Warning for younger mums about finances and career sacrifice in divorce

[DoctorMumDivorcee]

Getting divorced after 26 years. I gave up my career as a surgeon to raise the children and support my husband in his career. He earns four times my salary and can work remotely from anywhere. We have worked hard and built up businesses and renovated properties and made a significant amount doing this. He was always in charge of finances, completed self assessment tax forms for me, took my payslips, did household bills while I did kids renovated homes and kept my hand in working as a part time GP. I am 54 and have 13 years before I can start to receive our pension. I had expected the court to ask him to pay me some maintenance but he cleverly resigned from his job just as we decided to divorce so it now looks like I earn more than him. He has also spent a fortune in a very expensive lawyer and travelling the world with his new girlfriend. The court will not give this back to me as ‘add back’ and say the money has gone. I am posting because I want all you younger mums to be aware that if you give up a career you will not be supported. You might get child maintenance until youngest is 18 but spousal maintenance is much harder to get. Please don’t give financial control to your husbands. You must try to understand it and you can. I am understanding but now and realising what terrible investments my husband has made over the years - he always said I was useless and spent to much. Turns out it was the other way around!!

That isn’t true, I been on my own and in receipt of CMS so I can talk from that perspective but also knowing people who have to pay CMS and it is not a pittance. Yes for men who don’t have much of a mortgage seem to be fine but for those paying current day housing costs they are often left with very little. People often don’t have much left these days so once CMS goes out to they are left with next to nothing. None of the young fathers I know are better off financially paying CMS than when they were with the mother of their children. The law doesn’t penalise SAHP, assets are split 50/50 unless you are not married/in a civil partnership. Despite being burned myself from having kids with someone and not being married, it is only fair if the other person didn’t actually agree to enter into such a contract

But this isn't really about women giving up their job because they got married, they did it to raise their children. Any woman with good earning potential whether married or single can make the choice to carry on up the career ladder or to stop and be with their young children. Of course the latter will be worse off financially if they are married and end up divorced or are single and remain single but that doesn't mean they made the wrong choice. It depends what value you place on spending those years with your children. I find it sad that the current generation of children are spending less time with their parents than ever before in history and we have to ask what that means for them.

completely agree op, and sadly now in a similar situation to yourself. He wanted me to be part time/give up work altogether. I trusted him, he left. He’s on a salary 3 times mine, and he is still not paying the correct child maintenance. Assets have also been hidden by him. Years of caring for children and allowing him to progress in his career now count for nothing.

The other thing that never occurred to me when I was younger and looking after small kids was that when you get to your 50s there are suddenly ageing parents to look after as well - admin, hospital appointments, driving, shopping, cooking, cleaning - and if you are the one at home with time on your hands and no set work hours those jobs will automatically fall to you. If you have work you can still do those things and help out, of course, but you won't become the default carer because everyone else is too busy and important.

I find it sad that the current generation of children are spending less time with their parents than ever before in history

The Pew report Modern Parenthood found that parents actually spend more direct time caring for and interacting with their children than parents did several decades ago. Mothers in 2011 spent more time with children than mothers in the 1960s. Fathers nearly tripled their childcare time between 1965 and 2011. and yes, working mothers spend more time with children than stay-at-home mothers did decades ago.

Beat me to it. There's a level of dishonesty about what is actually happening with some women and their children.And how much time people have actually been spending with their children rather than participating in?Society in the ways that they used to do.Actually, this kind of setup has never happened before the thing that people seem to forget is in the past.There was rich, and there was poor and there was nothing in between now, unless all of us on this thread are descended from kings, we were poor we were working.That's all, people.Did men and women housewives only?Existed pretty much from the fifties.Before you couldn't even cool, what women did being housewives, I don't know if you have contact with elderly relatives.But the level of work that went into running a household before washing machines.And fridges is unimaginable.

And the point is, to the women, the housewife generation, had the highest divorce rate of any generation in history.And only now has it began to fall under fifty percent.I think we really need to be honest about something there was something odd.That happened after world war two that led to housewives for the first time in history.And it just didn't work it didn't work for the women and it didn't work for the men.I've got absolutely no idea why but what I do know.And what I seem to have observed is the older men seem completely delusional and entitled, and the older women seem completely financially illiterate and dependent, but they all seem to have raised kids that are doing the complete opposite.Got no idea what the future holds.But I hope it all works out.

@BeCleverViewer Would you ever have considered being the SAHP and your wife being the one going out to work? Why/why not?

As a complicated question because I think you're assuming that I don't do things at home or that I don't take part.That stuff at home is fifty fifty I don't know if me being a woman changes the setup, but I think you're approaching this from the wrong direction.And i've actually also spent time off work with my children.When they were young and then got back into it.The company at workforce got very generous maternity leave so I don't have know how to answer your question.Because in reality, I did stay at home. If you're asking, would I be content to live off another person?No, I absolutely would never feel comfortable being financially dependent on another person.And I really, really enjoy my work. Also my wife is a sahm with her own assets. I wouldn't marry someone whose plan in life is to watch me work, im not putting myself in that situation or taking on the burden of keeping food on table or roof on the house. I can't explain to you how terrifying it is to have another adult.In the house who simply could not participate in the financial planning.I understand that for some people that's okay for me.It's not, and it's not how i'm raising my children.I really just I can't get my head round it just the thought of it makes me feel vulnerable.

Everything my wife does at home is something I could do oh, it's something I could pay for someone else to do.But her staying at home does bring value to me personally?It's just I can't explain it.I can be a little bit logical as my wife would say.A little bit cold.But to me, a partnership is both financial and family management.That's a true partnership to me

@BeCleverViewer Will there come a time her assets will run out? What then?

Urm no thats not how a weighted portfolio or pension works. She's not over leveraged and planned well. I really um well I can't be more specific.It's financial planning. You don't face your life on a pot of money. That isn't growing, that doesn't make any sense. Why would anybody do that? You would run out of money. That would mean that she had completely failed to plan. She's the smartest person I know. Now thinking about it.Honestly, she's actually got a problem.If I stop working, it's not the other way around, but only for our day today.

And remember the fact that she could put in for half the deposit for the house and support mortgage payments up into a point until I took them over completely made a difference between me working 6 days a week.And me not.I can't explain to you how much pressure would be if she literally bought no money to the table I would have had to kill myself to get things ticken over nicely and I would have probably just felt it would be better to be alone. Really?This just might be agenda thing.I mean, maybe men enjoy being in that position.Where they've got all they're the only one working.But for me, that really doesn't benefit my life, and it just adds stress pressure and burden.It's just feels deeply unfair.I just would not want myself to be in that situation, and I wouldn't want my boys all my girl to be in that situation.It doesn't mean people are earning the same and bringing the same amount of money to the table necessary.But it does mean that finances cannot fall on one person in the household.That's not fair.

So i'm guessingwe all took end of may leave lol 🙃 what about you whats your stance?

@BeCleverViewer I believe both parties should make a fair, and wherever possible, equal financial contribution. Man or woman irrelevant.
Like you, I don't believe only one party should take full financial responsibility.

Yeah, love it.I guess one cover I would say.Because I don't want anyone to get the wrong.Impression, a fair contribution to me.Doesn't mean equal financial contribution, you don't have to earn the same as me.That's not fair.

I do wonder if there is something in the male mindset which fundamentally regards children as an offshoot of women. Obviously not all men, but you hear the stories of men moving on from their families so often. Whereas I could no more ‘move on’ from my DC than move on from a limb.

19th Century novels by Elizabeth Gaskell etc are a useful reminder of how even wealthy men would treat an impregnated woman. The normal drill would seem to be to offer a sum of money and then leave without a forwarding address.

At the other end of the social scale there used to be an offence of ‘bastardy’, whereby men would be brought before magistrates and compelled to repay the costs of a woman’s childbirth expenses, if her care had been met by the parish.

I think this is still an issue in the USA where single women can struggle to pay for maternity care.

I am old enough to remember the male outrage and gnashing of teeth when John Major’s government introduced the Child Support Agency. It proved very ineffective but I think it was fundamentally a good thing.

There were many sections of the press that deemed it intolerable that a woman should be able to pursue a man for child support, because of course it was somehow her fault for becoming pregnant in the first place…

Thats still very prevalent today

I have witnessed something similar with my own parents - my father saw the money as his and my mum not entitled to it and he pulled every trick in the book. He represented himself in court, emailed my mum's solicitor every day to bump up her costs, claimed he was living at "no fixed abode" but was shacked up with his affair partner who was also going through a messy divorce.

It's not just having your own money, it's also having visibility, equal control and financial education.

OP - The fact he did all the finances is a huge red flag for me. I had to take a career break when my daughter was born and I am now aggressively investing in my own pension. You absolutely cannot rely on someone else. Even if they are the kindest person it can all change in the blink of an eye.

If anyone doesn't know where to start, do the free finance rebel school course.

I suppose the question is yes, that’s all great while it’s all roses round the door, but what position would your wife be in if you separated?

Ok, I’ve read on and you’ve answered that. But it’s very clear from your posts that you value your wife’s role - in my experience, that’s often where it goes wrong. That’s my own experience anyway - I earn less but do almost everything house and child related and my ‘D’P genuinely thinks he’s the only one contributing to the family. My free labour counts for nothing in his eyes. And I work. We’re on the verge of separating and I will become one of the women referred to in this thread - absolutely destitute. Because even though I earn I couldn’t dream of getting a mortgage and rents are pretty insane round here. And before anyone tells I’ve been stupid - don’t worry , I know it!

Oh love im sorry thats zhit. I guess when I think about myself in the background I came from and where I had to get to and what I had to do. And knowing that i'm a little bit lazy.And not the smartest person in the world, I would say you're never too late to pull yourself up by boot straps.And if someone doesn't recognise your worth, leave them. If you can retrain be ruthless and if he does it know how bad things are you need to start bit by bit right now?Putting as much money away as you can.When you go and do the shopping, make sure you get vouchers?as you're not married.In some ways it means you can begin to build a fighting fund which won't be able to be accessible by him.If you want to be blind, cheeky, sell things from the house that he won't notice on ebay, and then try and find a way to get yourself into a position where you first can survive.And then afterwards you'll definitely thrive. Get a saving savings account and start putting money in it bit by bit.Get the highest interest count.You can even if it's five pounds, even if it's ten piece by piece.If there's no violence, you've got more time to prepare your exit.If he doesn't realise how valuable you are, he never will.

Thank you @BeCleverViewer I have the saving account started. Onwards and upwards I guess.

You're not stupid.I'd forgot to add and I don't think that's what people are trying to say it's just, I guess all of us just want to get to the girls a bit earlier and say, look like this is what can happen.But until you dead you've got time. My misses says low interest tracker fund.Have a look, go to chatgpt and work out.How much you can save and where you can put it.She said, chin up, I don't know why she just doesn't come on bloody write herself.But she's not in the thread.Other than to monitor my behaviour blind cheek.

But this just isn't true. There's plenty research and evidence that shows despite more mums going to work now, they are spending MORE time with their children and actively parenting than previous generations.

I think people have this romantic nostalgia of stay at home parents from previous generations. My mum grew up in a typical working class family in the 50s/60s and yes her mum stayed at home but it was nothing like a stay at home mum now with young kids. My grandmother like most women of her generation stayed at home but she wasn't sitting doing baking, or play dough or ferrying about my mum and her siblings to music and sensory activities.

While she was at home, her job very much was keeping up with the housework. Babies slept in their pram in the garden and then were booted outside to play as soon as they could walk. Doing laundry was a physical grind that took all day. There was no Amazon prime or online shopping delivery. They didn't have slow cookers or air fryers to make cooking easy. There were no dishwashers and even hoovering took so much longer to do. Paying bills and banking all had to be done physically, there were no direct debits or mobile phone banking or apps to make things easier. And if you were the woman at home, it was normally your job to do all these things.

My mum very much describes herself as a latchkey kid despite having a mum at home and I suspect she wasn't the only one of her generation to feel like that!

This study from the University of Essex shows "In 1961, mothers spent an average of 96 minutes per day on childcare, which increased to 162 minutes per day in 2015.
Fathers did 18 minutes of childcare per day in 1961, which increased to 71 minutes per day in 2015.

https://www.essex.ac.uk/news/2023/11/07/worrying-gap-between-time-parents-spend-on-childcare

And this one as well which shows parents spend twice as much time with their children as 50 years ago

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2017/11/27/parents-now-spend-twice-as-much-time-with-their-children-as-50-years-agoò