Financial Settlement - Reasonable?

[Bub1765]

I went into my divorce thinking I was being quite reasonable with my offer for settlement but 6 months on I seem to be getting nowhere. I've had legal advice and got the impression that I'm being reasonable, in line with a court outcome but not excessively generous but my STBXW seems to be expecting a lot more and ongoing financial ties for a long time. I would be most grateful if those who have settled or been subject to a final hearing think this is within the right ball park:

H: 41, earning £102k gross per annum. Net income per month of £3,635 after commuting costs, child maintenance and taking sole responsibility for shared debts.

W: 39, earning £14k part time. Net income per month of £3,183 when benefits and child maintenance added to total. Universal credit element is £671 of this. Was retraining to earn more and recently graduated, has now chosen not to pursue this during divorce.

Children: 3 (ages 12, 9 and 7)

Assets: House £110k equity (£385k minus mortgage and cost of sales); Pensions £190k, Cars around £10k.

Liabilities ex mortgage: Debt of around £8k.

Proposal:

Children: 4 nights with me per fortnight, 10 nights with her. 50/50 split in school holidays. This part has been agreed and is not contentious although I am more than willing to do more to enable her career (but this balance would pay her a decent amount of child maintenance).

Assets: 90% equity to her, 10% to me. I will agree to stay on mortgage for 4 years when youngest is at secondary school, at which point she must either remove me from the mortgage and pay my 10% or sell. Pensions 70/30 split in my favour. Each keep own cars.

Income: Clean break on income. Child maintenance paid.

For context, my STBXW is earning beneath her earning capacity and is unwilling to do anything about it. Childcare would largely be covered by additional UC and I would happily pay the rest but I am much less willing to pay this amount without a clear goal of improving her earning capacity and ceasing to be dependent. I would estimate - conservatively - that her immediate earning capacity is £25k and this could rise to £40k. It could go rather higher with a bit of effort but I won't crystal ball gaze.

Points of contention are that:

1. She wants to stay in the house for 14 years when youngest is 21, me remain named on and contribute to the mortgage albeit not 100% and then to sell and split in her favour. I think this is a bad idea because she won't do anything to improve her earnings now and both of us will probably find ourselves with insufficient capital to buy again in our mid-fifties (unless she got the lion's share of the equity at that point, in which case only I would end up unable to buy but obviously I don't think that would be at all fair).

2. She wants spousal maintenance but because she has universal credit of £671 I would have to pay a lot to make any difference to her income, to the point that I would have a materially lower income than she does. I don't think this is fair on our children either as it would leave me barely able to cover my own costs and much less able to provide for them on an ad hoc basis. My counter position is that I could agree to cover certain expenses (e.g. hobbies, uniforms, school trips) outside of the CMS arrangement.

Would welcome thoughts?

I suspect the OP is going to be appalled at the final settlement.

Do you know what, he probably won't be surprised by the outcome sadly.
My biggest issue with the OP is the fact that he cannot recognise his own behaviour and when someone (a female) disagrees with him, he turns everything into personal derogatory comments.
There was absolutely no need for him to call me 'self centered' as a personal attack and belittling, it didn't add anything to his point other than to purposely cause offence.
It is these kind of digs that make it so obvious on MN when a man is posting and the reason why I wish fewer men posted here. It does however make me want the wife to get a better outcome no matter how unreasonable her demands

The proposal put forward by OP is totally reasonable.

A judge will definitely ask his ex why upping her hours is not an option for her and rightly so.

It will all come down to her response on this and whether she has a reason the judge accepts it not. Most likely not.

Careful what you wish for @Bub1765 I know of a wife who was asked to maximise her earnings, so she did.

Previously he paid spousal of £500 a month, the wife's new position meant her costs were more, partly because she'd had to move to a city for the new job. His spousal award had to increase.

The OP makes me so so grateful for my ex

He was desperate for the impact of divorce to be limited on our children and was so supportive of me remaining part time

and as for the Op saying he would les e the country and his children once youngest 18 to avoid paying disability maintenance…. that would be unfathomable to my ex

I really don’t get the hatred for the OP. He wants to pay a fair amount of CMS, he’s been generous with the asset split, he just doesn’t want to pay spousal support. If this was the other way round, no way would people be saying a woman should have to support her ex husband’s chosen lifestyle in such a way. He’d also be happy to take on a higher percentage of the childcare (which he’s done before whilst she was at university) to facilitate this.

The soon to be ex is only in her 30s and the children aren’t babies or toddlers, why shouldn’t she maximise her earning capacity. She was supported for 6 years by the OP (both financially and within the home) whilst she completed a degree, I’m assuming this was on the understanding that she’d then use her degree to improve/maximise her earning potential for the family. The situation isn’t that she was a stay at home Mum, suddenly being forced to work or be away from her children by her uncaring ex. Just because she’s now decided she no longer wants to work more and utilise her degree, why should he be penalised. The OP has already explained childcare isn’t an issue, or even a cost factor as the soon to be ex can access free childcare through work. He’d also be prepared to do more.

I’m not sure why on earth the menopause got brought into it, the OP hasn’t mentioned that his wife who is in her 30s is even going through the menopause. Whilst possible in her 30s, it's most likely that she’s not and could realistically have another 10 years or so before reaching it.

I really think this post has been completely derailed and isn’t helping the OP who isn’t asking for anything unreasonable.

Not sure where you got that from but it wasn't from me?

Why?

Excuse me, you're the one gendering this conversation, not me. Which is also why it's unsurprising you wish fewer men posted here; you don't like diversity of thought and you don't like your opinions being challenged.

I won't be paying her spousal maintenance so that won't be an issue. In the very unlikely event that she gets awarded any, a change of circumstances that terminates the order will follow pretty soon after. I hate my job, I hate my commute and frankly I'd see an order for SM as a pretty damn good reason to stop doing it.

@Inthedeep I have noticed that most posts started by men get derailed like this but on balance it's still worth the effort to get the sensible comments.

There will always be a contingent on Mumsnet with a deeply ingrained sense of entitlement, a belief that they are always right and attitudes that are troublingly traditionalist to the modern reader, not least the old fashioned belief that work and childcare are incompatible. I probably shouldn't have engaged with them but sometimes they talk such self serving bollocks that it's too tempting not to!

I like the idea of a timed phasing back to full time work as that would also provide continuity for the children and allows them to adjust to what is a major event in their life - could that work for you @Bub1765?

Not if it involved spousal maintenance no. For her to get any tangible benefit from spousal maintenance, I would have to cover her entire UC lost first and pay her so much that her income would end up around 1.5 times bigger than mine. Combined, we will be worse off by £671 with a direct negative impact on the children. Given she isn't transitioning from being a SAHM too, I think it would be an extremely unfair outcome and not one that I would be prepared to "make work."

If I got an outcome like that I'd quit my job so that she couldn't afford the mortgage.

I think it is 30 but term time only. She doesn't need to work term time only, I can easily cover half the holidays. She doesn't need to be part time either.

Can I just check, are you based in England? Reason I’m asking is I think some people may be based in other areas of the UK such as Scotland which may treat divorce and settlements differently to England.

Is that the same emotional blackmail you used against your ex, because I'm guessing a court would not order such a lengthy Mesher Order (18 would be the normal worst case)?

If she got to stay in the house with me on the mortgage it would be absolutely pointless carrying on in my job. I'd be nearly retired by the time I was off the mortgage. The only reason I do my job is to be a homeowner. If she torpedoes that and creates a situation where she was a homeowner and I wasn't, what would be the point in getting up at 6am and working overtime?

It's all very well saying "what about the children" but what's good for the goose is good for the gander. She's the one not doing everything she can to financially support them and me taking a step back at work would merely mirror her awful behaviour.

I would quit my job, take a year out to retrain and career change and do a different job that I actually enjoy.