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!!

Yes, it is. In divorce a spouse has no claim on property that is in the other person's name, if this property was purchased before the marriage. Which was the case here.

Don’t have children at all then would be my response.

Relying on any man and relying on your husband/father of your children are two different things. If you don’t trust him then I certainly wouldn’t procreate with him.

The OP shouldn’t be reliant at this stage. She has a career/skill and the kids are grown. So it’s a completely different situation.

I'm so sorry this happened to you. And I 100% agree - women need to have their own money and definitely shouldn't sacrifice their careers for a man. I know so many women who were completely fucked over in a divorce in this way. The ones who carried on working are in much better positions in every way.

Honestly never underestimate the depths a man will plummet to post separation

Could be a slogan to go on the back of wedding vows 😀

Women are in a difficult position because child rearing falls to women who often want to take on the main childcare role however it can have dire consequences for later life. The prospect of being poor at retirement, due to decisions made when the children are small, is very real given the divorce rate is close to 50%

@Eastie77Returns yes, a friend of mine told me "just as well you're going to carry on working because you'll need the money to pay for the therapy your kids will need because you work" - !!! WTAF?

She was a SAHM and her marriage went to shit when her kids grew up and her alcoholic husband ran off with a younger woman, having been shagging other women for years. He lied, hid assets, strung out their divorce and spent loads of money while they were going through the process (nobody could stop him, so he spent and spent and spent while the divorce was in progress) and because he had limited her access to money she had a shit solicitor while he didn't.

You're missing the fact that many, many women DO trust men and so DO procreate with them and do become SAHMS (which is what the OP is warning against) and THEN, later, the husbands turn into utter cunts who shag younger women and think they get to keep all the money and assets, leaving the wife financially fucked.

It's no good just saying "don't have kids with them then" - much wiser to say "have kids but acknowledge that if you become a SAHM you are taking a big financial risk". The OP is right. My dd will never be dependent on a man as I have always said the same and she'd seen me work FTOH since she was small.

If you don’t trust him then I certainly wouldn’t procreate with him

I just despair at naive comments like this. When I had children with my ExH, everything was great in our relationship (or so I thought). Unknown to me he had already cheated on me, and then, as the years progressed, he did so time and time again. I had no idea that he was going to do this, when I had my children with him! And I'm pretty sure that that is the case for many women.

You are blindsided. By then, you've already made career, salary and pension sacrifices, thinking in good faith that you're a team and that you are both working together for the good of the family unit. Hardly your fault, if, in the midst of rearing children, you have no idea that your DH is actually not as committed to the family unit, and has been getting his end away elsewhere.

I really hope it never happens to you. But you need to dial down the smug.

tbh I think going SAHM is the first step in a massive power imbalance that allows men to treat women like shit. I think it’s far less likely to happen if you maintain income and earning parity - and remind them that they can’t go around feeling like her indoors is lucky to have him.

I think having kids is the bigger risk.

If you’re married and still working, you have options including the ability to earn well if he leaves. Your earning potential can match his hence why they call it ‘the motherhood penalty’ around the gender pay gap. We often match or surpass men until we have kids. You can say it’s expectation that we look after kids, but many women I know including myself actively wanted to reduce hours to be with our children.

If he leaves, then irrespective of if you’re working it will end up on you to find a flexible job, your income expectations will likely decrease, you will be on the hook for sick kids and holidays. It’s not as easy as being child free.

So I think you have to have a bit of blind faith if you decide to have kids with someone.

I will stand by that I think instead of expecting women to work full time AND raise kids, we should be expecting men to step up and working to reform the divorce courts/child maintenance payments.

As usual, it’s women running themselves ragged to mop up after men and expecting very little from them. I don’t agree with that and I’d rather women didn’t put themselves into a vulnerable position of pregnancy and children if we’re expected to do it all.

No wonder the birth rate is plummeting if that’s the crap we’re selling young women of today, you can’t trust a man in the most vulnerable time of your life, it’ll all be shit as you deal with sleepless nights and a career that’s objectively not that fulfilling for most people (rare someone is genuinely working their dream job) and you’ll be alone and destitute because he’ll probably leave.

Maybe we should be telling young men they need to step the hell up and society will shame them if they don’t. Maybe we should be telling young women to have savings and expect better of men because judging by some of these threads, a lot of women really don’t.

Op, in Scotland we have something called Economic Recompense in divorces, which means that if one person has sacrificed career and pension to be a SAHP or has reduced their hours to part-time, then they are recompensed for this by getting a larger portion of the available funds (usually from the sale of the matrimonial home). In England the equivalent is called the Compensation Principle. Did your lawyer pursue this?

Also, you should have received more funds from the pot, to account for the pension disparity. Did you get this?

How is it smugness? Do you think I don’t understand the risks of becoming a SAHM? Do you not think I’ve planned my situation with a tooth comb and now have to have faith that it’ll work out? Same as when I decided to have children, I knew the risks involved. I thought long and hard on whether I wanted to be linked to the father of my future children forever. He could turn out to be a prick but then, so could I. Marriage is a risk. If I became disabled, I’d have to rely on him. If he became disabled he’d have to rely on me and so it goes on.

If we’re telling women they have to bear children AND work a full time job AND sort the house whilst the ejaculator does sod all because he can’t be trusted as a rule - then I think it’s better women don’t have kids. I would encourage women to expect and fight for a better outcome than what some on here are offering.

On the alternative side, I’ve seen some women do incredibly well out of divorce financially. I’ve also seen some high earning women having to pay more out of the settlements because they earned more. Everyone’s circumstances are different. Marriage and kids is one of the biggest risks you can take in my opinion.

Maybe we should be telling young women to have savings and expect better of men because judging by some of these threads, a lot of women really don’t

Are you honestly implying that all women who have been shafted by a man, only had that happen to them because they didn't expect any better? Oh dear.

You can't see, that most women enter into marriage with the expectation that their DH will continue to be the man he was on the wedding day, and that they did not foresee him having his head turned 10 years later, by a younger model?

Ah yes, if only we had expected better and had a crystal ball. They should have taught us this at school. And then no men would ever behave badly and no man would ever be influenced by his dick. Good to know.

There's a reason that 50% of marriages end in divorce, and I really don't think that women are the problem.

Did you miss the part where I said as a society we should be shaming men? That we should be holding these men accountable for their children instead of women just having to get on with it?

But I see we’re at the bitter point of every man is led by his dick so I guess there’s no debate with you on this.

I just think you're being a bit naive. Men very often do things that their wives didn't expect and couldn't foresee. Regards shaming men, everyone knows what my ExH did - guess what, no one really cares. In fact, his religious parents blamed me for everything because "He was only having a bit of fun, whereas Blondie is breaking up a family". So actually, it was me who was the villain.

You never really know what people are capable of, until it happens.

It’s also a damn sight easy to shame men into doing their fair share when you are an economic and career equal. You’re not expecting them to do anything you aren’t already doing yourself.

I’m sorry that happened to you.

But you’ve kind of just proved my point that the response was “he was just having fun” as opposed to us shaming the hell out of him.

Whilst this would be a structural change to society I grant you, there have been many things people have fought for that have become normality. Women’s rights campaigners are still working hard in the background on many issues, one example org is pregnant then screwed because having kids does affect us in many areas of life.

People are missing my point that I think over the past few decades (now state support has increased), the expectation of men/fathers has plummeted which I don’t agree with. I don’t think it’s fair to expect women to contribute to the birth rate AND be high earners to support those kids whilst men have minimal expectations. I’d rather young women opted out of that unfair model.

My circumstances could change but I’ve accepted my risks as it stands currently and done what I can to protect myself. But ultimately, I’ve had kids so my risk level has increased exponentially. I’ve had to rely on him due to a complicated pregnancy, birth and then a challenging child with no decent childcare provision in the area (over subscribed). That’s what I’m getting at, you don’t know what kind of pregnancy and child you’ll have so don’t risk it unless you can have some form of financial backing and some faith.

My entire perspective had to change due to my own personal experience. So it’s not the case that all of us should just work full time, not rely on men and stick the kids in childcare.

I did a webinar through work yesterday which was all about Economic abuse. It was very interesting to see how things can play out and useful to be able to spot the signs in my work.
It's humbling to hear stories you all have and how things can escalate.

There was a thread on here a while back where some women were baffled that people didn't have joint finances. It's always important to look after your own finances first and foremost.

You can’t seriously expect to work pt still when you have the option of a high paying ft career option but choosing not to then expecting ex to pay spousal to top you up ??

I mean, come on…,,

get your fair share of marital
assets and go back to work full time .

Loads of good comments on here, especially what eastie said

Surely you will get a share of the business and house, OP? Then working full time as a GP you should be able to save a good deal into a pension. Worth paying for legal and financial advice.

Until you separate. Then for a lot of men you're no longer an equal but someone far less important. Same for your children.
You're no longer people of value, but seen as encumbrances. Some separated men seem to truly resent paying any maintenance for their children and, as posts here attest, go to lengths to avoid paying it. And some of these men were the most devoted fathers!
And maintenance is paying money to provide for their own children: to keep them educated, fed, healthy.
We've seen the posts here plenty of times: ex just refuses to pay, leaves job, leaves country, booming self employment suddenly profitless, goes on benefits, disappears.
And now you're a one income family, paying the full costs of everything your children need on your own.
I 100% agree on the poster who said society needs to make men more accountable. Absent, non contributing fathers are a leading cause of child poverty but all we hear about is getting mothers back into work/education 🙄

You didn’t have to give up your career though - you chose to he didn’t force you and you had two and half decades of time with your children and part time work. To many that is priceless. You could have gone back to full time work decades ago but seemingly chose not to. You need to take responsibility for your own decisions. Lots of people in their early to mid 50s probably don’t “have it in them” to work full time but they aren’t on a GPs salary with an impending GPs pension so don’t have a choice

Well I suppose that it enough as the property was acquired outwith the marriage

Of course if you are working full time and he is working part time then his is likely to get the majority of the time with the children if you split
(You may have considered that but I think some women are naive to the risk)

YANBU.

I am honestly gobsmacked at the willingness of some women to give up their financial independence and make themselves vulnerable. You read about them being ‘blindsided’ that their husband left, and having to ‘take any minimum wage job’ because they’ve been out of the workforce for years and years. The naivety is truly shocking. What did they think would happen? That they would have access to a man’s salary after they’ve divorced and shared children have grown up? I genuinely can’t get my head around the thinking behind being a SAHM longterm with no independent source of income / wealth.