Divorce in the UK

[FedUpOfItA]

I was having a conversation with a friend this afternoon (I've had this conversation with many men in my life) about divorce settlements and whether a 50/50 split is fair, in a long marriage. I'm qualifying this because I do think in short marriages without children the balance is different.

My argument doesn't deviate and is always that if it was agreed between the couple that the woman (or man) stayed at home to provide childcare, look after the house and essentially support the other partner in their career they should be entitled to half of everything. Essentially, the SAHP has sacrificed her own career so that the other partner can succeed and focus on their career which they wouldn't be able to do otherwise and still have the benefit of a family life.

I'm just really curious to know the view on MN.

Was your friend suggesting that the working partner should take everything and the woman should have nothing for all the work and sacrifices she made?

Another way to think of it is that the woman should sue for lost earnings.

I bet you're right!

You're exactly right, OP, and that's the position the Court takes. Equal contribution to family life.

The courts allow recompense for spouses who have sacrificed their earning power to raise children.

In other words, they are treated as though they brought an equal amount into the marriage.

Of course the non-earning partner who contributes with unpaid work should be entitled to at least half. More if they've sacrificed future earning capacity.

Frankly, anyone who suggests otherwise is a dickhead.

Essentially, the SAHP has sacrificed her own career so that the other partner can succeed and focus on their career which they wouldn't be able to do otherwise and still have the benefit of a family life.

Might not be a widely shared view, but I baulk at this bit. The implication is that without the SAHP, this higher earner either wouldn't have their career, or wouldn't have a family life, or both. This is usually not the case as demonstrated by millions of families where both parents have demanding careers / successful single parents / one parent is both the breadwinner and the main carer.

More honest to say that the SAHP/WAHP arrangement is a split agreed because of the individual preferences and opportunities of that particular family.

The martyr positioning of saying the SAHP has sacrificed everything for the sake of someone else's career is an overreach in many/most cases and I think undermines the arguments in favour of fair and equitable divorce splits.

In general I think it's a pragmatic enough approach. The increased cost of parenting post divorce is disgracefully skewed in favour of the NRP. So the even if the initial settlement might seem a little disproportionate it probably evens out for the majority of couples.

Cost of that kind of childcare after tax over a number of years etc would cost a hell of a lot and I think for normal couples undoubtedly facilitates career growth for the wiring spouse, maybe in intangible ways but my wife knowing that she can commit to projects or deadlines because she has support means that she becomes someone who is viewed as dependable and committed and that reputation will always help with promotions. Which may not be possible for her colleagues who can't do the same.

I think it becomes a bit more difficult to justify when you get in to exceptionally high earners or rich people as then I don't think the argument of facilitating the working parents success or accumulation of assists stands up to the same degree.

I don't think that a stay at home mum married to a professional PL footballer for example can legitimately claim to be responsible for 50% of what he's achieved, or that JKR's ex would have claimed half of her wealth if they'd divorced a few years later.

Well when you get married you're agreeing to become a financial union. It's not just about getting dressed up and having a big cake.

If you're one of those men who doesn't want her to 'get half my stuff', then don't enter into a financial union with her.

Prenups are of course a thing too, so if he's on track to be a professional footballer or a banking CEO and wants to marry a waitress, he can get her to sign one. She has to agree though and the prenup has to 'be fair'.

I'm from the continent so my opinion will be influenced by cultural differences (specific to where I'm from and its environs, I know the continent is not one mono block!):

• single men, and indeed women - single people have achieved the same careers and success. Without the sahm. So that to me negates the contribution argument.
• similarly couples where both work and have careers. They like the single people somehow managed to do all of the chores etc and have the careers without the sahm.
• how does a sahm differ between a sahm to a teacher, and one to a neurosurgeon? How was what she did so different? How were her skills so different? If not, why should one receive so much more, based on her spouse's very different jobs?

To repeat this is influenced by my background, coming from a country with equal levels of workplace participation between the sexes.
Indeed when I arrived in the British Isles, while having ostensibly good English, I didn't understand what a sahm was - I understood each of the component words but not the concept put together.

@SeulementUneFois - the sahp is not just about household chores though, it's about the basic day to day caring for children, the night wakes, the doctors appointments, the ill child, the school holidays etc.

My STBEX refused to do any of that, and it's not like I could too, so yes I facilitated his life at the detriment of mine.

@INeedAnotherName but my points apply in cases with two working parents. In my country all people work, women and men, mothers and fathers.
It's not a rich country but it's uniformly so, so it's not like there's rich people with hired help.
The country and region went through some devastating ideological changes but one silver lining was the attitude that men and women are equal, with equal status in work and everywhere.

Oh I don't disagree, I think anyone in their position would be fucking mental to get married, particularly as young as they do, but they go in with their eyes open.

The question was whether we thought it was fair or made sense. I think like most things in general it does but for those on the fringes/ extreme at either end it probably is a little counter intuitive. If you're a man who has decided to be permanently unemployed then you can knock up and marry who you like and your financial responsibilities will be fuck all and the mother of the kids will be left up shits creek which isn't fair either.

I don't necessarily think it should change though.

It depends COMPLETELY on the career.

So these blanket responses either way are nonsense.

Example 1.
A career which involves say jetting off to New York for a week every month, for a nonnegotiable date.
Can only be achieved by a childless person or a person with children who has a sahp.
In this situation, no the mum and dad could not both be doing this type of role. So yes, one did sacrifice their career.

Example 2.
A 9-5 Monday to Friday. No, the sahp didn't sacrifice anything. Caveat - unless the wohp insisted they became a sahp.

For example two though if they couldn't afford the childcare for parent two to work then it's the same scenario isn't it?

That's true @vernatheraven and completely feeds in to my point - every situation is completely unique and dependent on that family alone - so statements like 'the sahp never sacrifices their career' or 'the sahp always sacrifices their career' are invalid.

This thread has already moved away from the op, who's disappeared for some reason, to only talk about whether the sahp sacrifices or not.

The UK approach is unusual internationally and perceived as very advantageous to the lower earner / SAHP. Women married to rich men often try to file for divorce here even where they have little connection to the UK.

I think the approach is generally good in that it’s more child friendly and doesn’t leave anyone destitute but the logic of the SAHP contributing to the other spouse’s career doesn’t really hold up in most cases. What if the SAHP never had a career or prospects of one? What if she gave up work unilaterally? Or didn’t actually do much round the house or with the children because they had a nanny and housekeeper? Or her spouse came into the marriage with significant assets? None of these things make a difference to the settlement. And arguments about the value of the childcare provided don’t really hold up either as the other party has covered bills, food etc.

The martyr positioning of saying the SAHP has sacrificed everything for the sake of someone else's career is an overreach in many/most cases and I think undermines the arguments in favour of fair and equitable divorce splits.

@DesparatePragmatist

Finally someone who has a similar view to me on this subject!

100% agree here - I find it quite insulating that STAHP troop out the old "well me staying home helped further his career" - as if that person didn't work bloody hard already and make sacrifices to be the main or sole earner.

Once children are in primary school being a STAHP is a choice - there is no need for someone to stay out of the workplace indefinitely and then use this to argue a greater divorce settlement.

I'm sure lots of sole/main earners would have loved more time at home with their families with less pressure to carry the entire family financially or not have to feel like they had to chase every career promotion - I'm a woman by the way and the main earner and believe me the pressure is immense. (In my divorce I successfully argued my ex didn't help further my career one iota and his (lack of) career prospects and low wage were all of his own making. I walked away with my pensions intact and a settlement in my favour)

I could share my experience but I assume this is the daily mail fishing for an article. The FT published a weekend essay highlighting the issues with family courts. It’s great the issue was raised and sad the FT had to quote Fathers for Justice so many times while also highlighting the issue of abusive use of conflict, which so many men use to continue their emotional abuse of women.

I am italian living in the UK and find the 50/50 split only works for a small group of people and is based on an old fashioned view of family dynamics.

Women that have been working and taking the lion's share of running a family lose out in this contect. Personally had I known it was 50/50 here in the UK I would have not gone back to work after having kids. Now I am divorcing and sharing my pension with a useless man, although we both have been working throughout our marriage but he wasted his money and I didn't.

In other countries couples choose how they wish to manage their finances when they get married and that is then reflected on how they live their marriage and when they split. That is probably a more sensible way to look at things. Also in this day an age I don't think there will be that many stay at home wives, unless they are married to very high earners.

Where a couple have agreed one person works pt / or one person works in the home and the other full time paid employment then my opinion is in most cases, the person who has worked pt / works in the home should get more than 50%. They may have missed career opportunities ( why should they be penalised for that) extra contributions to pensions and the ability to start on an upwards career path once they are divorced (potential earnings lower) . In particular, where one partner has been full time working in the home, mentally they’re at a disadvantage too because they’ve likely lost a huge amount of confidence and skills in being in the workplace and applying for work. And the person working in paid employment is usually released from the emotional load and thinking about everything else going on in the home so that they can get up go to work and come home - so the working at home person is supporting them in their work too.

Im not going to debate whether full time paid work or full time /par time work in the home is of equal value as IMO and the courts, it is ( I would argue harder as more often than not the person at home is carrying not only the physical load but the mental load AND it’s 24 hours a day 7 days a week )

just because many people both work full time does not mean that works for every couple.

I don't think many people would agree that the SAHP should get more than 50% 🙃
Everyone would be clamoring to be the SAHP if that was the case.
The courts (in this country) see it as 50% and that feels good enough.

I agree that not many people would agree 🤣but I don’t agree at all that the financial impact of divorce would influence a couples decision on who is a SAHP. If it was no one would want to be a SAHP ! I work and have always worked by the way . Lots of research has found that women ( usually the SAHP) always end up worse off in divorce. It’s only the degree to which that happens that differs in the research findings .

We had a 30/70 split roughly. With me getting the 30. I had worked part-time for many years but that was also my choice, I didn't do it to 'support' his career. Yes, I missed career opportunities but I didn't really want them, so it's a bit disingenuous for me to go back and claim that I sacrificed everything when I didn't. Him working full-time allowed me to work part-time, which is what I wanted at that time. I also didn't think it was fair to take a 50/50 split as my ex had brought a considerable amount of equity to our marriage and had a large inheritance. It would have also meant uprooting some extended family who lived with us, so I looked at everything on balance.

Do I wish I'd taken more? Yes of course but I had no desire to take what wasn't mine, when the 30% was enough.

People will say otherwise, that it was mine because we were married, but I don't see it like that. I didn't work hard to pay off his first mortgage, he did. His inheritance from his family was his, not mine.

In my case, teaching was impossible because he didn’t do his share of sick kid duties. Progressing was impossible because we relocated several times to suit his career. Again we lived away from all family support to suit his career.

With hindsight, I would do things really differently. But I didn’t so my earning potential was impacted.

Once a child has additional needs, parenting gets many times harder. Appointments, ‘drop everything and dash to school’ calls, all gets really hard.