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!!

She has been working, as a GP so not exactly a low paying role.

As I understand it, the period of time when the kids were small and she had no work was a long time ago as she’s 54. She continued to stay part time and doesn’t want to work full time.

A very different situation to a woman with no career backup or dealing with young children and a divorce.

This isn’t excusing her ex husbands antics but I don’t understand how alimony can be expected when the children are adults and she could work full time. Unfortunately, standards of living are often higher when married due to two wages, but cloth unfortunately has to be cut in a one income household. Thankfully, there are no small children and she has a great career to rely on.

A high earner on this context means a lot more than 60k. A man on 60k probably can't support a SAHM and children even when he was married, so it's not relevant.

The point of the thread is not entitlement to anyone's salary. It's to point out to young women the perils of being a SAHM even within a marriage to a high earner. You have to be prepared to rely on your own earnings if necessary, so it's best to keep working and progressing your career, paying into your pension.

No, the issue is that relying on anyone financially - husband, wife, partner, parent, makes you financially vulnerable because they can take that support away at a moment notice.
If you are married and it happens, it can take a year to get to court, longer to sell a house, and you have to survive that year. If not married, it could be even worse.

And marriage isn't a perfect protection. I know a couple who have just had their house repossessed (in their 60s) because the man used the house as surety on a business loan, the business failed and the bank foreclosed. That poor woman is homeless in her 60s with only a state pension & no time to put it right because she left finances to her dh.

As long as you are acting to prevent that situation arising, proactively switching career, aware that your pension needs some attention and acting on it, you'll be fine.

How old were the older and younger men in these discussions? Was it gen x men telling millenials that housewives are a waste of earning potential? How did the younger men respond?

It’s unbelievable isn’t it ?

This debate needs some balance. There was no way I was going to put my DD in full time day care or, when she went to primary school, wrap around care every day. I just didn't want to. My DH supported this and my desire to be the one who worked part-time. I have no regrets, nor does he.

Women need to choose the fathers of their children with care. Make sure you're on the same page in matters like raising children, valuing each other's contributions and sharing finances. Don't hand over full control of bank accounts, pensions, investments to your spouse - male or female.

I'm often dismayed by mothers on MN who don't have joint accounts and access to money and have to ask their partner for money. Or they're spending on ££ on day care but running themselves ragged trying to balance everything.

Yeah, the time to divorce was when he was putting all the investments in his name. That was the biggest red flag. And if women can’t see that, then more fool them.

The initial comments on the thread started talking about spousal maintenance and how wrong he was to give up his job after divorce and my point was that no one should be obliged to be continuing to provide financial support after a divorce (other than child maintenance which doesn’t apply here).
I agree that if someone is choosing to do not do 50/50 shared care then it’s fair to pay the equivalent of 50% nanny costs (minus school/funded childcare/shared care time) if someone is on a very high salary that leaves them with enough to be quite comfortable themselves, however this would be a tiny minority of people. I was a SAHM when DH was earning a lot less than 60k a year, not that it was easy at all, in fact I was much worse off than when I’d been a part time working single mother on tax credits. I have quite a few friends who are SAHM and their DH earn less. We just don’t have the lifestyle that many of you on MN take for granted

Absolutely agree with this, the OP would of still be completely screwed over even if she had gone to the top of her career, assuming he still went ahead and squandered all their assets before the divorce as he did, which was abhorrent.
Whichever way she put in her work to the marriage whether through unpaid labour or increased earnings it looks like the theif would have taken it . Yes she would have a higher paying career now but she wouldn’t have had time with her children. By the sounds of it she’s still left with a very good career. I can’t really understand why didn’t go with the career if that’s what desperately wanted and even in hindsight would have given up that time had with the children.

Thats not what was going on tho - the husbands were quitting so that when they were assessed for finances they had 0 income bc they’d quit - or they could potentially get much lower paid job for a while I guess - then when the settlement has been decided they THEN go back to a higher paid job so those wages aren’t taken into account for CM or SM payments.

I agree they can do what they want in theory but the kids they brought into this world are their responsibility too - just bc they leave their mother, why should she have to pay for 100% of the costs involved?

This is the most interesting thing.People don't post their age, but you can sort of work out.Roughly, you know what I kind of saw was that the way older men think about women, it's not necessarily shared by younger men.So the way they describe things they will get pushed back in the forums.And the younger men seem to be much more involved with their children.And that seems to be the norm for them. Basically, the way they describe it, the older men is that they've worked.And the wife has contributed nothing.And that usually the point is that they never agreed for them to be a stay at home.Wife the younger men, just seem reluctant to marry or reluctant to marry someone that isn't working but you got to understand like this is a very specific segment of society.This is high earning men who work in finance.They're not the problem, I think, is that before, for a small period of time, maybe about thirty years ago, people were marrying.Let's say doctors were marrying nurses, right?All fine?All good, or doctors were marrying women that they had known from university.What the younger men seemed to be doing is the best way to frame.It is the young doctors are marrying young doctors.So that seems to be the change.It's interesting that the level of bitterness that the older men have seems to be.Exactly, the same level of bitterness that older women have.And it makes you think what exactly when on between them.

Their children are grown up though? As I said, why should spousal maintenance even be a thing? To be honest if me or my DH are perfectly entitled to get lower paid/quit jobs then why shouldn’t anyone else. Indeed we have in the past and just cut our cloth as a family accordingly. When I became a SAHM for a while we lived a very frugal life as a family, didn’t have holidays for years etc, when DH changed to a lower paying job similar. We are obliged to feed our kids etc but not to maintain a certain standard of living and if the only job we fancy doing is a minimum wage job then we’d be entitled to UC. Why on earth should non resident parents supposedly lose the right to do the same? I used to receive CMS some years it would be more and some years less, the only think would be annoyed about was it being calculated on income details that were wildly out of date or when they didn’t bother sending out the initial letter to ex for nearly a year (despite countless calls to ask for an update) then told me no back pay or compensation despite them being the ones to not bother doing the admin. If it’s based on the actual income at the correct calculated rate then that’s fair, whatever the income is. In reality you bring up kids with whatever you happen to have, and if you don’t have enough for the basics that gets topped up by benefits in the uk, the maintenance tends to pay for them to have that enhanced standard of living, clubs, decorate bedroom, pocket money, days out, holidays etc. if a NRP quit their job/got a lower paying one then it’s going to affect them significantly too so they’re probably doing it for the same reasons any of us would, if they then get a higher paying job then CM goes up accordingly

@BeCleverViewer I think you are right about a generational thing and the level of bitterness but I had it the other way round.

I had a long relationship with an older man and conceived ds. It was not planned but I made it clear to my partner that we would share all costs equally despite him being the higher earner. We were both professional people with houses, careers and pensions.

My ex, having agreed to ds, expected me to give up my career and keep his house and was furious when I returned to work. I found that puzzling. More worrying is that 17 years later he is still very angry. I've covered half of ds costs as we originally agreed, plus done all the work. Ex has never done a school run or a parents evening. Yet the bitterness is off the scale. I think it is more that older men expect to be the 'senior partner' and dictate how life runs, and do not cope well when they find themselves with someone who makes their own decisions.

I feel like you're absolutely Bang what I find with some older women is that they've got a level of entitlement. That shocks me. But what I find with older men is they've also got the same level of entitlement that absolutely shocks me. I don't understand it's like it's living in a different kind of reality that doesn't really allow for either side to be fully seen.And their contributions to be fully appreciated, but it's a horrible way to be on both sides.Because your ex sounds miserable.Do you think he's ever been happy.

I couldn’t agree more, there is a generation that sees totally indoctrinated by the idea that unpaid labour is totally worthless, I was told by my ex who left me with absolutely nothing and kept everything he had, house etc that I should of been grateful for the years he’d kept a roof over my head (despite having a nice home, quite comfortably off and a blossoming career before I became pregnant with our child - which I then had to start from scratch many years later) this despite me martyring myself doing 99% of the childcare and housework, in an effort to be a ‘good’ and supportive partner and in the end he didn’t recognise any of my contribution. Women can be just as bad, I remember a woman telling me her mum had just sat on her arse till she was 5!! 🤦🏼‍♀️

This too, the bitterness of my ex was off the scale despite us not being married and so leaving him with everything plus him paying much less CM than he should of for years, not sticking to shared care arrangements etc then read what some women expect on here and can’t get my head around it

Thanks @BeCleverViewer. Very interesting fly-on the-wall insights

It's interesting, isn't it? I generally find that weirdly enough. People that do have a solid stay at home work in relationship is one where actually they l talked about. The finances before, but the problem is it requires the woman to have financial literacy. And that doesn't seem to be a thing that people raised their female children. Having, and at no point, do they seem to have been invited to kind of learn. And on the men side they seem to have been brought up by women. Because remember, these men didn't just appear from the Earth, they were raised by women who supported their views, and they were raised by fathers who supported their views. But also conversely, the women who expected to be supported for the rest of their life were also raised by the same people. So that what was going on in a generation before that latest level of kind of confusion or entitlement is bizarre. But it's also really hard to believe. Someone is going to have a daughter . Insist she gets educated and then Not say anything when she tells you that she's giving up her job to rely on her husband completely. And has no understanding of the financial situation in her home or they've got a son who will come home and tell them, yeah, the wife has decided to stay at home with the kids. She had the baby 2 months ago, and she's a wasted space taking my money bh. This isn't just men or women. There's men and women on both sides.That's feeding these people.Why are they doing that?It's weird, but thank god, it seems to be over.And that is a generational thing.Because this is a horrible way to be about the person that has either supported.You staying at home or the person that has supported.You from the home.

This is a brilliant thread thank you for starting the conversation

The answer is dont get married and keep your finances seperately, get a joint mortgage which when you split up you just get 50/50, you say youve worked part time and obviously the kids are adults so no reason all these years that you couldnt have worked full time, the fact that women still think marriage is a contract that people wont break is beyond me....the divorce rate is 43% what makes you think you will be the exception

I have warned my daughters of this very thing
My dd2 was getting to know a young man and they talked about marriage in the future .
However, she decided that he was a no go when he said that when they were married she would go part time and he would work full time so that she could look after any children they may have .
The irony is that my dd has just finished university , is expected to graduate with a first in Economics and already has a job lined up in one of the big investment banks and has the potential to make more money than him
Women are expected to make the sacrifices even if they have better career prospects .

We were happy before ds was born, then he becamie dictatorial and controlling. He seems only to be happy now, if he is proving he is better or richer or more capable than someone else, especially me. As if he's always trying to prove that I was wrong to leave him and now I'll regret it, which after a decade and a half is ridiculous. If I change my car he isn't happy until he has a better one.

I'm not sure what he enjoys any more. He used to enjoy sport and cooking and hosting friends. It's a bit sad.

I think at the heart of it for men like him.Losing you was a loss, and it defines them, and they can't talk about it.Because you made his life better.And for some women, the loss of their husband is the complete loss of their lifestyle.Their network and their ability to do things that they may have done their whole life.I kind of don't excuse anyone's bad.Behaviour, but feel sorry for everybody involved.It's a horrible way to be.Can you imagine trying to compete with your ex's car?How small is world must be

Thanks op, this is great advice for the younger mums on here. I'm forever telling my younger colleagues to save for themselves and not leave themselves open to future financial instability.
Mn at it's finest x

My advice would be to not have more children than you can manage to support by yourself and keep all finances separate. Unfortunately, it's a case of, assume you'll get divorced at some point and it's a bonus if you don't.

Also, try to build up some emergency money if you can as well. Just in case he turns abusive or unpleasant and you need to be out asap. If they're useless or show red flags when you're having your first child, don't have any further children with them. If he treats you badly whilst you're ill or out of action for some reason, that's a red flag too.

Most men basically just want food, sex, time to themselves and ego boosts from wherever or whomever.