Divorce judgment unfair on high earning women who give it up for kids?

[tapenade70]

Interested in others' views on whether the judgment is fair on women who were high earners pre kids and give it up to allow OH to be a high earner? I was a high earning lawyer on six figure salary on the brink of earning several hundred thousand a year as a partner in a law firm. (OH is a partner already earning silly money). OH and i agreed to have a baby. No time to wait till i was a partner before doing that as i was 36. Got pregnant and had our baby and now SAHM. There is agreement between OH and i that we wanted our baby to at least have a mum at home part time if not full time certainly when young as long as i wanted to and that we didnt want the baby to never see either of us. So i am the one making that career sacrifice while OH earns a seven figure salary which he would never be able to do being at home with a baby at all. If we get divorced potentially i have allowed OH to accrue his fortune by my agreement to stay at home and foregone my own chance at that career. It is not at all likely i can get back to my previous position in a few years because that kind of job demands working till midnight (unless OH retires and we swap roles) plus i have now lost all my clients (ie sales contacts which earn you the money). So shouldnt an ex wife in that position be entitled to a monthly payment from the amount she has helped her OH accrue? All those years staying at home to allow family life OH wants with no pension no savings and loss of career opportunity? I do see the other 'get a job' side of the coin especially when kids are older but where both parents are agreed on the wife's career sacrifice, the judgment seems a bit unfair...

I think that in circumstances that you have outlined, I would expect the ex-wife to get a substantial payout/spousal maintenance but at the same time the decision to stay at home was a lifestyle choice and it wasn't due to the fact that paying for nursery wouldn't be financially viable. So, I would therefore expect the ex-wife to go back to work, knowing that childcare payments really arent an issue.

I personally, if I could avoid it wouldn't put myself in that position. I am 40 weeks pregnant and about to give birth hopefully at any time. I am taking a year of maternity leave and then going back to work. I really don't think that putting a 1yr old in nursery is going to have an adverse effect on my child. I think for lifestyle choice SAHM it is because the mother/father wants to, not necessarily because putting your child in childcare is detrimental to their development.

I love my DH deeply and we have an excellent relationship and I can envisage my life without him but divorce these days is pretty common and knowing that I wouldn't want to put myself in a vulnerable financial position. Plus I want to have a career. I am not the sort of person who could spend the next 4-5 years with toddlers and babies every day......if I wanted that I would have become a child minder/nursery worker!

But my DH doesn't earn 7 figures....maybe if we were that rich I would have a different outlook? Without my salary we would need to have less holidays, wouldn't be able to get as much in a mortgage, wouldn't be able to spend £50 on sunday lunch at the nice restaurants etc We need both salaries for the lifestyle we want/have and to hopefully put our kids into private education.

I am rambling a bit now...but being 40 weeks pregnant I don't have much else going on! :)

*can't envisage

Have a look at the macfarlane case which is more similar to your facts than the recent one.

I think women whose husbands don't earn high salaries and who stay at home and then end up divorced are actually in a worse position....there isnt enough money for the husband to give spousal maintenance but probably the mother is SAH because her salary wouldn't cover the nursery fees.....

Why didn't you hire a Nanny and go back to work so that you're not in this position? It sounds as if you joint salary would have easily covered this cost.

I really don't get the 'I helped him earn that salary'. What did he do to help you earn yours? Or maintain yours?

Life throws many variables at you, some of which you choose, some of which are just random.

There was never any guarantee that you eould have had a particular income level at a particular point (or that your DH's earnings would inevitably have flourished).

But yes, those who give up careers need to realise that they are forgoing an independent income and possibly altering what is possible in a future career further down the line. It's a bit worrying if people haven't realised this, tbh.

Spousal maintenance does still exist, but it's usually temporary, with the number of years specified, so a SAHP has time to find new a new income. The length of marriage and age of the former spouses may well be an important feature (especially as sharing a pension fairly would all be part of it).

Interesting to get your views. In our case OH is fervently of the view that a woman needs to be at home with a baby or small child and then part time after that to make family life enjoyable...he's v old fashioned in his views. I am not sure what i believe. I certainly dont think women with careers have a less close relationship with their kids. But i think working any more than part time even with a nanny makes family life harder...who goes to school plays? Is responsible for school admin buying uniform? Stays home when child is ill? Covers holidays? Cooks? Bear in mind OH literally comes home after 10pm...you do need a parent home in the evenings in my view and you work evenings if you are in a mega high paid profession..

Also i understand the point that it is a foolish choice to make financially for the woman. But that assumes there are loads of choices...i don't see there are...you find the person you love and you make sacrifices and compromises (especially later in life)..

Spousal maintenance is almost always wrong (with the exception of a very small amount of exceptional cases). this is why it is relatively rarely awarded these days.

With hubby earning a seven figure sum and your past earnings you would (correctly) be entitled to an exceptionally large lump sum/ property anyway. To expect him to effectively 'pay you a salary' on top makes you sound like an entitled princess who can't be arsed to return to work.

Take the lump sum and live off it some of it while you rebuild your career. The fact that you have the qualifications and experience to once again earn big money makes you lees deserving of spousal maintenance, not more!

Not to mention that your child maintenance payments (assuming you would be the resident parent) would almost certainly be far more than most peoples actual take home salary.

Unbelievable.

I think you can still get a well paid job which finishes at a decent hour. Not every well paid job means you have to work till 10pm every night.

Watching this with interest. I have stopped working unintentionally - I want to work part time but my old role was a 60+ hours a week job, it wasn't possible to go part time, and it has been much harder than I imagined to find a part time job. Hence I am a sahm for the time being.

In our situation my husband runs his own company and fully acknowledges that he is able to dedicate more time and energy to growing the company knowing that home life is looked after by me. And for us as a family it seems like a good long term financial investment because his earning potential is greater than mine could be. We are incredibly lucky for me to take some time out.

However I personally don't like the position I have found myself in. I have always earned my own money and feel like an important part of me is being lost by not working. I am currently thinking about retraining to do something like counselling which I could do more easily on a flexible basis. I might not ever maximise my earning potential, but if we ever were to split up I could get a smaller property with our current assets divided and some income to support myself and my daughter, particularly with child maintenance.

I don't think life is fair that one partner has to forego their earning potential in order to have some kind of balance. However I personally don't want my child to barely know her parents, I want to be involved in her childhood and so have made the decision to step down for a while. I am concerned that I am quite naively sleepwalking into putting myself into a vulnerable position.

Uncommon i see where you are coming from and yes perhaps if the asset award was adequate then maybe spousal is unnecessary. Like i say..hard to generalise. But 'can't be arsed to work' is so far from the truth. I can honestly say being sahm is much harder than being a city lawyer though unless you've done both you wont believe it and i often think i'd love to work more if not ft..i just also want one parent to be there for the kids. Thanks for your views though..interesting to see the different view points.

However I personally don't want my child to barely know her parents

I find this to be a tad offensive to all those mothers and fathers who have to work and can't afford to be a SAHM/D. If I go back to work after my maternity leave are you really suggesting that my child will barely know me? My mother and father both worked and I know them pretty well!

What about all those Armed Forces families where one parent is deployed for months at a time.....I guess I find it more than a tad offensive. My DH's next deployment will be for 9 months....it is what we signed up for when we joined the military but it will def not stop him knowing his son or his son knowing him and having a great relationship with him.

I agree with you and recognise that you have made a huge sacrifice in terms if your career. I also agree with your DH, that children need one parent at home with them.

Lucky for you, if the worst were to happen you sound more than capable of fighting your corner! Meanwhile you get to be a constant in your child's life and staying at home means that your whole family benefits from the nurturing environment you are providing.

I don't believe that anyone could do a better job of raising our children than me, and more importantly, I want to be the person they turn to as adults. I believe that what I am doing now is in part setting that up.

The transition between being a successful professional woman and a stay at home mum is huge, and one where I have often felt a bit bewildered and lost, but it is definitely best for me and my family.

And not finding it easy and being 'bored' does not negate the fact that if I was a nursery nurse it would be easier . Nursery nurses leave their children and go home, that is entirely different from being a stay at home Mum.

School uniform admin

Those of us who work full time manage to buy school uniform (the wonders of google), the school holidays and sick leave. If you are determined then you find a way - a nsnny would make it a heck of a lot easier.

Interesting that your OH prefers you to be at home. What about your career and development? Unless I have a watertight contract in place to compensate for my lost earnings I would be seriously considering what I needed to do to contine earning and developing my career - the career I had worked bloody hard for and have just as much right to.

One thing I think that women who give up work should make sure of is that they have a private pension which is paid into, otherwise they will not have enough to live on in old age should they be alone. This is easy enough to set up, but people don't realise.

I agree with a pp that it is not women married to mega-high earners who should be worried - they will still get a substantial chunk, although maybe not enough to live on forever enough to buy a house (although maybe not quite as big as the marital home). It is women married to medium earners who need to be more careful as what is enough to support a married couple may not be enough to support two separate households.

My husband will never be a high earner due to the work he does. This means he will be around more for our children though (flexible work and working mainly from home) Luckily I have a professional job with good earning potential so don't need to worry about his salary. I prefer it that way round tbh.

I did not mean to offend and so I am sorry you have taken offence. However the reality I was talking about was having 2 parents working a 60+ hour week which is what dh and I were both doing before dd was born, and which is also what I believe the op's reality is. The fact for us is that my not working now means that dh can spend quality time with dd when he does have time off at the weekend.

My decisions have been made having grown up with a very career focused mother who I barely saw for large chunks. I was left to fend for myself a lot whilst growing up. I don't want that for dd.

The shame of all of this is that the set up of a huge number of organisations does not support healthy family lives - whether by not paying enough wages or offering more creativity in allowing (mostly) women to have both a family life and career. Let alone the absurd cost of childcare which paralyses family finances.

I can fully understand why a couple might not want both parents to spend 60 plus hours WOHM, and why one partner might want to stay at home to give some kind of balance to family life (although I find it interesting that it tends to be the woman - the same woman who was earning big money before giving up her job)

The case that the OP is referring to (iirc) centres around a woman who, despite having older child/ren? at boarding school, felt that her ex-DH should continue paying spousal maintenance indefinitely because she had somehow contributed to his earning ability. I would suggest that anyone who takes themselves out the job market for a significant amount of time should look to invest in retraining asap to protect themselves financially, as well as ensuring that their partner is paying into a private pension for them and that there is money in a pot somewhere - as opposed to looking to the courts for protection against something that they should have organised as a couple.

Hmmm interesting reading as I am facing a similar situation. When I met oh we were earning the same amount, although as I'm a few years younger I was earning more than he was at my age. However once we got married several things happened. We did a career secondment overseas which coincided with me having a baby, so I left my uk job and his salary doubled. Then after a year I came back to a different job on a higher salary than is been on, and he came back to a higher salary than his one 'overseas' then I had another baby, but hadn't been at the new company long enough to have any maternity pay. Then after a years maternity leave we had to move out of London in order to buy a house in time for schools, I kept on my top job, but the commuting with a stressful job and a baby and a toddler was so excruciatingly awful I had to quit after 6 months. At that age they need their mum, and oh was totally oblivious to their neediness. They didn't need him, they needed me, and I had to deal with it all.

I am now working in a professional job locally, but earning less than £100 a week. Oh is now earning over £100k. He is a vindictive and spiteful bully so he will make sure I get as little as possible from him. But he has enjoyed unparalleled career success and two happy and healthy children, while I have had no pension for 5 yrs (although I realise I should have) and no chance of getting a mortgage on my own now we are divorcing.

I'm interested in what he should pay me, as I was out-earning him when we met, I've moved abroad, raised his two children, and now I'm on 1% of what his salary is!!!

Perhaps the solution is a pre-natal agreement ( similar to a pre-nup) entered into before trying to conceive a child with both parties agreeing what will happen financially if the marriage breaks down after one part has potentially reduced their earning potential long-term by the time out or P/T working.

I am also a fan of the concept of a set minimum level child maintenance payment being a cumulative debt so they can't be minimised/avoided by non resident parent messing about with changing jobs not working whilst living with a new partner who does work and being SAHP to the new brood of children, changing jobs regularly to confuse the CSA, not working at all, being self-employed and apparently not earning very much etc etc until the dc are past the age of child maintenance being relevant.

Always foolish to give up a high-paying job. Sets women back to the dark ages. Nothing unfair about it.

Completely agree with the pre-nstal/pre-nup idea. Never rely on something or someone for your future income without ensuring that you have some legal form of insurance in place to guarantee your financial protection.

I sympathise with your position. There is a lot of very defensive posting from some pps. MGFM tbh I would say a person not seeing their child for 9 months is going to have real trouble with his relationship with the kid - and I say that as a forces child myself. The fact that it's unpalatable to you doesn't make it less true.

Anyway the point is, one parent has sacrificed a highly-paid career so the other can earn a 7 figure salary. Without that sacrifice, the high-earner would have to downgrade his job in order to collect from childcare, take days off to look after sick kids etc etc. So that 7 figure salary is only possible because of the OPs sacrifice. On divorce, yes it's reasonable that she's goes back to work, but she's not "princess" for wanting financial recognition of the fact that she'll probably never get back to her previous level of earning, while her DH continues to benefit from the time she invested in his career. There should be complete parity between the spouses: that 7 figure salary belongs to both of them, in my view.

Tbh I see the salary in a similar way to any other investment made during the marriage. So pensions and property would be split fairly, so should the salary of the higher earner if the other spouse has made those earnings possible

Not at all Owl. Nannies are employed for the very purpose of ensuring there is childcare at all times to allow people to continue to earn good salaries. That doesn't mean that the Nanny contributes to the earning ability of that person.