Split from Husband...need advice please

DS4215

linclass wrote: »

Hello,
I've left the marital home and moved in with someone I've known 3 years. His wife (she's started divorce proceedings) is claiming 1/2 of his RAF pension (he's 53, no longer in the RAF and working full time). My question is, as I'm the guilty party (left Husband) could I claim half of his pension? He has a works pension and not yet reached retirement age to draw the state pension.

Thanks in advance,

As others have said, you have a claim on his assets - including the pension - and any marital assets (house, car, etc), while he also has a claim on your assets. This claim may (or may not) be 1/2 depending on your circumstances.

BitterAndTwisted

sacha28 wrote: »

Personally I don't care what the law states. Why the hell should someone be entitled to take half of a pension that one person has worked all of their lives for? What's your pension looking like? Is it nice and hefty so his 50% is looking like a good bet? Or do you not work so don't pay into a pension so you're laughing?

I don't know the in's and out's of your previous relationship, it's none of my business, but, morally, I think it's a disgustingly selfish act to try and exhort as much as you can from a pot that HE has put into all of his life.

Generally, it's a joint-decision between man and wife to agree to what goes into the pension-pot, just like it's a joint-decision for one parent to stay at home to care for their children and not have a pension to pay into.

A joint marital-asset is just that: a joint-asset. Back in the Bad Old Days women were sometimes deserted and left with sweet FA after the divorce. Like my Mam for instance who was left homeless and penniless with a child to house and support. Oh yes, the courts awarded her a very lavish £3 a week while my father retained 100% of his extremely generous army pension and all of the gratuity, too. I'm sure she was very grateful after 25 years of marriage and little in the way of work-opportunities moving house every three years. Not.

Marriage is a union, and that union includes joint-assets. Don't want to share yours? Don't get married, don't have kids and don't live with a partner. Simples.

sacha28

6feet wrote: »

Possibly because she has bore and raised children which is an unpaid job??


I know that my pension is not even close to my DH's as I have had to take career breaks etc around our two children, and it is currently getting hammered again because I am on a 75% job share to facilitate child/home responsibilities.


If our marriage goes south my DH has been told the pension will be split 50/50 which I hope is the reason he stays with me and just accepts his lot in life...ROTFL

I raise our child, whilst working full time, because I'm happy to, it's what I chose to do when we decided to have a child. I don't see why this should mean that she is 'entitled' to a share of his pension. If she isn't working (and that is just an assumption) then, aside from raising their children, she has provided no finances into the household at all whereas he has gone out working god knows what hours to make sure they have a roof over their head and all the bills are paid. It kind of works both ways, don't you think?

Maybe I'm just some kind of freak that believes if someone has worked all their life to provide for themselves when they are no longer able to earn then that should be left well alone. If anything was to happen between my OH and I then I most certainly won't be going after his pension. Child maintenance yes, pension absolutely not.

Of course nobody knows what the circumstances of the relationship are, she may well have a good job with a good pension and therefore they both end up financially intertwined in their twilight years!!

sacha28

BitterAndTwisted wrote: »

Generally, it's a joint-decision between man and wife to agree to what goes into the pension-pot, just like it's a joint-decision for one parent to stay at home to care for their children and not have a pension to pay into.

A joint marital-asset is just that: a joint-asset. Back in the Bad Old Days women were sometimes deserted and left with sweet FA after the divorce. Like my Mam for instance who was left homeless and penniless with a child to house and support. Oh yes, the courts awarded her a very lavish £3 a week while my father retained 100% of his extremely generous army pension and all of the gratuity, too. I'm sure she was very grateful after 25 years of marriage and little in the way of work-opportunities moving house every three years. Not.

Marriage is a union, and that union includes joint-assets. Don't want to share yours? Don't get married, don't have kids and don't live with a partner. Simples.

I'm guessing this is in in the days before child maintenance laws came in?

I'm not saying what happened to your mum is right but your dad did 25 years in the Army, he worked it so why should he have to lose it?

What I'm trying to say is that, nowadays, if there are other assets then they are also split down the middle. The RP gets either the house or a share of the equity, then the NRP has to pay maintenance. In my (obviously naive) eyes, surely that's enough? The NRP pays a fair share for the upkeep of the kids and yet, when they are all grown up and paid for, the failed marriage comes up to bite them on the @rse as the ex still wants money in the way of a pot that that person has worked bloody hard to pay into. It may be legal but I don't think it's fair.

Prothet_of_Doom

Netwizard wrote: »

Cheating on your husband is pretty !!!!!! but to screw him for half of his pension too is just rubbing it in! (imo!). Still, as long as I keep reading threads like this, I know i'll never get married!!

Ah, I think you confuse emotion and finance.
Marriage is 2 things. The sharing of financial affairs, a joint partnership if you like, and after a few years of this sharing, then everything is owned 50/50.
It is also the shared emotions, the love, the lust, the sharing of erm.... bodily fluids.
Just because someone decides to share bodily fluids with someone else, doesn't mean that they are not entitled to their financial share.
I can't force someone to love me, to remain loyal, to put up with everything that I think is normal. I can't force them to keep their vows, but neither can I insist that I am entitled to more than my 50% when their changing emotions cause my heart to be broken and our vows to be cut to ribbons.
Of course the sharing of the 50% changes if there are children involved, but the principle doesn't change.

BitterAndTwisted

A person's contribution during a marriage is not limited to how much actual cash they bring in to the household. If a partner goes back to full-time work after having kids just tot up the cost in full-time child-care for ten hours a day. That's what the partner is saving from the household budget. Plus wages for the housekeeper, the gardener, the seamstress, the grocery-shopper, the nursemaid, and on and on.

Ozzuk

sacha28 wrote: »

I do find it unbelievable that there are people out there who will rip everything they can from their ex....from their heart to their hard earned pension.

Personally I don't care what the law states. Why the hell should someone be entitled to take half of a pension that one person has worked all of their lives for? What's your pension looking like? Is it nice and hefty so his 50% is looking like a good bet? Or do you not work so don't pay into a pension so you're laughing?

I don't know the in's and out's of your previous relationship, it's none of my business, but, morally, I think it's a disgustingly selfish act to try and exhort as much as you can from a pot that HE has put into all of his life.

I find it unbelievable that people can judge someone so completely based on a paragraph with no understanding of background.

What if someone was stay at home parent, the other person worked paying into a pension, marriage breaks down/maybe they cheated, so partner is left with no job, no career due to family responsibilities - why shouldn't they claim part of a pension that was accrued during their time together. If its a family salary then its a family pension.

Of course, this may not be the case here at all, I'm just pointing out its not always that black and white so maybe temper your indignation.

6feet

sacha28 wrote: »

I raise our child, whilst working full time, because I'm happy to, it's what I chose to do when we decided to have a child. I don't see why this should mean that she is 'entitled' to a share of his pension. If she isn't working (and that is just an assumption) then, aside from raising their children, she has provided no finances into the household at all whereas he has gone out working god knows what hours to make sure they have a roof over their head and all the bills are paid. It kind of works both ways, don't you think?

Maybe I'm just some kind of freak that believes if someone has worked all their life to provide for themselves when they are no longer able to earn then that should be left well alone. If anything was to happen between my OH and I then I most certainly won't be going after his pension. Child maintenance yes, pension absolutely not.

Of course nobody knows what the circumstances of the relationship are, she may well have a good job with a good pension and therefore they both end up financially intertwined in their twilight years!!

Wow, so you don't think saving all of that childcare cost wasn't contributing to the family finances?? No wonder women are still treated so unequally even though it's the 21st century!


I guess when my DH and I got married we agreed we were a united front and share everything. When I sold my flat I poured all the equity into paying down HIS mortgage as he had the house before we met, it was in his sole name.


I never worried as if we don't make it till death do us part than all the marital assets will be split which will include our pensions put together.

sacha28

I did say I was working on assumptions so don't get so worked up. I also said that I don't know the history and I was basing my opinions on the very little information provided.

I hate finances, root of all evil.

And, for what it's worth, SHE cheated not him and moved in with someone else. So she isn't homeless either.

paddy's_mum

It may be corny but it is true nonetheless that 'we' comes before 'I' in the word wedding.

Today we look upon marriage as love, romance etc but at rock bottom, those wedding vows are creating a legally enforceable contract, with outcomes and remedies enshrined in law.

Would people feel so shocked if it was a straightforward business enterprise that failed and both or all parties wanted to share out the assets in equal shares?

I also note that nowhere in the opening post does the poster even hint at why the marriage broke up. For all we know, her spouse has indulged in wife-beating, alcoholism, gambling, debt or any of those other cruelties that bring marriages to an end.

THe op's comment about guilty party suggests an older woman who is remembering the days when the person who left was deemed as wicked while society turned a blind eye to what punishments were handed out to make them want to flee a hell on earth.

Adultery may not be a pretty word or concept but it has been my experience in life that few women desert a thriving marriage.