Spousal Maintenance?

[Unknown83]

I've begun discussing a financial settlement with my STBXW and we've come to a sticking point on spousal maintenance. Fairly normal disagreement I guess, she thinks she should get 62% of the assets (around £170k) and spousal maintenance for life whereas I think after the 62/38 split we should have an immediate clean break. I'd be grateful for other people's experiences and what a likely settlement would look like:

Me: Husband, age 40, earn £90k approx
Her: Wife, age 39, SAHM retraining, earning capacity of around £20k and potential to earn more over time (with the right incentive!)
Marriage: 11 years
Assets: Equity £100k, Pensions £150k. Other than mortgage, only outstanding debts on cars with net asset value of around +£24k.
Children: 3 (all boys aged 6, 8 and 12). Split will be 8 nights her and 6 me.

We're generally agreed on an asset split. She'll get £80k equity, her car and loan with net £15k value and £75k pension and I'll get £20k equity, my car worth £9k net and £75k pension.

The sticking point is on spousal maintenance. I'm of the opinion that once she's got her income (around £1,400 net), universal credit (around £500 net) and child maintenance from me (around £750 a month) then the total of £2,650 should be more than enough to live on without "undue hardship." I'd also have to pay her well over £500 a month for spousal maintenance to be worthwhile because universal credit drops £ for £.

I should also explain that to get my good salary I have to spend around £6k a year commuting to London. So after taxes, commuting, continuing to pay for things like private medical insurance for the children and child maintenance my monthly income is only going to be £800 more than hers a month and as she's getting something like £70k more in assets from me and my mortgage interest is going to be a lot higher than hers for years I think that is fair enough. I've worked out it will be at least 9 years before I catch her up and that's assuming she doesn't progress in her career (she did not have a career to compensate prior to children either, she was doing a minimum wage job before the children were born).

Her opinion though is that she shouldn't have to work until DCs are in secondary school, that she should have a higher income than me to be "fair" and that when child maintenance stops I should carry on paying her to make it "fair" because she's had to "stay at home to look after the children and sacrifice her career." My counter argument is that I want the children 6 nights in every 14 including week nights so she can go and get a job like everyone else.

One other thing to add is that I won't see much of the last £15k of my salary already. £6.5k will be tax, £6k will be commuting costs and about £2.25k will be child maintenance so I'll get about £250 of it! Not a lot for the 4 hours of commuting on office days (and I'm not sure where I'll find the time to run a household on my own even though I can WFH for my days with the kids). I've warned my wife that if she pursues the spousal maintenance issue then the logical thing for me to do will be to quit my London job and take something locally where my earning capacity would be closer to £60k per annum and her child maintenance would drop substantially. Presumably a court would consider that a reasonable adjustment so that I can spend more time with the children rather than slaving away to fund a lazy ex who refuses to get a job?

Go through the courts.11 years is considered a short marriage and she's more than capable of finding a job.

@Bananarama21

Go through the courts.11 years is considered a short marriage and she's more than capable of finding a job.

I hope we don't have to but that's what I would plan to do. I think 11 years is a medium marriage which is why I'm quite happy to be generous with the assets we do have in return for a clean break. I'd even agree nominal maintenance as insurance provided it had a section 28 bar on it.

My real concerns are threefold:

1. Wasting my children's inheritance paying her to sit on her bottom and the disincentive to her to get a job;
2. Being stuck paying for her 14 years from now when the child benefit (I forgot to mention I would let her claim this and pay the tax charge so actually the difference between us will be more like £400 a month and it will take me about 15 years to catch up) child maintenance and universal credit runs out;
3. Having less money for my children now just to pay what she could receive in universal credit.

Hopefully I won't have to pay £20k to get there but I'd rather hand this money to a hard working solicitor than pay old lazy arse £12k a year for the next three decades!

My two thoughts are. 1. The pension is surprisingly low on such a good salary, and is it final salary? 2. Spousal maintenance seems to be possibly justified, but rarely for life, maybe just for the next 2 years whilst she's retraining?
But it sounds like you aren't too far apart on the other points, that's a real positive.

She may get spousal for a short interim period my while retaining but she won’t get it for life! She’s in for a shock, and may well find that 60/40 split means no spousal at all. Her children are in school
So she can work
Her age means she has plenty of time to support herself, earn a living and build up her own pension

I don’t think you should pay spousal maintenance at all. Frankly I think if both parents share childcare at 50/50 (which you are almost doing) you shouldn’t have to pay child maintenance either. You are not responsible for each other financially - you are both independent adults who should be able to provide for yourselves and your half of child costs. If one parent has been obviously disadvantaged by childcare in the early years in terms of career progression and earning potential then this should be compensated, for which it sounds like you are doing via the equity split.

Basically she thinks she can sit at home whilst you pay for her. Definitely not on. The kids are at school and she should be at work like the vast majority of parents!

I'm in very similar circumstances, I'm getting 60% of assets and it's a clean break for 20 years marriage. I don't get compulsory child support as over 18 but he does give me £560 a month for the kids allowances and the dogs insurance, plus he does pay university costs directly.

@Strongerthanyouthink

My two thoughts are. 1. The pension is surprisingly low on such a good salary, and is it final salary? 2. Spousal maintenance seems to be possibly justified, but rarely for life, maybe just for the next 2 years whilst she's retraining? But it sounds like you aren't too far apart on the other points, that's a real positive.

Her retraining finishes in 6 months and the divorce is likely to take at least a year to process so I don't see any need for spousal maintenance, there's plenty of time for her to find a job. My opinion is if she won't get a job then she won't need a car so she can sell that and live off the £15k.

As for the pension, yes, unfortunately it's quite low for four reasons:

1. The market has taken an absolute pounding this month. At one point three months ago it was £190k. I'm still only 40 so it's invested in volatile investments (it might rebound before we split but regardless of what it does she'll get half);

2. I only started saving a pension 9 years ago;

3. My salary has increased by about £20k in the past 6 months but only because I've taken a London job. Three years ago I was only earning £55k;

4. My wife wastes a lot of money on rubbish (think Sky TV, piles of Pound Shop toys that break the same day, coffees out more than one a day etc etc) which has limited what I can pay in each month.

@SundaysinKernow

I don’t think you should pay spousal maintenance at all. Frankly I think if both parents share childcare at 50/50 (which you are almost doing) you shouldn’t have to pay child maintenance either. You are not responsible for each other financially - you are both independent adults who should be able to provide for yourselves and your half of child costs. If one parent has been obviously disadvantaged by childcare in the early years in terms of career progression and earning potential then this should be compensated, for which it sounds like you are doing via the equity split.

Basically she thinks she can sit at home whilst you pay for her. Definitely not on. The kids are at school and she should be at work like the vast majority of parents!

If I didn't pay child maintenance then my kids would spend 8 days in every 14 cold and hungry because of her abject laziness so it's one battle I don't see a benefit in fighting.

I think it would be hard for her to make a case for compensation. In our 20s she did nothing to build a career and was still on minimum wage when DC1 came along. Being married to me has actually increased her earning capacity because I've supported her to train full time for the last three years, doing a lot of the childcare on top of my day job since before the pandemic. If she goes into the field she trained for there is no reason why she couldn't be on £40k by the time our youngest is at secondary school.

Is there a reason why you can't do the kids 50:50?

If she's desperate for spousal maintenance then you could say 50:50 on assets. Then the £60k you were prepared to hand her spreads across the 12 years till the youngest is 18? As that's just over £400 a month obviously she won't be any better off...

With her £80k equity and say £70k mortgage would she be able to reasonably house the 3 boys in the area they currently go to school in?

Whilst I can see your calculations and actually think you are being very fair- the above question is what I would look at given she is resident parent (as higher time split).

Spousal maintenance would likely be dismissed in court, 1. £90k isn't really a high earner to qualify 2. If the child residence is almost 50/50 then why as there would be minimal maintenance owed from you.

@bg21

spousal payments should not be a thing , you are divorcing therfore your only responsibility is for your kids not your ex wife, women who go for spousal payments are just money grabbing lazy beeches quite frankly

Actually I disagree with you. If my wife and I were both in our early 60s and our children were grown up I wouldn't see an issue in a divorce settlement of 50% of the assets, 50% of the pensions and spousal maintenance of 50% of my net earnings until retirement.

My issue is that we've both got nearly 30 years of working life left and she should do her fair share of it. I also feel entitled to a bigger slice of the earning capacity I built up because I did 90% of it (the degrees, the professional qualifications, the long hours) before the children were even born whilst she sat on her backside watching trashy television and playing on her phone. With £170k, she'll come out far better from the marriage than if she had gone it alone.

@gogohm

I'm in very similar circumstances, I'm getting 60% of assets and it's a clean break for 20 years marriage. I don't get compulsory child support as over 18 but he does give me £560 a month for the kids allowances and the dogs insurance, plus he does pay university costs directly.

The difference in your case is probably that this arrangement is not wiping out universal credit claims?

Go for a clean break order, everytime

My partners solicitor told him that if he paid SM and he got married, earned more, had an inheritance, the ex would be able to claim more money per month.

He paid a bit more up front and then had a clean break

You sound horrible to be honest, the way you are speaking about the mother of your children.
If she gets a full time job are you going to share all the school holidays and all their days off for sickness?

I was in a similar situation but ex-H salary was slightly higher, my children are younger and I have them more often.

We split 50/50 with a clear break.

Antiqueanniesmagiclanternshow I disagree he just said he wanted to provide a decent amount of maintenance for his children so they aren't cold and fully fed. He begrudgingly doesn't want to support an ex wife for the reminder of his life when she can get a job and get a decent amount from the martial assets and rightly so.

@LittleOwl153

Is there a reason why you can't do the kids 50:50?

If she's desperate for spousal maintenance then you could say 50:50 on assets. Then the £60k you were prepared to hand her spreads across the 12 years till the youngest is 18? As that's just over £400 a month obviously she won't be any better off...

With her £80k equity and say £70k mortgage would she be able to reasonably house the 3 boys in the area they currently go to school in?

Whilst I can see your calculations and actually think you are being very fair- the above question is what I would look at given she is resident parent (as higher time split).

50/50 could be doable for me but the problem is that I could only do it by reducing my hours. I'd be fine with the reduction in income and the extra free time but for her it would mean a drop in her child maintenance. On a 50/50 split of childcare and assets, she would have nowhere near the mortgage capacity needed for a 3 bedroom house and we'd be stuck in Mesher Order territory (although I'm not sure how the courts would manage that one if I needed a house for the kids too on a 50/50 split).

One of the outcomes I'm keen to avoid is an unfair Mesher Order where she gets to live in the house for 14 years whilst I have to pay part of the mortgage and be on call to stump up repairs in return for less than half the equity at the end (and the constant threat of losing the equity later, see Critchell vs Critchell which was a horrible outcome).

Similar ish situation for me, but I have the children most of the time. We went 50/50 assets but I di get fairly high SM until my youngest is 14. It was based on needs for the children with me paying for everything for the children - activities etc (lots), simply because I organise it. Ex preferred to just give me high SM to cover everything, rather than have me saying every 2 minutes - dd needs new ballet shoes, please transfer £x for your half. He couldn't be arsed with that.

" old lazy arse"

"Sat on her arse"

"Abject laziness"

Wowsers. Presumably she must have some redeeming features, as you married her, had 3 kids with her and are happy for your kids to live there half the time?

@Antiqueanniesmagiclanternshow

You sound horrible to be honest, the way you are speaking about the mother of your children. If she gets a full time job are you going to share all the school holidays and all their days off for sickness?

Yes, shared holidays and I work from home a lot so I'll be on call for sickness etc more than her.

You say I'm horrible but just for added context we're talking about a 39 year old woman who has spent the last three years cheating on me with multiple partners who now believes that they are entitled to a meal ticket for life not because they gave up a career or even because they did more of the childcare - because neither of these things are true - but simply because she chose not to have a career before children and now is trying to choose not to work.

Would you like someone like that taking nearly half your income for the rest of your working life and retiring richer than you?

I would offer her a sliding scale of some amount for year one and less for year two.

Yes she needs to get a job but she is going to have a very noticeable drop in standard of living.

Also ensure you take on the mental load of childcare, DC activities, holiday club sourcing and booking, health and dental appointments and be prepared to do 50% of their sick days and school shit days.

She may not need a car but do you not think she might need one to ferry the kids around. I would say spousal up until the year her retraining ends.

@Hb12

" old lazy arse"

"Sat on her arse"

"Abject laziness"

Wowsers. Presumably she must have some redeeming features, as you married her, had 3 kids with her and are happy for your kids to live there half the time?

This

@arethereanyleftatall

Similar ish situation for me, but I have the children most of the time. We went 50/50 assets but I di get fairly high SM until my youngest is 14. It was based on needs for the children with me paying for everything for the children - activities etc (lots), simply because I organise it. Ex preferred to just give me high SM to cover everything, rather than have me saying every 2 minutes - dd needs new ballet shoes, please transfer £x for your half. He couldn't be arsed with that.

That's fair enough.

In my case, I would rather pay the full cost of whatever they need and be the one to take them shopping so that they know who pays for everything!