Please could you share with me the way the marital assets were split (rough %age split) when you divorced and why.
For information, here's why I'm asking...
I'm going to be getting divorced. I'm looking at what the financial outcome might be and being told that all assets should be totted up and then allocated so that each of us gets 50%.
Planning to stay in the marital home as I'll have the kids with me for at least another 4 years. I'll eat my best beanie hat if any of them ever want to stay overnight with him post divorce, but daytime contact will be arranged and facilitated. I will remain the default parent for anything related to the kids (all teens so angsty and expensive times for parents).
Despite having (IMHO) a very good salary, my career plateaued when we had children such that I was always the lower earner thereafter as we needed the flexibility of someone able to work round the kids, sorting childcare, dealing with illnesses and basically anything child/home related and this was a definite obstacle to career advancement, no staying late to finish something, no working too far away from home with long commutes etc (plus H would not have been happy or supportive as his opinion was always that my job was too full-on, I should step down to a lower/part-time role).
I'm of an age now whereby it's patently obvious that in the next 7 or 8 years prior to retirement, I'll never get to where, I reasonably assume, I could have done if I hadn't put career on back-burner for family reasons. Note this was done because H and I wanted the kids to have me more readily available given the very long hours and travelling he did whilst progressing in his career.
It's also become obvious that my parents now need more of my time too which is not compatible with working ridiculous hours to try and climb to the next couple of rungs of the career ladder. I'm no spring chicken, menopause hit me hard, I can't compete with the energy of a 30 year old when I'm old enough to be their mum.
Between now and retirement H has the ability to earn much more than me and I helped him be in that position because I kept everything going at home over the years.
Given that I won't be able to earn as much as he could between now and retirement, would I be unreasonable to hope for a larger share of the assets to compensate so that by retirement we're pretty much even ?
It might seem grabby to be asking but a friend explained it as......
"He'll be leaving the marriage with 50% of the assets plus his earning capacity, you'd be leaving with the other 50% but an earning capacity £20,000 p.a. lower than his and it's not realistic to think you can close that gap between now and retirement."