AIBU to think the system punishes hard working women during divorce

[Iris10000]

DH decided to leave us. We have two DCs who are 1 and 4. I will be the main caregiver and he will have them for Saturday all day plus two nights a week after school for the oldest one (youngest later as he was a not comfortable doing her bedtime or attending to night wakings). We both have solicitor as mediation failed. He wants 50% equity and equalise pensions. My plan was to buy him out to minimise disruption to DCs but I can only afford 40%. I will be basically a single mum for 6 days a week and bearing all costs (he will pay required child maintenance which doesn’t even scratch the surface of nursery fees). I thought the system recognised that but solicitor advised to separate the two and said it’s very usual to get 50/50 outcome. I would be devastated if we have to sell and move to a smaller house. DH’s solicitor suggested other towns but I am doing drop off and pick up at school and nursery which are in two different pms es then getting to work. Living half an hr away would not be doable plus I have friends and activities here. My wages are £75k working 4 days and his are £50 working full time. My pension is £100k and his £30k. The argument he has is that he cannot rehouse on £120k I offered him but can on £150k. Why should I be responsible for kids plus his housing needs and the fact he never wanted to progress at work and was happy for me to pay majority of house bills. And now I feel I am responsible for his future.

I feel for you OP. He is shitty for caring more about himself than his children. Can you comfort yourself that in the long run it will probably be the best thing you ever did to separate yourself from him.
A few more years and he should be able to have them both more regularly and you keep your good job and work ethic and your nursery fees reduce.
My friend was similar to you. Managed to keep her house and now has a great job and grown children and a new partner. Her ex tells people ‘she took the house and the kids’ to explain why he has failed at life.

It seems to punish women yes or the partner whose been left.
It seems they dominate everything

Absolutely. It’s all stacked against women, particularly higher earners as the system inherently presumes one parent is the main carer and one the higher earner and higher earning women are almost always also the main carer as well. This is not recognised and properly adjusted for by the courts in the division of assets.

CMS is a system clearly designed by men. Resident parents are almost 90% women so it is no councidence that the system is set up to ensure non-resident parents pay a paltry amount nowhere near 50% of the costs of raising a child. Imagine being able to say “To be comfortable I should be able to keep 85% of my income just for me and give my children 15%”. What actual parent spends only 15% of income housing and raising their child?! Or can just decide not to feed them or house them if their income drops, or choose to have further children they can’t afford and decide their existing children’s living costs will magically reduce to accommodate this?

The division of assets is determined assuming that resident parent women can work yet the non-resident parent isn’t required to pay 50% of childcare costs! They should have to do this and pay 50% of the actual costs of housing and raising a child. Why should the parent doing most of the caring also have to make up the financial shortfall? It’s a joke.

And then the paltry amount of maintenance is often not paid anyway and rather than pursuing this the same as tax evasion nothing is done about it. Even the US will levy proper penalties on non-paying parents like confiscating driving licences or passports. It should be registered as a proper debt on credit records with credit ratings downgraded for late payments, CCJs for non-payment and be made a criminal offence not to pay like with tax owed.

But the division of assets is the most disgusting part. The irresponsible parent waltzes off and can pay a tiny fraction of ongoing costs but argue that the woman who has already funding their lifestyle should continue to do so while also doing almost all the parenting and caring and providing financially for the children, making up the shortfall from their pathetic contribution (if any).

My ex-husband even tried to suggest I should pay spousal maintenance to him (with me being resident parent 100%) to keep him in the style he’d become accustomed to while married to me. The sheer audacity of these men.

Get a good solicitor who will expose this nonsense for what it is.

And as if he can’t rehouse himself on £120k. What utter nonsense. Why doesn’t he move to a cheaper area rather than expecting you to uproot the children?!

A decent solicitor is worth a lot. They can make it clear to the other party early in the process that you won’t tolerate such nonsense and therefore avoid things escalating to require a court hearing.

These self-pitying losers are the worst. I can’t imagine what calibre of women they think their sob stories will attract. 🤣

Yes I agree, speaking as someone who divorced as the higher earner. 'Luckily' my ex was so useless that even on my decent salary there would never have been enough for us to both be housed (and we had just upsized so barely any equity) so I was allowed to buy him out at quite a low cost. Also luckily for me he has a weird aversion to pensions, including other people's, so never wanted any of that. However, I think you should look for another solicitor as, though it is unfair, it needn't be that unfair and 60/40 doesn't seem ridiculous when you are having the dc moat of the time and he does have a decent job.

“I would be devastated if we have to sell and move to a smaller house.”

That is life, sadly OP. You have to live within your means.

I think what you are describing is a general legal delay in making sure that the divorce law matches social norms.

Another poster is right that it was set up (fairness can be debated) with an inherent presumption that you have by default: Man who works more, Woman who cares for family more.

You generally then get outcomes where (you can debate whether this works or how much is fair) the man pays more, and the women cares more.

But given that is increasingly not the case, you end up with situations like yours OP, that are obviously wrong. Where you have the women both paying and caring more. Hence it ends up feeling like they are getting everything, and you nothing.

I do expect this to change, in fact I expect a lot to change in how we deal with relationships now that women are increasingly out-earning men (on average at under 35, and increasingly making up the gap post 35). But all of these changes are always a generation too slow, as is the way with law/politics and society.

i would insist that a 50/50 outcome needs to be not just on current assets but costs and time responsible for the children. I have known divorce settlements go for nursery fees or school fees separate to maintenance, so push on that. Or offer you’ll take 60% of assets and 100% of childcare costs.

The higher earner in any marriage runs this risk, male or female. It's particularly unfair when a high earning woman does all the domestic work and is primary carer as well.

It doesn't make it right. It's part of the reason I've never married.

I'd try for 50:50 op.

Is it an option to buy him out of 40% of the house but give him 60% of your pension? Not ideal and you shouldn’t have to, but you can rebuild your pension over time and that way you wouldn’t have to leave your home

@Iris10000 I thought like you that I wanted to stay in the family home for the DC and we did stay there for 4 years. But it stopped us moving on. And ultimately moving really helped us make a new life properly. If I had my time again I would move sooner.

One thought does occur

You offered 40% equity

He wants 50% equity

The house now needs to be sold to pay for that equity

Some of that 10% will now be lost in house selling fees if not all of it

Is that something worth pointing out to him?

Assume it has all been agreed now though,

Also point out that if he agrees to 40% and the house is not sold he would get his money a lot faster

Again if the house sale falls through that would cut into the 10% he is arguing for

40% sounds a lot less risky and faster in this situation

Absolutely set up against working women. I work full time my kids father hasn't seen her in 3 years. Quit his job so no child maintenance and he wants half of everything including the house. Lol

Can’t he rent somewhere if he can’t afford to buy?

Are your children entitled to some free nursery hours as you work, I know you will likely still have to pay some top up.

He’s not comfortable doing bedtime and night wakings? He needs to give his head a wobble and grow up.

You need a better solicitor. 60/40 should achievable especially where you are responsible for housing the children.

I am actually more incredulous that he can get away with not having the younger child during the week because he can't be arsed to do bedtime and get up if they wake in the night!!

You have a shit solicitor. Instruct him you don’t care what he thinks is “reasonable” you want to keep the house.

Your dh CAN rehouse on £120k - he only needs a flat with one bedroom if he just has one dc to look after. He can rent. He can get a sofa bed for the lounge on the two nights he has the 4 year old.

Your solicitor should be making the case that your dh has almost unlimited potential to increase his earnings as he is doing only 5.4% of the childcare of dc2 (albeit nearly 50% for dc1). That means you NEVER have a whole weekend to yourself to do important things like DIY or focusing on dc1.

What’s the arrangement for holidays and sickness? Make sure it is clear he’s responsible for dc1 on the sick school days following his overnight - he doesn’t get to deliver a sick back to you and bounced off to work.

I think you need a new solicitor that will actually do some harder work on this negotiation and advocate better for you.

Set up against the person who is the primary care giver.

We assume that this will be the mother for .... cultural reasons?

I owned my house with a decent amount of equity when we met. He had no assets and moved in. Looking back, he was the classic cocklodger but I didn't see that at the time.

Over time, he started drinking more heavily and regularly beat me up. He then started beating my children up, so I got help and he was arrested and removed from my home. He was charged with assaulting us.

I filed for divorce. However due to the way the law works, he was entitled to a share of the equity in the house even though most of it had accrued before I met him.

I was ordered to either pay him a lump sum to cover his share of the equity or add him onto the deeds to be paid out if I later sold the house or youngest child turns 18 or if I remarried - whichever came first.

I re-mortgaged and paid him off to sever ties. I should have paid my mortgage off by now, but I'm still paying it off due to the lump sum I was instructed to give him.

It still really angers me that he hurt us so badly and walked away with a cash lump sum that I had to pay to him.

The person with the biggest income loses out, whether male or female. That's the deal of marriage.

Ultimately, he is asking for 50/50 which is reasonable. The children are little, but it's very possible that as they get a bit older, he has them those 3 nights a week. Also you are, understandably, working 4 days currently, but you could move to 5 days in a few years. Your pension will be much larger than his as things stands.

He needs to be able to house the children on the basis that they will be spending nights at his, and not move too far away to accommodate it.

He is the one who could have asked for more. Your solicitor is kind to you. They could encourage you to go for everything, charge you £50k for it, for a judge to agree on what they are suggesting now.

Change solicitor. You need one who will fight for you. Not one who can’t think past the way these things usually work.

Could you make it work if your nursery costs were lower? I’m wondering whether you could suggest giving him 50% but he is responsible for a percentage of nursery fees in addition to maintenance until your younger child starts school?

I had to change solicitor. I needed a Rottweiler.

I was the worker who brought all the assets in and he had all sorts of wild ideas including spousal maintenance.

Still choked me to have to buy him a house outright but as someone said, it’s how it works.

I used to laugh at that joke ‘Don’t get married. Just find someone you hate and give them your house and a car.’

and I did remarry!

It is an absolute joke. I will be advising both of my children to think very, very carefully whether marriage is necessary. I hope they will make wise choices. Getting married was the most expensive mistake I ever made, and I’m watching a friend go through the same now. Never again!!