mediation is quite sad really.

She has also brought up three
kids. So the going back to work would have needed to cover three lots of childcare and school pick ups.

It really wasn't the case. SIL has a lot of friends and family locally who would always help out with school runs etc. when my brother was working overseas - and even when he was just at the office.

She has been a SAHM until she got this job when they separated (about 18 months or so ago).

The youngest 2 walk to and from school by themselves.

You can’t see how a mother being at home with three young children would benefit the father’s career or their family?

If he is so successful at his job , I am sure he is intelligent enough to seek out good financial advice and divorce lawyer . You don't need to voice any opinions or ideas at all . Your nieces and nephews will now have divided loyalties so be careful about making any negative comment about or to their mother .
BTW There is not just one marital home involved, there are two . He bought that house while still married .

He WFH a fair bit so has the kids there when needed.l
So, brother and SIL have started to discuss selling their marital home (SIL is still living there with the children).

It also doesn’t sound like he has a proper regular custody agreement. How many days per week does he care for his children, fully?

Of the marital home, not of all assets. Whilst he holds onto a newly renovated 4 bedroom property.

The youngest 2 are with him now usually all weekend, every weekend. Eldest stays with him now more often than his mum's when home from uni.

This is exactly why mediation got invented.

I agree that her % of the assets should be more as the children live with her and therefore she’ll need a big enough place to house them. I also think that he will be required to pay maintenance (spousal and child) given that she hasn’t worked for the majority of the marriage, so his earning potential for the future will be higher. However nowadays judges prefer to taper spousal maintenance, either by ages of children or for a specific period of time so that she can find employment. I think it would be very unusual for things to be split 50/50.

Usually or every weekend because that’s two different things?
Does he have them from Friday after school until Sunday night?
Or Saturday and Saturday night?

This is all relevant when discussing their financial split and you’ve really glossed over it.

How involved he was at evenings and weekends is irrelevant to your original query. The point in law will be about how much financial sacrifice SIL made as a SAHM, which enabled him to work as hard as he wanted without incurring childcare costs. It's the working hours that are relevant here.

From what you've said it seems you and BIL view her as work shy and lazy. Be warned, courts may see it differently: she sacrificed her own career to enable him to have a high powered, well paid career. He may not like or agree with that narrative but if that was the case he could have ended the marriage many years ago. It does sound a bit like he enjoyed the benefits of her caring for the children when they were young but now doesn't want the consequences of that further down the line.

This is what I mean by biased. Having them at weekends isn't having them 50/50.

I mean she should get enough proceeds from the house so she can afford to house her self and 2 youngest, especially as your DB has already gotten himself a flat. It might have to be the next town over if your town is too expensive.

Tell me how. Given he could afford childcare. Plenty of people work with young children who can afford childcare.

Exactly this and this is what I was trying to point out.

If she was a florist before marriage, I'm not sure she gave up her career to help his. It's a career you can drop back into easily, it sounds like she just found it a struggle to go back to work after being out of work for so long and a SAHM. Guess what, working for a living is hard and there is an element of "suck it up".

If I were a judge, I would expect her to be working. She should probably get a slightly higher percentage of assets, depending on whether he paid her pension contribution whilst she was at SAHM etc. (my friends who have quit work have all insisted on this as a protective measure).

Maybe, I don’t think so but to be fair it’s not that clear. She wants 70% of the house, so she can buy a house (he has a flat), she wants a sum of money to go in the bank account and for him to pay the mortgage on her house and also thinks he’s hiding money. Sounds like she’s after more than 50% of total to me.

These OP posts always make me sad. They are divorcing which is hard enough with kids without family stirring things up. OP keep out of it. As family you will only hear one side of the “truth”

Her earning potential is fuck all compared to him. If she has a SHL she will go for his pension too and enough to keep her in the manner to which she had to be accustomed by supporting his kids at the detriment of her career.

I would stay well out of it. No one really knows what goes on in marriage apart from the two people in it. Who knows what give and take there has been, what effort they have put in and what they have been up to financially, sexually and emotionally over the years.

She will probably get 70% of all the finances and a hefty chunk of his pension.
She has burned out working as a part time florist.
Without all the details it is hard to comment further.
But he knows she is a spender and a habit she will find hard to stop.
From her share of the proceeds she wants to buy a four bed house in a very nice area. And not work.
I expect she will get what she wishes.