Separated, how much should I provide?

Sarah-Jean

I think she's taking the Michael to be honest. I'm also wondering if you'd mind marrying me, and then we could get a divorce and you could give me a load of money for nothing too! :P LOL

Seriously though, I'm sorry you're going through all this. She needs to wake up and join the real world. You've been very fair by the sounds of it and she is not being realistic in her demands.

JackRS

mighty_hammers wrote: »

I do not understand you paying her spousal maintenance. I was divorced in 1998 and my solicitor then said it was a thing of the past. Our son was 2yrs old, i kept the house, which I bought before we were together (10yrs), he kept his total pension. we were together 5yrs, I was not working after he was born, having worked all my life, i had to get on with it.. My husband now, was with his wife for 20yrs, she is 10yrs older and this was taken into account, her available working yrs. Her solicitor offered him 6k a 94/6 % split of the house in her favour, his solicitor said he should accept. I knew alittle after my divorce, went to the library read everything i could, and we went and saw his solicitor together. I gave her a right telling off, my husband very passive and said she needed to get her act together and earn her money, we also complained to the solicitors practice. He got 26k, all his pension 30k plus, all the joint debts were paid off from house equity and no spousal maintenance, even though their son was 17. she had money to provide a home and he was of an age to work. My point i guess is, as other have said this is 2014, 16yrs after i was told SM was a thing of the past.

Thank you thats an interesting insight there seems to be stories at both ends of the spectrum. Believe me I am determend to reach a fair compromise. Which is why I've been sharing so much detail on here to get a balanced view although I appreciate you only get my side of the story.

An update on the house sale:

We've put it up on emoov, at a total upfront cost of £528 including for sale sign. So we'll see if this will help it to sell quicker? She paid it and requested I transfer my half which I have done.

JackRS

kelpie35 wrote: »

This is something I have been thinking about Jack but not too sure if it will be relevant to your situation but might be useful information you might be able to bring up during the mediation.

Have you worked out how much she has lost in JSA during your time apart.

I can see no reason why she has not claimed this for at least the past year. Your children are of an age that they don't require a SAHM.

I hope, for your sake, that this mediation can bring a swift end to your situation.

Take care and remember to look after yourself.

Thanks, JSA is around £72 a week as I see it so yes during 2014 up to the end of june that's 26 weeks missed out on £1872, probably more if she got a job. I don't think mediation will bring a swift end because she won't back down. She seems to think that it'll be a quick session at mediation?

JackRS

Sarah-Jean wrote: »

I think she's taking the Michael to be honest. I'm also wondering if you'd mind marrying me, and then we could get a divorce and you could give me a load of money for nothing too! :P LOL

Seriously though, I'm sorry you're going through all this. She needs to wake up and join the real world. You've been very fair by the sounds of it and she is not being realistic in her demands.

Why thank you, are you sure you'd want to marry me with all that luggage on my back

Her argument will be need to provide home for the young adults that are our children, and I will say I'd also like to provide somewhere for them to live with me if they choose to. She says they won't want to. She's been advised that due to length of marriage (28 years in a couple of weeks) and the fact that she gave up work to stay at home for teh children then to manage the home to allow me to focus on my career and hobbies she is entitle to half and to compensate for her earning potential. So I know many other cases where the lady has life time maintenance and has been given the house etc. I need a reasonable justification and response, clearly 80/20 isn't fair.

Ames

Sarah-Jean wrote: »

I think she's taking the Michael to be honest. I'm also wondering if you'd mind marrying me, and then we could get a divorce and you could give me a load of money for nothing too! :P LOL

Seriously though, I'm sorry you're going through all this. She needs to wake up and join the real world. You've been very fair by the sounds of it and she is not being realistic in her demands.

I was about to say the same!

JackRS wrote: »

Thanks, JSA is around £72 a week as I see it so yes during 2014 up to the end of june that's 26 weeks missed out on £1872, probably more if she got a job. I don't think mediation will bring a swift end because she won't back down. She seems to think that it'll be a quick session at mediation?

Plus council tax benefit, and some tax credits. And it's more if you believe what she says about being too ill to work because of all the stress, as she'd have been getting disability benefits instead. (As I said, if what she's saying is true and can be proven).

JackRS wrote: »

Why thank you, are you sure you'd want to marry me with all that luggage on my back

Her argument will be need to provide home for the young adults that are our children, and I will say I'd also like to provide somewhere for them to live with me if they choose to. She says they won't want to. She's been advised that due to length of marriage (28 years in a couple of weeks) and the fact that she gave up work to stay at home for teh children then to manage the home to allow me to focus on my career and hobbies she is entitle to half and to compensate for her earning potential. So I know many other cases where the lady has life time maintenance and has been given the house etc. I need a reasonable justification and response, clearly 80/20 isn't fair.

Did you really push her to giving up work to do all the housework so you could have a hobby? Really? Or is that her spin on it?

Have you actively stopped her working since the kids were old enough not to need looking after? Which is about five years at least?

Presumably she had a part in making the decision not to work.

I can understand how 50/50 isn't fair, that she should get a little more than that. But you have to see that she's spent the last year engineering her situation to make you pay more. I don't know her educational background, but she could be a third of the way through a degree, she could have finished a masters degree, she could be well on the way to qualifying in something like accountancy or hairdressing... instead she's sat around saying 'Jack has to pay for me forever'.

She's deliberately closed doors.

Would you have any sympathy for someone who went into town on a Saturday night, and deliberately had a go at a hard man and got a thumping just so they could claim criminial injuries compensation? No? That's what your wife's doing to you. Except you're the one getting thumped and the one paying out!

LannieDuck

The thread is too long now for me to check back, but wasn't she working until 4 years ago, or something like?

duchy

She has worked ........ And I think it should be noted that she did and whether Jack made her give it up as the housework wasn't getting done or if she chose to herself for another reason.

JackRS

duchy wrote: »

She has worked ........ And I think it should be noted that she did and whether Jack made her give it up as the housework wasn't getting done or if she chose to herself for another reason.

Thanks everyone for your support.

To clarify her work history, we made a joint decision not to return to work when the children were young. Then as they got older she did work around them, including working at an estate agent at weekends and courier work .

She used to help at the infant school then started as Teacher Assistant but the role got more demanding with additional training courses to attend in order than the TA’s could cover for the teachers to free them up for planning etc. The role got more stressfull and she discussed with me that she wanted to stop work as it causing her to much stress.

So I agreed that she could stop work and did the housework so at the weekends all I had to do was gardening and decorating. She did voluntary work at an animal sanctuary 2 half days a week. She also continued to go back to the school once a week to help out but this was voluntary. She stopped work at the school 6 years ago.

Obviously the spin she plays now is that she sacrificed her career for the family and to allow me to focus on my career and hobbies.

During last year she attended various IT courses to bring her up to speed with Microsoft office applications. She has applied for some jobs but not been successful.

duchy

It's a tough market out there right now and I suspect as she has already applied for jobs it has come as a big shock that she isn't as employable as she assumed. Combine feeling she failed at her marriage and she may be genuinely shaken confidence wise . Not that is any excuse.
Do you have any network contacts to try and find her the offer of temp work Jack? Obviously you don't need to be working directly with her but you may have the contacts to give her that push back into employment that will build confidence which would benefit everyone.

JackRS

duchy wrote: »

It's a tough market out there right now and I suspect as she has already applied for jobs it has come as a big shock that she isn't as employable as she assumed. Combine feeling she failed at her marriage and she may be genuinely shaken confidence wise . Not that is any excuse.
Do you have any network contacts to try and find her the offer of temp work Jack? Obviously you don't need to be working directly with her but you may have the contacts to give her that push back into employment that will build confidence which would benefit everyone.

Yes it is tough however she is very capable with experience in admin and secretarial roles with 3 years at the BBC and 10 at IBM although the experience is not recent. There are a number of temp agencies that my company use so she could have been registered to them. Following on from the office applications training she received I gave her one of the excel test exercise I use to help select temp staff for one of the roles in my group. She could do temping just to get some recent experience under her belt, I know she could do a better job than some of the temps that my company use. It’s just getting in as her CV shows no recent experience.