Wife's entitlement to my company pension

Valli

Arbitration (which the courts recommend) is fine IF both parties agree to attend initially and IF both parties abide by the terms they thrash out during their sessions - it's a guide not a legal agreement and must be ratified by the court.

If the OP is suing for the divorce then there must be grounds - irretrieveable breakdown/behaviour whatever. Unless they wish to go for two years separation with consent. Since the marriage has been so short, probably not.

And I would concur that children suffer from divorce - even if it isn't acrimonious, because they usually lose the day-to-day contact with a parent. Add in the way some divorced/separated parents use their kids as bargaining tools and you wonder, sometimes, just who the adults are. But, as far as I can see, this isn't relevant to this thread.

mgdavid

I think you mean mediation not arbitration?

jamesd

atush wrote: »

And actually, children suffer greatly from divorce. Esp if it is acrimonious.

That is not a universal truth. Children can also benefit significantly from a divorce. Financially, say - consider a family with multiple children where the father is living with a mistress and the wife divorces him. His income that wasn't really available may be replaced by legally mandated child support payments and benefits that could take the wife and children out of a poverty situation.

atush

For every rich father with mistress, there are going to be ten less rich fathers who dont turn over the maintenance on time.

And children of divorced parents have been found to perform worse at school in some studies.

Children need/benefit from regular contact with 2 parents (if they still have 2) and that quite often doens't happen with divorce. My OH is currently working away m-f and my teens are already missing being able to talk to him each evening and we haven't even split up.

property.advert

Any half decent legal eagle is going to come up with the suggestion that the short duration of the marriage means no entitlement for her in terms of pension or indeed any other material effects which she may attempt to claim.

If she has no pension pot, then why not ? if she has squandered her income on illicit dates and expensive hotel rooms during her extra marital affair then I would be offering her nothing and that would be my base position. If she contested it, I would need her to account for her expenditure and explain why she did not use that money for her pension.

I've been through divorce court and the best piece of advice is for you and her to agree and then simply get the lawyers to draw it up. You haven't been together long enough.

jamesd

atush wrote: »

For every rich father with mistress, there are going to be ten less rich fathers who dont turn over the maintenance on time.

I wasn't referring to a rich father, just a fairly normal one who wasn't handing over enough money while still married. In that particular case he was living a few hundred miles away from his children and visiting a couple of times a year.

atush wrote: »

And children of divorced parents have been found to perform worse at school in some studies.

How does that compare to say a still married one where two of four children aren't going to any form of school? Hard to get much worse school performance than not going at all.

If the comparison is between happily married and divorced I'd expect happily married to do better. When it's comparing divorced with unhappily married cases I doubt that it would be as favourable.

atush wrote: »

Children need/benefit from regular contact with 2 parents (if they still have 2) and that quite often doens't happen with divorce. My OH is currently working away m-f and my teens are already missing being able to talk to him each evening and we haven't even split up.

I agree that it is better to have two supportive parents around. I don't agree that it's better to have two still married parents, one of whom is mostly absent and disruptive when around, while blocking access to benefits and not paying enough to live at higher than poverty levels.