Why would you separate but not divorce?

[2old4thispoo]

DS has been legally separated for 7 years.

She said she no intention of getting divorced as financially it benefits her to stay married.

No dc, no shared property or investments

Why would staying married be a benefit to ds and her exdh?
I felt a bit stupid as im obviously missing something!
I've ever been married so no idea about any of this.

TIA

That's very odd. I was separated for slightly longer than that simply because divorce costs money and neither of us needed to be divorced for a particular reason.

My ex recently purchased a house though, and started divorce proceedings. It was super easily done all online. Why don't you just ask her how it benefits her?

(Edited as I thought you meant your son and his ex wasn't divorcing him).

If you dont get a divorce AND a financial settlement then the partner can still come after you for money if you come in to any in the future

Doesn't it mean without a divorce and a financial settlement he can come after her pension pot and a portion of any house she has? I don't know why she would stay married. If anything happens to her it all goes to him unless she has a will that states otherwise. He is her next of kin. She needs to get this sorted out.

Is she the higher earner or /and have more assets? She may be hoping he never divorces so that she does not have to give him anything.

I know someone whose husband did not divorce her for decades after they split. She had been a SAHM, had an affair which ended the marriage. I presume the H never divorced before as he did not want to give her money/his pension etc. It worked out for him. She was in her 60s when she got the divorce papers and was not interested in making a financial claim as part of the divorce.

I know a couple who have split but not divorced as she is very ill and relies on her ex-DH's medical insurance!

Its my sister.

I did and she said staying married had long term benefits. She has more money then her exchange, she's always earned more.

I felt a bit daft as I always thought the opposite

Why are you feeling daft? She is putting herself at risk. I am now in the process of pushing for a financial order with my ex, he's being annoyingly slow and I keep pointing out that as the higher earner with the much bigger pension pot, it's in his best interests to cut ties so I can't ever try to make a claim on his money.

(I have no intention of doing this, but neither of us know what the future holds!)

I have a friend whose very wealthy husband (hundreds of millions) asked her to never divorce him when they did actually split up as he wanted a cast iron excuse to never have to marry anyone else. He lives in Australia, she’s in Milan in a very expensive beautiful house he bought her and he gave her a big settlement and they have only had to see each other at their children’s weddings. He has various girlfriends who cannot proceed beyond the diamond jewellery level.

I felt daft as I'm clearly missing something, as it makes no sense.

A friend of mine had the first part done, but they never got the decree absolute. They just couldn't organise themselves to do it. She does generally live in chaos though.

Has she got money/assets/pension that she would have to share if they divorced?

Does she think she will be able to get half his pension in years to come?

I had a relative who never got divorced when they split because he had a very decent public sector pension and he wanted his wife to get the spouse’s pension when he died to help support their child. If they had divorced that spouse’s pension couldn’t have been paid to anyone else so would just have been lost.

He was an older dad though and in poor health so death when his child was a young age was likely. He also had no other assets so the lack of any financial settlement wasn’t an issue. He never wanted to meet anyone else either.

Most obvious explanation is if she's got more assets than her Not XH, she may not want to hand any of them over. Or the opposite could be true, she may know something you don't about his finances and be anticipating him being in a position to put more into the pot at some point.

If neither have DC, maybe they want to be sure someone will benefit from their pension. Some schemes don't give you much flexibility.

There's also inheritance tax, although whether a separated couple would want to risk leaving substantial sums to each other is another question.

Married persons tax allowance, inheritance tax benefits, inheriting pension on death that would otherwise be lost?

I separated from my husband earlier this year, and we aren't divorcing.

We didn't have children, and we split our assets 50/50. It was very amicable and I was the one who decided to split.

My husband isn't a well man, 14yrs older than me and quite depressed that we are no longer together. I feel that divorcing him would be the straw that broke the camels back. Of course, should I want to remarry (or him) then I would start proceedings.

My husband has an asset that would pass to me should he pre-decease me (he lives on a boat now), but I am in rented accommodation. I have however drawn up a Will and listed who should receive my money in the event of my death. I was advised to put an instruction in the Will that my husband shouldn't receive any of my money on death.

As cruel as this sounds, I don't think he will be around forever. He has high blood pressure, a drinking problem (why we separated) and doesn't seem to be looking after himself. I would ensure he ate well when we were together, but he seems to be living on pork pies, steak, sausage rolls, cheese and white bread since we went our separate ways (he still uses the Tesco club card so I see his purchases). He is now 65 and I can't see him turning 70, which makes me sad, but he is an adult and knows what fruit and vegetables are, but he seems intent on self destruction.

Possibly.

Doubt he will have much of a pension. Hes in his 60s, was a SAHD for yesrs. Mainly self employed tradie type jobs when he did work.

They have dc together.

Then I'd guess it's about retaining control of her assets. It has the bonus of meaning if he meets someone else, he can't marry them and pass his share of the assets from the first marriage onto her instead of the DC. In which case, I get it.

Yes. My late father separated from but didn't divorce his second wife as she would benefit from some excellent Bupa-type/Civil service health arrangements. (They must have had some pretty watertight legal arrangements otherwise as we children still inherited.)

My friend didn’t want to get divorced as she kept saying she couldn’t afford it. They had been split for many years when he asked for one and she was furious.
They both had new partners and she didn’t want to remarry but he did (although it didn’t happen). But she was so angry about it though it was a bit strange. They had full financial settlement in place and different homes. I think she just didn’t want to spend any more money on it.