Ex changed child schedule. + hired a nanny

[Starbuck80]

I split with my ex of 12 years in February but we are still living together as he is delaying the financial settlement and I’m a stay at home parent with no income so I can’t move out. We have a 20 month old and 5yr old and my ex wants the children 50/50 even though up until a few months ago, it was 80/20 all the time and he travelled abroad extensively with work as well. I agreed to trial a schedule where he has the children three days per week. He unilaterally decided on the days that both children are at school and nursery and one weekend day (which he often asks for help on) and will still expect me to look after the kids if he’s got meetings on those days. Yesterday he told me that he will be changing the days he has them with one of the days being when our 20 month old isn’t in nursery and I usually have him and take him to classes. My ex said that he wouldn’t be able to take him as he needs to work. I’ve been keeping a diary of when he goes into the office - 5 times in the last 4 months and very often he is still in bed at 11am or is sat watching tv. He told me that he has hired a nanny to look after our son and pick our daughter up after school. I was absolutely furious that he didn’t think he had to discuss the change of days and nanny with me. If he had done, I’d have been more than happy for our son to potentially do extra day at nursery. He can’t understand why I’m so upset. Am I overreacting?

At least all this trying will be excellent evidence in court that it is not reasonable to expect you to not have spousal support. For what its worth, I'm not sure why mumsnet is convinced spousal support isn't a thing anymore as the law hasn't changed, courts just prefer to pay an equivalent sum to spousal support upfront instead. I would be shocked if with a career break of 8 years to care for your kids and a very high earner on one end there was any real expectation that your husband wouldn't end up paying heavily to support you and the kids but i imagine the attempted 50/50 is to minimise the amount. Him constantly breaching that is great evidence to bring to court that realistically he won't be delivering on his end of the bargain.

Actually, I work within this area. I see outcomes of all statuses.

She's not doing essential "childcare" any different to a working parent. She's just unemployed during school hours as opposed to a parent who works them. And those hours will soon be two children in full time education.

She'll get a bigger pay out if there's any equity floating about to buy a house, because she can't remotely support herself, but she'll be limited to a percentage of what equity there is, I'd suggest she sacrifices any pension for equity in her hand now.

She'll be told, quite rightly, to get a job. And FFS don't announce to the judge you've got career coaching and non negotiable volunteering that you simply must be seen to continue.

Although I can't see OP listening to anyone other than those who tell her what a critical role the courts will view her as performing. Long gone are those days. If your kids are in school, you work. It's clean break above everything and no fault divorces. A tiny, tiny, tiny percentage get any spousal and that's for 1-2 yrs max. It's virtually unheard of. Same with meshers.

@HopscotchBanana They might have paid for the house and it might be worth a lot. I don’t think anyone has mentioned spousal maintenance. She should work and she recognises this. However she will get a decent chunk of equity and certainly should not throw away pension division if she doesn’t need to. Clearly she needs a home but usually high earners have good properties that can be split 50/50 or even more in her favour. She should ask for a good settlement but also be pragmatic. It is fairly normal for the resident parent to minimise earning potential! The op won’t know what it is just yet anyway but a solicitor with knowledge of high earning spouses will know what to advise and so will a divorce barrister - when they have the financial facts!

My reference to spousal was due to the poster immediately above, trying to suggest it's still a thing. In the most tiny, tiny, tiny number of cases these days, yes. Otherwise, no.

They certainly don't sound in the levels of spousal coming into play.

All we have is OP calling her ex a high earner. That's entirely subjective to her. He might be on £60k, £160k, £260k... She's not getting spousal on that. Haven't heard anything suggesting multiple houses. Although now OP realises that's the more likely scenario, I anticipate that as an update...

@HopscotchBanana He can afford a nanny and a wife not winning. Never seen £60,000 affording that. If she’s in London that salary is not great. Most people affording a nanny are high earners with lots of spare money. He could well earn £250,000 in London.

You're missing the point.

Whilst I am aware of what a high earner is, you only have to skim through MN to see the volume of threads where the ex is a "very high earner" and this transpires to be something ridiculous like £75k. She's not getting spousal on £250k.

He didn't have a nanny, OP came out with that. Turns out he was using ad hoc babysitters.

Again, this will now generate the inevitable "actually he's on high six figures and we own multiple properties"

Ok. Missed the ad hoc bit! I agree about mn view of salaries too. That’s because genuine high earners are not that thick on the ground as people think. So yes, without clarity, we don’t know. Unless he’s truly a high earner, he won’t be buyer her out of the house either!