Hi, I’ve been married 17 years and the main thing preventing me from divorcing is fear of being financially destitute. I am wondering if anyone has been in a postition where they have been given substantially less than half?
for context, my husband is a high earner. He earns £15k a month plus last year, for example he earned over £200k in bonuses. He also has a decent pension though I’ve no idea what’s in it. He obviously pays the high level of tax and as he is classed as self employed he does a tax return so the figured quoted are before tax had been deducted. We also have approx £850k in savings. We are also mortgage free on a property that we bought for £500k but I’m not sure of value now. So looks great on paper.
However, this is the bit I’m panicking about: I have always earned basically minimum wage and been propped up financially by him. He pays everything. Currently I am working part time on just above minimum wage, earning£12k a year. There are no children. But I do have a disability which means it is really difficult for me to have any job whatsoever, and when I have worked full time hours in the past it has led to difficulties regarding my disability and my mental health being absolutely destroyed in the process.
my fear is that a court would decide to award me much less than half due to basically everything being ‘his’ money. I have worked so hard to make this marriage work but in terms of finances I have basically contributed nothing. That they wouldn’t feel it was fair to give away half of his hard earned money? However, I would need to have enough to buy a small flat outright and to be able to be suecure in old age because I wouldn’t be able to afford any pension contributions at all. It would be a scrap to pay bills on my wage alone I think, from what I’ve estimated, and anything such as dental treatment would require dipping into savings. There would certainly be no fancy holidays, gym membership or unnecessary niceties which I am completely fine with. Believe me if I was able to work full time I would do so. I am very afraid of having no pension contributions, but with assets divided then savings would alleviate that problem.
am I likely to get half of everything, or will my work situation be counted against me and I would get less. The only way I can proceed with divorce is to be confident I would be financially ok as my future earning potential and lack of pension is a stress.
PS I know some people will see my post as tone deaf and it’s really not meant to be. With a close to even split I would have no financial concerns, but my fear is that I would only be offered say a token gesture eg 25% to protect my husband’s hard earned assets.
please be gentle with me I really am very scared, as I don’t really understand the divorce process. I am also completely heartbroken. I love my husband but I have recently found he has been lying and cheating on me for several years.