Financial settlement - panicking

[CucumberMelon]

Hi, this is going to be long so apologies for that.

My husband has left me within the last month after a period of mental abuse/cheating. Last year, he also revealed to me that he had been hiding £15K of credit card debt from me which we paid off with some extra borrowing on a remortgage (he has since taken a loan out and paid me that back, which is odd behaviour) I also found out that the job he was made redundant from last year - he was actually sacked for bullying two female colleagues. Apparently he had multiple warnings before they eventually sacked him. His new workplace are unaware of this which I find terrifying but this all outlines what type of character he turned out to be.

We were married for 2.5 years but living together for 5 years in total.

I paid all of the deposit on the marital home from a settlement from my first divorce. In the same settlement I was also awarded a share of my ex husband's pension - the pot now stands at around £300K. This has grown due to passively over the last five years and I don't contribute anything towards it.

My STBXH has nothing. No assets or anything. He is feckless with money and has debts.

I have spoken to a solicitor who gave me a really grim view of what he could take from me and I am spiralling. He is a higher earner than me (I earn £26K and he earns around £39K) and could get a new property with a smaller share of the equity from this house than I could with a smaller share. My proposal would be that I keep the deposit and offer him the equity accrued in the marriage and then a larger chunk of my pension. My immediate concern is being able to afford somewhere to live.

The equity in the house is around £130,000 (£111,000 of that is my deposit) so I would like to offer him £29,000 and possibly up to £100,000 of my pension.

I should also say that he doesn't have the means to fight me in court. I don't really have any means to fight him either but I could lay my hands on funds if absolutely necessary.

If I made him this kind of offer and accepted, what is the likelihood that the court would agree it?

I am very battered and anxious so empathy would be hugely appreciated. Thank you.

Thanks again everyone for all of your advice.

I have prepared (way in advance, I know) a rationale to present to support my hypothetical offer.

This proposed financial settlement reflects the circumstances of a 2.5-year (5 if cohabitating prior to the marriage is to be counted) childless marriage where assets and pension provisions were contributed unequally and developed separately. My husband made contributions to monthly mortgage payments from March 2023 - June 2025. His contributions to the £750 PCM mortgage reduced to £240 when he left the marital home, which I am struggling to cover.

I contributed £111,000 as the full deposit on the family home. This was from my pre-marital resources.

I hold a pension currently valued at approximately £300,000. This pension was awarded to me as part of a previous divorce settlement to reflect that I had missed out on my own pension contributions to raise my child, and I have made* no further contributions *during this marriage. Its growth has been purely passive (market-based) and not due to joint/solo effort.

My income is currently £25,000, whereas my husband earns £35,000, and he is more skilled in his field with a stronger long-term earning capacity. My own role would be considered to be held within a niche market and opportunities in similar roles at higher pay are rare.

My husband has a minimal pension and approximately 23+ years of working life remaining in which to build his own retirement provision.

To support a clean break and avoid unnecessary legal proceedings, I am proposing the following:
A lump sum of £29,000 from the equity of the home, and
A pension sharing order of £50,000, representing approximately 16–17% of my pension value.

This reflects:
Recognition of my husband’s need for housing and retirement support. £29,000 would be a generous deposit in most circumstances and will allow him to acquire a mortgage on a suitable property and would even reduce the amount he needs to borrow on a suitable property for a single person.

Recognition that my husband has a minimal pension - the amount offered in relation to the pension would be a generous amount for him to build on over the next 23+ years.

He has a stable job, higher earning potential and should be able to contribute to the private pension that I will be effectively setting up for him.

A willingness to make a fair offer that accounts for both our positions, and
The fact that the main assets were either brought into the marriage by me or are non-matrimonial in nature in the case of the majority of my pension.

Due to my lower earnings, I would need a larger share of the equity to place a deposit down on a property that will not see a drastic drop in living standards for my son and I.

I am making a good faith offer that will not see him in financial hardship.

I am the lower earner and I am still mindful that I cannot see him leave the marriage empty-handed.

I have a minimal workplace pension and I have been treating the pension awarded to me from my previous marriage to be my retirement fund. It has been difficult for me to contribute more especially in recent years due to rising living costs and since my husband abruptly left the marital home, I have had to cease contributing to make ends meet with utility bills.

Does this seem reasonable?

Thank you for this. I've been mulling it over all weekend and I don't feel able to come up with a firm action plan as yet.

My anxiety has been through the roof over the weekend and I can't stop catastrophising. I also have ADHD so processing legal stuff, for me, is very difficult and it's eating me up.

Wow I would be offering fuck all from my house and pension.

Personally I think that is a very generous offer to someone to get paid that just for putting a ring on your finger 2.5 years ago.

People are often greedy.
so i wouldn't offer all of that all at once.

Perhaps you could offer the £29000 first. ?

I agree but as others have said on here, we lived together before marriage so that will be taken into account as well as the fact that a judge just wouldn't agree to him only getting £29K.

I'd rather err on the side of being generous and get it over the line than spend money neither of us has pursuing a settlement. It will stick in my throat but he has made me so mentally unwell that I just feel defeated before it's started.

I too think this is way too generous for a starting offer. As you said, you really only started living together properly in 2022, you can definitely make a case that it is a 3 year long relationship, not 5, as prior to that you were just dating.

You have to remember that solicitors get paid on the basis that there’s a fight.
No fight no money for them so you need to make your mind up. What do you want to do? Give the money to your ex or give the money to the Solicitor

Preferably neither but as I have said, I don't want this dragged out.

Sorry you have had alot of anxiety re this at the weekend. Negotiating a financial settlement after a divorce is naturally a very stressful time but you will get through this. Is there self care like meditations or exercise for example you can do to help with the anxiety?

It sounds like you have done alot of thinking about what is fair and worked things out re what you are comfortable with.

You don't know what the judge will decide. You are aware you don't actually have to turn up in court for all of this? It's part of the admin of a divorce. I don't agree with the statement that all solicitors are out to ramp up your bills. Mine would only contact me if it was something I specifically needed to attend to. Otherwise she kept bills down by not phoning or e mailing about every little thing.

Have you actually filed for divorce yet?

No I haven't. I know I am getting ahead of myself here but I need to get a grip on what might happen to try and minimise my anxiety.

From googling it seems to say for shortish marriages asets accrued during the marriage should be split. The pension and deposit were brought into the marriage. I think you need a second opinion.

Thats not an option though is it

You need to file and separate asap. The financial settlement is going to take some time, it usually does, but you need to get started as you are right on the cusp of the short-long marriage thing. Waiting could have a huge negative impact on you,

You need to focus on the length of relationship being that which can be traced. So 2022 is 3 years not 5.

Your pension pot is huge relative to your earnings. This was obviously judged as fair in your previous divorce and should have no bearing on this divorce.

The faster you start this process, the faster it will be over.

Get a better solicitor, particularly one who will argue that it’s a short marriage and your previous marriage assets are irrelevant

If you get the ball rolling then the clock starts and as it moves on you may be reassured as opposed to just dramatising and overthinking. You may find that you feel better once in action.

If he agrees to it then a judge bounces it back, it's not the worst thing in the world.

It happened to us - my solicitor just gave some more info and sent it back then it did get signed off.

It is less likely to get signed off if he agrees to jt without seeking some independent legal advice though, so I would have thought the more immediate question is whether if he did seek legal advice they would advise him to accept your offer.

Don't go in too high!

It sounds like you're very fearful of "the judge not signing it off" but honestly in my experience that's not something to fear and you can provide more info and re-present it or adjust slightly.

And absolutely file immediately!
You can't do anything else like submit the consent order for 6 months anyway

This. You need a better solicitor. Offer nothing. Clean break and nothing.
He saved money by not paying rent etc and therefore built up his assets.

Go hard.

Solicitors will tell you the worst case scenario and prepare you for the worst so the deal they get you seem better. You have the assets and the child - at the most I would offer 1/2 of the equity increase in the house but only if he paid at least half of all bills and mortgage and half of all repairs and I mean at least half!!

We were married for 2.5 years

No kids and 2.5 years?

I'd propose everyone resets to respective positions held upon entering the marriage and you are willing split the debt (ie take on 7.5k) he acquired as a kindness amd to draw a line under it promptly.

No fucking waaaay would I be handing over £100k+ neither would you felt you'd earned it. (You def see it as your exHs money which you happen to have and its a pension so its notional... hence its so easy come easy go to you)

Also please let this be a lesson to protect your assets and not to rush into marriage next time...

This also you can say we separate and agree to divorce in June 2025. Every month and every minute you delay he can get more.

if you were married for 5 years but separated or lived apart for the last 2 years you say that. They will be looking to put both parties back in the position before marriage.

Hang on a minute. I disagree with most of this.

That pension is mine - I earned that by proxy in raising the child I shared with my first ex-husband. I certainly don't think it's easy to give away and it will absolutely stick in my throat to give him any but I need to be realistic here.

I didn't rush into marriage either. We had been in a relationship for four years when we did get married.

There is no way to protect assets in marriage. It all gets divvied up and if it was that easy to protect, I wouldn't have got a pay out when my first marriage ended.

I do agree with the rest of what you said though.

Is there any documented evidence that you were in a relationship prior to being married?
If not, I would be just focusing on the 2 1/2 years of actual proven time together and split whatever was acquired in that period. Nothing outside of it

There's proof that he lived with me in my house for 2 years prior to us buying the current house together in 2022, but as I said, he wasn't contributing to the mortgage - just sending me money to cover food/electric etc. A few hundred quid a month if that.