Preventing future wife taking 50% in possible future divorce.

Timmne

Londlad seems to have a similar typing style to the recent trolls.

It's really tiring seeing these pathetic windups - they're becoming too regular and getting more annoying.

Labman_2

Looks like he's moved on to here:-

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=4689249#post4689249

Poppy9

There was a MSE member who was good at finding out if posters were using different AE for wind ups. Can't remember his name but he used to lurk around the Techie boards and be very helpful.

digp

Rflol Rflol Rflol Rflol

Jane2112

pennypuppy wrote: »

Ok honey, my son is 20 and I will say exactly the same to you as him.
First of all as a mother I would be proud of a son who can write what you did. I don't mean the good earnings (though they are brill), I mean the logical way you are seeing life. You sound realistic and understandably cautious. Definitely see a lawyer and in the meantime do not get her pregnant unless intentionally. You may be in love but you are still young.If she is in love then its normal for her to want to get pregnant and married.Just do not be pushed into it. Also, 'love' often dies down after the first lustful year and it can take a few to know its for keeps.As you know the kind of job you have will lead you to work long hours with colleagues and that can be problematic.To be really cruel about it your remark about her not having no qualifications sounds to me like its a niggle that could become a real issue. Does it irritate you? I am not slagging you for it, I just can't help thinking her views on some things to do with children may be out of sync with your own. I don't want to encourage you to look for trouble but I do think you are being wise.Good luck and stay grounded.

I second this post. I would suggest you dont get married just live together and keep seperate accounts. It seems like some of your saving habits have rubbed off so sit her down and discuss money. Why do we find it so difficult to talk about money and sex and not necessarily in the same sentence .
I also found the remark about her not having qualifications, motivation or drive a little unpalatable and whilst is a niggle now could well become major stumbling block later on. Just enjoy the relationship while it lasts.
Personally I wouldnt marry anyone who had a 'just in case' plan going on.I have been happily co-habitting for 10 years with seperate accounts etc and everything works well as long as you talk.

wanttosave

sounds like bradly and stacy from eastenders! look on the bright side , they split up . but on the down side she is now sleeping with his dad!! lol

westernpromise

Tustastic wrote: »

If I were in your position, I would share absolutely everything with my spendthrift low-earning OH. BUT I would have the house in my name, my name would be on all the bills and if they needed a credit card, I would provide a pre-paid one.

I have taken advice on this myself although not married, just cohabiting with 2 kids.

For cohabitees with kids, the course of action you outline above would be disastrous - the more the OP gives her now, the more she can claim later. You are better off treating a cohabitee spouse badly; you don't get brownie points for having been nice, you get punished.

The best way for the OP to minimise his cash hit if she gets pregnant is to end the relationship on the spot. She will then only get about 15% of his earnings for 18 years, although if he's been daft enough to house her, she can claim shelter too. If he's wealthy, she might well get shelter, too, so don't house her, make her find her own place. Look at that millionaire recently who made a mistress pregnant and was required to give her a free house and an income for life. He hadn't even lived with her - the court clobbered him just for being rich.

If married, it varies according to the kid situation, but basically the OP should expect to lose at least 70% of their joint net worth to the missus. It could be worse (90% has happened I believe). That's 70% of his own net, frankly, if he's earning £350k and she's on 8 grand a year or whatever.

In a divorce you have to come uo with a statement of all your cash and assets and there is then a horse trade around the form in which the wife gets all the husband's money.

The only way to minimise the damage is to marry someone as rich as or richer than yourself, who resumes work rapidly after each kid and who thus cannot plausibly claim to have packed in a career to raise them. In that event, the OP will still have to give her 70%, but at least that's 50 of hers and 20 of yours leaving you with 30 of your 50, as opposed to 70 of yours leaving you 30 of your 100.

Marriage in the UK is a very good investment for women, and as there's only one pot, and it's zero-sum, it's a very risky one for men. You are better off sh@gging around.

If you wanted to preserve your position non-legitimately, a few scams are possible. One is to buy wine. You're supposed to declare it, but unlike funds transfers into deposit accounts and other investment vehicles, it doesn't create ana ccount or anything; you just get a ticket saying that 20 cases of Chateau d'Yquem belong to you. So you keep that in your desk at work and she'll never find it. And if she does, who's to say you haven't drunk it? She can't prove a negative.

Another I guess is to deposit large chunks of cash at a casino. Again, you don't declare it because you lost it at roulette didn't you?

The final resort is to just fritter it so that at the moment you have to state your assets, they look absolutely dire. You'll always generate new wealth but she won't.

You can also perhaps horse trade a bit around things like school fees. You coudl point out, for example, that if she tries to take 70% of everything you've worked for she's going to have to find the school fees out of what she gets. Alternatively, she could get reasonable about matters, reflect on what she's really contributed and settle for much less with you paying the fees.

In any case, don't tell her what you earn and certainly don't tell her what your bonuses are. If you're collecting £300k bonuses and she thinks you're getting £50k she's not going notice all the wine and casinos.

TBH at 23 you are in no position to know who you want to marry. When you're 30 and earning 6 to 7 figures you will move in totally different social circles and get totally different offers from a totally different sort of woman with whom you will have much more in common than your 23-year-old peasant girl of today. I can remember what sort of woman I went out with when I was 23 and quite honestly they were utterly unsuitable life partners. They usually had nice bodies and pleasant personalities so they were suitable to be dribbled over and that was it. Please don't rush into this - and by rush I mean before you're 35.

westernpromise

Poppy9 wrote: »

Personally as a woman I wouldn't marry any man who was planning ahead in case of divorce. It just wouldn't feel right.

As a woman, however, you already know that if it falls apart, you get pretty much everything. So you don't need to plan ahead, do you?

Women who think men shouldn't be planning ahead around divorces are like rich men who think poor men should stop going on about money.

westernpromise

tankgirl2000 wrote: »

Your work, in my opinion, is of NO greater value than that of a mother. YOU try raising children, it is often thankless and challenging work, but if it is not done well or conscientiously the consequences are indeed dire. It is 24/7, no time off! No annual leave! no sick cover! No pension! If you are married and have a family, you each make an equal contribution to that family, either as the bread winner or the home-maker.

Not necessarily. Until you actually see her doing it, you have NO idea how effective a woman will be at child rearing. If she's useless at it and useless at generating income as well, what's the value of her contribution then?

I made about £170k last year and the other half is a SAHM. I get up at 7, get home at 8pm, cook a proper dinner from scratch, tidy up afterwards, bath the children, settle the eldest and get free about 11pm, rarely earlier. When I say "free" I mean "free" to manage the money and the household bills and quite often do the Ocado order too.

Her day starts between 9 and 10, whenever the youngest wakes up. She gives them breakfast and dresses them then takes the eldest to nursery for 12.30. She comes home, goes back to bed with the youngest, and then gets up to collect eldest from nursery at 3. She then goes round to her mother's place and times her arrival home for just before or just after my own.

"No time off"? She's only in charge for about 2 hours in the morning. The rest of the time either I, the nursery, or her mother look after one or both children. She does the washing and the dishwasher, but she doesn't actually put anything away from it, she just piles everything on the counter around it. She doesn't do the ironing - we have cleaners in for 12 to 15 hours a week who do all that. We still live in a tip anyway, because she never ever tidies up - coats are left where they drop on the floor, etc.

Pre-kids this was a reasonably together and organised person because without a man around she had to be. As soon as that circumstance changed she regressed. And I didn't see it coming.

Every few months we have a blazing stand up row about the above in which she gets very angry at being given honest performance feedback, but then realises how very hard her life would be if I left. She'd get ~25% of my income (more than she has ever earned in her own right) but she'd have to move back to her own flat, which I have made damn sure she hasn't sold. I could live on £125k a year as a single bloke, but what keeps me here is the thought of how the girls would do with her as their main parent and her obstructing their contact with me.

The OP needs to be as focused in his relationships as he is in his career. I predict that if he marries this woman he'll fail as a banker. From what he's told us, if he thinks she's the one, he's not equipped for success in the City.

lizzie12_2

Not sure you are ready for settling down yet......... go out and enjoy yourself, have your holidays trips out etc etc, Live together if you must - that in itself will be a testing point for you both. Enjoy your hard earnt cash while you are young...... with your lovely girl.