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?

Plus during your marriage she would have had 3 years of maternity leave. She's taken 3 years out to do a degree. She's enabled your work and family life.

The misogynism of your posts is shining through. I'm not surprised you are divorcing.

I don’t think either spousal maintenance or the ex staying in the house (which would mean op would not be able to buy a property) is reasonable in the circumstances.

if anything, I would try and get a clean break asap. Your ex seems entitled and I would want to cut ties as much as possible. Leaving the house for four years will only store up future problems.

and I’m a woman in Peri menopause who works full time and has two primary age children. Very little assistance from my ex. But it’s fine and I’m building a pension. So none of this is impossible at all.

How is his ex taking 3 years out to do a degree, enabling op? Rather he enabled her by paying the bills and doing the school runs.

I agree @millymollymoomoo i have been a single mum since my youngest was 2. I have earned a six figure salary with no one to “enable me”. My ex was a lower earner and probably did a bit more childcare when we were together but if he hadn’t I would (and did) have worked something out.

I have now taken a bit of an easier going job but I still work full time and earn well. My ex did not sacrifice his career for me- he always earned less and still does. Sounds like that applies to op ex as well.

Another one who agrees that it is perfectly possible for people to progress their careers without a SAH spouse to enable them. I certainly did, despite DH working FT and often having to travel overseas for extended periods etc. I earned more than he did pre-dc and still earn more afterwards, but we have each been able to progress in our chosen fields in line with our respective abilities.

In my experience, if you have done well and established yourself in your career prior to having kids, it's often much easier to work flexibly because you are valuable to your employer and therefore have more leverage to negotiate.

I often see SAHPs on here that seem to vastly overestimate their own contribution to their spouse's career. Career success has far more to do with an individual's strengths, skills, talents and attitudes than it does with presenteeism, being able to stay late at night or not taking the odd day off to look after sick children etc. To be honest, the best staff that I have are always the ones who have active interests and full lives outside of work, whether that includes being a hands-on parent or pursuing other interests... living and breathing work alone tends to make people very stale.

She hasn't. Childcare would have been cheaper when she was at home. Then she wasn't at home and we couldn't afford childcare so my career stopped advancing about 6 years ago. She hasn't done anything else.

A spouse who does everything whilst their other half works weird shifts, that's someone who supports a career. Or who puts up with hours and hours of overtime. Etc.

My STBXW never did anything like that. It's academic because the law says she made an equal contribution regardless. But I don't have to sully my dignity by agreeing with that assumption.

I think the word you're looking for is misogyny. Of course, misogyny by your standards is very different to misogyny by the standards of normal, balanced people. So please understand when I say I couldn't care less what you or any of your other extremist allies on here think 😂

I think those on here calling me a misogynist should wake up and realise the real divide is between spouses with careers and spouses without. There are plenty of women posting here with phenomenal careers who deserve respect. Instead, everything that they are saying is being ignored because they don't support the narrative.

THAT is misogyny.

can you clarify… where are these women being “ignored”?

is it rather not just “disagreed with”

I always feel unsettled by such men on mumsnet that spend hours on it such as @Bub1765
There’s something a bit sinister about them!

Yep i know totally unreasonable of me. But i’m not alone!

Haven't the OP and his ex benefitted each other?

You're not alone @greenbeansrock

I find the tone rather chilling - And not the relaxing kind. 💯 right that his exwife will have been crying with relief and happiness once she no longer had to hear his key in the lock.

I had the same financial circs as the ex wife and was unanimously granted spousal maintenance, both our solicitors and mediators in complete non contested agreement, until my youngest was 14, so I have my fingers crossed for the exwife.

I agree mediation is the best bet. She's being unrealistic in her demand. She won't get spousal and you've already offered a settlement which allows her to remain in the house for a bit longer
The alternative is that you sell the house and you both rent. She can get help with rental ont UC
But either way you need to get in front of someone who can help her see sense

A lot of them are being ignored. Re-read the whole thread.

Insults, lovely. I find you entitled and narcissistic so how about we stop responding to each other?

My wife would have to go to court for that, at considerable expense to her. I'm not an enabler of the pathetic like your ex-husband. Also, my solicitor has already said under no circumstances should I agree to it.

that wasn’t a response to you 😆

^sinister^

an enabler of the pathetic

wow. I had some sympathy for the OP at the start of this thread as he seemed to be seeking a fair settlement but he is really coming across badly in the later posts.

Context is everything. She thinks she's better than everyone else because she relies on her ex rather than the state for her income. If you receive universal credit, she thinks she's better than you too.

That her ex-husband puts up with that haughty attitude is what is enabling. She doesn't need spousal maintenance, she just received it so she can pretend she's better than everyone else. That's what's pathetic.

I had the same financial circs as the ex wife and was unanimously granted spousal maintenance, both our solicitors and mediators in complete non contested agreement, until my youngest was 14, so I have my fingers crossed for the exwife.

@arethereanyleftatall you were supported by your husband for 6 years to obtain a degree, and then refused to get a job which used this degree? And the court said that was fine, your ex husband could continue to support you for the next 10 years do you didn't have to?

If not, not really the same is it?

OP, offer what you think is fair. Let her take you to court if she wants, there's not a massive amount in the pot so it's only her assets she's depleting.

I personally wouldn't offer as much as you are as a first offer. I'd prefer to give 100% of the equity in order to obtain a clean break right now. Otherwise you're just storing up trouble for 4 years time when it comes time to sell. It's likely to cost you more than that £10k in lost opportunity and stress. If she wants to keep the house she'll have to look for a job now in order to take over the mortgage. If she can see the way the wind is blowing, she might do this now out of necessity. If you enable her not to do this over the next 4 years, who knows where you'll be at that point

I love being on a thread and coming back to it after being busy and this is no exception 🤪

@Bub1765 while your solicitor is telling you that you are correct, guess what her solicitor will be telling her?

In court, labouring one particular point with venom which in this case is the one around what she should do or hasn’t done with her career will send you flat on your face.
The court doesn’t give two shits about who enabled who, as far as the courts are concerned, you as a couple decided this. And now, based on your mutual past and present decisions, they need to help you decide the onward path, based on where you are at right now.

What the court DOES care about is what is best for the children. That is why it goes to family court.

Start there. Focus less on being right and more on what solution works for the next 10-15 years until the kids are grown. Will she potentially benefit from that, yes, but if you come to court so stubborn, you may get a nasty surprise.

on your other thread about your ex wife
you say she is is perfectly happy to claim £600 of month UC

She has already been awarded SM?! 🍾

@AndSoFinally

My financial situation was the same as the op and his ex. Me £10k, him £100k. SM was immediately talked about by the mediator. It was presented as if this was absolutely the norm for our situation. I was actually trying to help the op, as he did initially ask for everyone's thoughts. Though later went on to dismiss any that he didn't want to hear.

It is only the op who has used the words 'refused to work'. And, as he has made perfectly clear in the latter half of this thread, his thoughts are ruled by bitterness, so it's unlikely to be how she would word it.

It is entirely possible, that it isn't about 'refusing to work', but rather wanting what is best for their children. Which we don't know anything about, but the op should. Maybe it is, maybe it isn't.

In our divorce, SM was presented as a given from the offset, but if it hadn't have been, both my ex and myself had a mutual goal to keep life as close as possible to their current life for our children, to make the divorce as painless as possible for them, so that would mean me continuing to be a sahp for them. We felt that suddenly having to go to outsourced childcare after having previously having me always, on top of learning about their parents splitting up, wouldn't have been fair. Our children also have two very different sets of needs, which I cba to explain, but which meant that having a sahp was of great value to them. The op I think described this as pathetic (can't quite remember), but anyone who knows us, has described our divorce as 'the perfect divorce', because every decision was made without pettiness, simply with what is best for our children at heart.

@Bub1765 you don't really deserve my time in response, so suffice it to say,when I read your comments, I am laughing at you.