Bitterness over divorce when I earn much more than him

[Tracy49]

Can anyone give advice or help me get over bitterness I feel? Through 25 years of marriage I've done nearly all the household tasks, cared for the children, organised our lives. Husband has just enjoyed the ride. I now earn alot more than him because I've bothered to work up the career ladder, & finally have confidence to divorce. But in settlement it looks like he'll get more than 50% of house, plus thousands in cash, plus a big chunk of my pension! The law which is set up to support stay at home mums or those working part time is certainly not supporting me! Anyone gone through similar experience? Can I show judge how things have been through marriage? Or, how do I 'get over it'!

We were equal when we married, more or less. But then, despite me working part time for 10 years while the children were young I have still managed to go up the career ladder, while he hasn't bothered trying.

I feel your pain - we have no kids but my husband took a very low paying job after 2 years of not working, he thinks I should pay maintenance to him as he enjoys his job and doesn't want to change it, he thinks I should clear all his debts, even though I have my own and thinks I am lying when I tell him there is little or no equity in the house, even though he has copies of the mortgage statements.
If he tells me one more time that I have to pay for everything as I am the higher earner, i may just flip!
He also thinks I have secret savings accounts with £000s and I need to declare it to,his solicitor - if only!
He is currently living in our home (spare room) and refuses to contribute a penny to any of the bills.

Sounds difficult. At least mine worked just as hard as I did full time and did 50/50 at home with children etc. We had no issues over knowing about finances as both were interested in things like pensions, avings etc, always were happy to open each other's posts, had joint accounts and I did both our tax returns so we had total financial knowledge of the other's situations (and it was fairly simple anyway - like most people - a pension each, a house and some savings).

@sofato5miles, I hope you're not implying that Heron's brother did nothing around the house and didn't engage in child care duties after work and at the weekends. Sorry to sound harsh but anything else it BS...

Tracy49, unfortunately it looks like you're in exactly the same situation as my brother when he got divorced. His ex got the lion's share of the settlement and he had to accept it, reluctantly, as it would have cost too much to chase a 50/50 settlement. It was tough at the time but at least after a clean break he can now get on with his life.

Bettybecks, that's a very sensitive response! Are you Heron? No, i was asking Heron a direct question.

The two divorces i know of recently, the man utterly undervalued the SAHM role and career sacrifice ( both genuine), and sees all materials as his, that he bought and to divide as he sees fit.

One thing that i have noticed is the SAHD scenario seems to have the dad doing much less than a SAHM. It's infuriating, especially in OP's divorce situation.

Sorry to hear you're going through this OP. We settled out of court and xh got a great deal - partly because I by the time we actually divorced earned more, and I had been the one who saved and stumped up for the house deposit and saved into a pension while xh simply chose to spend all his money having fun with his mates - and partly because he was sitting pretty in the family home while I paid half the mortgage and I basically had to give him a load of money to get him out. I even had to borrow money to pay him a proportion of my pension accrued during the marriage. It wasn't the fair outcome the law presumably intends at all.

Still, a couple of years on and I can honestly say it was worth it - though I obviously wish I'd never got myself into that position in the first place.

Actually Someone I suspect the law never intends fair outcomes on divorce. Perhaps they make it so difficult to deter people divorcing!. Plenty of men in awful marriages don't divorce until the chidlren are 13+ and can choose to live with their father as old enough to make their own choice because otherwise they will lose the children even if they have a full time working wife. Divorce is very unfair all round on men and women.

What is also not always noticed is that the higher earner (as I am) tends longer term to do better. I am over 10 years on. I had a £1.3m divorce loan to pay out my ex and he had the unmortgaged new detached house and my savings but he is still earning his relatively low full time salary and I will be better off. Even more importantly as he chooses not to see most of the children I am lucky enough to have a lot of lovely children around too so despite the years of financial pain after the divorce it certainly was the right thing to do. I sometimes joke to the older children that I paid £1m (it was just under) to ensure I live in a house without arguments - a high price but worth it.

Don't get married if you are a financially independent woman.

Or a financially independent man.

Or is the system skewed towards 'don't get divorced'?

It's so difficult to value SAHP generally that the law is an incredibly blunt instrument meant to protect the lower earner. The gender salary gap doesn't help either.

It's a very tricky area.

Not sure I am comfortable with the underlying tone of this thread that people in lower paid jobs are lazier, less deserving. May be true in some cases but not necessarily.
I am a teacher and earn a lot less than my DH, who is a designer. Not sure who has the more worthwhile job but if we were to divorce, he would have a much better earning power than me.

My ex husband is a teacher aqnd musician and incredibly hard working. We both have often worked 6 or 7 days a week. I have certainly repeatedly said he is hard working on this thread. I don't think if neither party has sacrified their career and both do as much at home as the other (our situation ) it is fair that after divorce the lower earner is then entitled to the same standard of living as before divorce. I think instead the law should let them continue to earn their own money and move back down to the standard of living they would have had but for the marriage. I am not here writing about people who give up work or who sacrifice a career or damage a career for a famiy but instead the many couples where both work full time and equally except one happens to earn an awful lot more than the other.

I am divorcing after domestic violence, am finding this thread very uncomfortable to read. I was a sahm because my husband thought that was best, and we have a child with special needs.

Heron, I would like to give you the mumsnet - please take this as a sign that you need to do a bit more thinking.

There is very little equity in our very cheap house. If I have to pay anything at all, the children and I will lose our family home.

As I begun this thread, can I point out what I said at the start, that the law is fair in defending the SAHM by giving her more than 50%. This shows the value of her running a house & doing the childcare. I think the same law is unfair, however, in a case like mine when I have gone up the career ladder, earn more, work the same hours as my husband, sometimes longer, but have to do all the house jobs & childcare too. Meanwhile he comes home from a stress-free job, puts on the telly & waits for his tea to be cooked, doesn't bother saving money & doesn't have a pension. Anyway, thanks for all your comments. Happy to hear some of you say in time you can feel financially secure again & have no regrets. Good to hear, cheers all!

Hiw old are the childten now Tracey?

Perhaps isolate your bitterness into areas. Do not be so angry with yourself for running the house, cooking dinners etc while working. You wanted a home and he didn't stand up to the plate. You had your reasons at the time and that cannot be changed.

Ditto your career vs his

Regarding money, go clean break. You were married for 25 years. This is a long time. There is bound to be anger with yourself ( why didn't you leave him earlier etc ). But you are in a better position than him, more capable than him and will go further.

I don't tbhink Tracy is being "bitter" or "angry". She is just pointint out divorce law is an utter ass in how it treats higher earners in marriages where both in the couple work full time. It is unfair. It is utterly unfair. It should be changed. It is unfair and unusual that the lower earner in better off couples often moves the family to London deliberately as they can get 50/50 assets (or more) and spousal support often for 5 years or longer plus child maintenance. We are the divorce capital of the world for lower earners, the most popular place on the planet because our law is so unfair and biased.

We are just taling here about couples where both work full time and neither has made career sacrifice for a family but one happens to earn more and / or have more assets.

It is so unfair I won't marry again and every day I wake up without my husband here is like Christmas for me.

Now that 70% of new graduates are women and women under 30 earn more than men in the UK I think we will see a lot of women preferring just to live together but not marry and that will be useful to protect their assets.

(of course Tracy herself has said she feels "bitter" so I should not suggest she doesn't in my post above ....)

I can empathise with your bitterness.......but i disagree with some of your points.

Through 25 years of marriage I've done nearly all the household tasks, cared for the children, organised our lives. Husband has just enjoyed the ride. ...waits for his tea to be cooked
did somebody hold a gun to your head and force you to 'martyr' yourself? you could have got shot of him a long time ago accept some personal responsibility and forgive yourself for the decisions you made. the bitterness won't go if you hold someone else responsible for the decisions you made.

I completely agree with the OP. Of course 'genuine' sahps need to be protected, but this often results in unfairness for others and it's very hard not to end up bitter.

I am by no means a high earner, but, as a teacher of 10 years earn a decent enough salary. Stbex has no career and never has, though has done various things over the years, some of which have been fairly well-paid. He never sticks at them though and harbours dreams of being a musician (does sometimes earn from this) and writer. He was sahd and, while he did an ok job of it, he also spent time having an affair with a mutual friend, using our bed to sleep with her.

Now he is pretty hard up, has the dc 4 nights a fortnight in his little flat and pays nothing for them other than the food they eat with him - there's very little difference in cost between 1 & 2 bed flats in his area. He didn't see much of them over the summer- which suited me fine.

At mediation, he agreed to no spousal maintenance, no pension share, and 14K out of the house (I can only raise 17K, and there are 'joint' debts which actually result from his actions, though I can't prove that. The mediator was at pains to point out that it may not get signed off by a judge. I will see my solicitor next week and see what she says. I will be pissed off if it doesn't get signed off, and actually want to make a lower offer as my mortgage payments will be pretty high at that amount - and it'll carry on well into my 60s. Ex is pretty much guaranteed a large inheritance from his parents (that's why he's agreed to our settlement) and they help him out a lot anyway. Mine give me nothing.

I think where someone is really wealthy, and will remain so even after paying off an ex, it's one thing. But middle earners like me, who are well off in comparison to ex, but not really so, are very vulnerable. If a judge decides I need to pay him maintenance , or, worse, insists the house be sold (about 40K equity in it, depending what it went for, he could end up with less than 14K anyway) it will result in my children going without some of the 'extras' they now enjoy (days out, music lessons, clubs etc). Don't see how that would be fair when ex does what he likes, could work more but chooses not to, and is bank-rolled by mum. I panic all the time that I haven't really got savings, no uni fund etc yet, while he glides through not giving a toss and accuses me of caring more for my job than the dc .

Same situation here.We have marital home,he as masses of savings but he is self employed and his earnings he has declared means he only pays £100 a month maintainace.no other costs at all.He stopped paying into his pension when we married as he said it wasn't worth it.On the face of it I should get enough to get a mortgage on a small house but I am scuppered by my pension.I have been paying for 37 years,nhs,it will not pay a Hugh amount as pension and I will still have to work to boost it but on paper it looks a lot.So on. 50:50 split my Oh walks away with the marital home(no mortgage),£185000savings(that I know of)His to date pension pot ,part of my final salary and no parental responsibilities.I f I want loads that would be on thing but I have not been able to progress in career as Oh refused to look after dd even when we were married.

It I earned loads,I meant

God I'm so glad I got out relatively early. Lurkers take note!

I am lurking and this terrifies me quite frankly. Apologies in advance for a long post but this has really opened up the floodgates.

I am in a similar position to many of you on here - with the added complication I have just lost my well paid job. Other half is a 'writer' and barely earns. This has annoyed me for years. We never discussed whether I was happy for him to abdicate responsibility for providing for our DC when they were small, he just did it, knowing I had the bills covered. I tried to voice my concern but always got shouted down. He has quite a temper and is controlling and if I ever said we should split up threatened me with losing the children.

I progressed up the career ladder, paying all the bills and even paying for after school and holiday clubs (and a cleaner when I was working really long hours) as he was 'busy' doing his self indulgent, minimal income web based writing.

Over the years I have been threatened with redundancy three or four times and it has finally happened. At no time was he even remotely supportive. I got a settlement and am now freelancing at a fraction of what I used to earn and looking for another job.

Whenever I voice my worries about our situation, as I did last week when I got bad news after an interview and was really upset, I get shouted at by him and told not to take my problems out on him. (I would have thought having no money to support our kids was both our problem but obviously not) Every time I mention work or money he flies into a rage. I got yelled at merely for asking if we could now both look for paid work to double our chances. I

also paid the mortgage off (and his massive credit card debts) when my parents died and although the house is in my name I know that will mean little in a divorce court. If we divorce (which I would have to force through as it would mean then end of his easy - if emotionally dead - life) I will lose half of everything and I have no family.

He is so selfish, he probably wouldn't see that whatever he took from me he would in effect be taking from the DCs university funds and also by punishing me would be reducing their quality of life as I would no longer be able to pay for some of their activities. But we really do not get along.

I truly believe he is only with me for an easy ride as it beats having to pay your own rent. He doesn't even pretend to be affectionate. I have put this to him and he just snaps that I am ridiculous but all evidence says otherwise. I am working from home now and it depresses the hell out of me - as well as the financial problem of losing my job, the emotional fall out is that I can't just turn a blind eye to how awful my marriage is.

It seems so unfair that he CHOSE not to earn and actually wasn't even a SAHD - yes, he picked them up in the evenings and got their dinner when I was out at work (never ever made me food) but it was done with a bad grace, and in the belief it was keeping him away from his important projects. I understand the law protecting SAHMs or dads but he deliberately chose not to earn as I always paid for childcare. I just don't think the law should be the same.

NotagainNellie I am not sure why a court would feel the need to overturn something you both agreed on in mediation? What is the point of mediation if you agree something and then a judge overturns it? That seems very unfair, I hope it goes well for you

OP thanks for starting this thread. It is comforting in a way to know I am not the only one though your stories scare me. I am wondering if it is better to get out now while I don't earn or wait till I get a job so I am not so scared of the future. Actually paralysed with fear. All my friends who were made redundant at the same time had partners who a) earned and so supported them financially and b) were not total selfish tossers so supported them emotionally. I actually feel like throwing myself under a bus (though cocklodger husband would say I was being 'selfish')

I pray neither of my children ever get married after my experiences frankly.

There's some interesting points on here! When I was married I was the lower earner, no children then but ex h tried to convince me that my stake in the house was smaller in spite of me decorating, renovating rooms, landscaping the garden etc whilst he sat on the PlayStation every weekend. All because he was the major breadwinner in our relationship.

He then took a 50% split of the savings after his debts were paid, (not mutual debt, all accrued by him in the last 9 months before we separated), told me I had no claim on his pension or his shares and I walked out with my 50% equity in the house and nothing more than £2k in the bank and a £10k stamp duty bill to look forward to as a divorce present from HMRC.

2 months after we separated he found out I'd changed careers for a walloping pay rise and said he was coming after me for a claim on my future earnings. At that point I told him he could and he'd be laughed out of court.

At the time I felt hugely aggrieved to have been bullied so badly and not gone back for any more money, but to be fair he's now missed out on 5 years of not being able to piss my pay rise up the wall whilst shagging around behind my back. In that time I'm technically £375k up on him in earnings and happier than ever to see the back of him.

The law is a shit but ultimately in the long run you have the opportunity to be happier and wealthier the longer they're gone. Personally I take a lot of pride in knowing that the tables have turned, but I appreciate that in the short term it plays against both genders.

I'd love the privilege of staying at home not working and looking after my DCs only to divorce 15 years later and get the majority of the assets, property and a good portion of the pension. Sounds sweet to me!