Varying global maintenance

[Newnameneil]

But of an unusual situation here. I’m a high earning woman and my ex husband stayed home with the kids. After we separated court ordered £2k per month global maintenance from me to him and to agree the childcare split among ourselves. We do 50/50.

I want to give up my job (which pays a £100k but is hateful finance role in ageist bank - I’m 47 and the young traders call me ‘mummy dearest.’ ). I want to spend time with the children instead of putting them with nannies and enjoy the years I have left of them being young. I would like to volunteer and retrain in a nicer profession where I can work part time.

I am trapped where I am however unless I can stop the maintenance. Exh now doesn’t need my financial support. He used his time since we started 50-50 to train as a teacher. So he’s now earning 2k a month after tax, and has no mortgage because I bought him a house. We capitalised his share of my future pension so he got a lump sum from that too. I have a salary that goes 100pc on mortgage, maintenance, nanny and living costs. I work in a hateful job all hours, barely see my kids and I’m broke.

I asked my solicitor the specific question of can I apply to court to end the maintenance becaise we do 50-50 and my exh has more disposable income than I do now. The advice was along the lines of ‘you could try it but he may challenge you in court.’ He also could go for more child access to secure himself financially, on the basis this was the status quo during our marriage. (My fault for being the ambitious one, thinking we were so modern and feminist.)

Is there a more holistic solution, I wonder? Has anyone else found themselves in my situation and managed to change it? My solicitor said I couldn’t just quit work and deprive myself of income to stop paying maintenance, so I’m thinking why don’t I put myself in line for redundancy? There are constant cuts at my work and I’m sure with my age and the sexist environment I can be next in line with just a few tweaks like being late because of ‘childcare’ or wfh more. They hate that.

Ranting now sorry, but I feel so trapped.

There are two ways you can change the amount of maintenance you pay. You can agree a change with your ex, or you can go to court and apply for the order to be varied. If you go to court, he has the right to oppose your attempt to vary the order. If the court has to decide, they look at earnings capacity rather than actual earnings. It may be that his earnings capacity has gone up since he has trained as a teacher. However, the fact you currently hold down a job paying £100k suggests that is what you can earn (unless you can convince the court otherwise), so any maintenance is likely to be based on that.

I disagree that your maintenance will be based on earning capacity.

A judge should see that circumstances have now changed, and hes earnig enough to support himself, especially now that he's earning £2k a month. You're not expected to flog yourself at work indefinitely.

I imagine a lot of men are in the same situation as you are, and there is no special snowflake clause for them to get out of their responsibilities.

Listen to you lawyer, they would have a better handle on this than rwgular mumsnetters.

How long is the global maintenance order for and how many children do you have? £2k a month seems a lot if you're only on £100k gross and it's very odd for maintenance (other than child maintenance) to last for longer than a couple of years nowadays. Also, because you're doing 50/50 childcare it really doesn't seem appropriate at all that you are paying him so much money every month.

I am divorcing in similar circumstances to you and although my STBXW would like a similar outcome my solicitor has said that she doesn't stand a chance and she will only get child maintenance. Do you get large bonuses on top of the £100k base, or is your commute a lot cheaper than mine (£6k a year)?

From what I've read, if you can convince a court that you want to make a bona fide career change then this can be a good reason for your income to fall, although there is a risk that you don't convince them. However, having 50/50 care now would be a very good reason; I am sceptical of your solicitor's suggestion that he could now go back to some long gone time when he was the primary carer if the new normal is established at 50/50 and he's working full time as a teacher.

Actually though, it's really not appropriate that he is letting you do half the childcare and you're having to pay for a nanny when you're already paying HIM substantial amounts to have primary responsibility for the children. If he doesn't agree to a reduction in spousal maintenance, you are well within your rights to cancel the nanny and to tell him childcare is back on him, that you are paying him a lot of money, you are not a charity and he needs to bloody well earn it!

I've done a lot of reading up on the subject and if nothing else works then the best way out seems to be to "lose" your job and then "struggle" to find another one paying the same. You can easily "lose" your job by becoming a contractor and then "whoops" your contract runs out and you haven't got another one lined up. You "can't" seem to find work at the same pay but you're "trying" really hard and have at least found something locally but it only pays half as much.... you get the idea.

Hopefully the ongoing review into divorce finances will end this spousal maintenance nonsense once and for all too.