My friend needs your help, wife threatening to take everything!!

Feisty_Fairy

Hi all,

I am writing on behalf of a dear friend of mine (male) who has been married for 40 years and he and his wife have now decided that they wish to go their seperate ways,(maybe divorce) unfortunately they have fallen out with each other and the wife is now threatening to take my friend for everything she can.:mad:

In a nutshell, he has worked his whole life (very hard too) for 22 years he had his own retail business and she didnt help with this at any time or work herself (other than a few hours per week, when their son was a toddler ,hes 40 now). She has had everything she wants in life due to him working all the hours god sends and she stayed home.

Now they have a lovely house which she is threatening to make him sell or buy her out, which he cant afford (he is 65 and just semi retired), also she says that she is entitled to half of everything, including house, contents, pensions, savings etc AND also any earnings he may earn now and in the future!!!:eek:

She says she has been told this by a solicitor and that she intends to live off him as she is allowed to do so!:mad:

So can anyone offer my friend any advice? Anyone from a legal background that can advise of where he stands? He is so worried he is going to lose his home which he loves so dearly.

Any advice greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance

Feisty!

duchy

I think he needs to follow his wife's example and go and see a solicitor.
Internet legal advice is only worth the paper it is(n't) written on.

chattycathy1674

He needs to see a solicitor as said above.

She probably is entitled to half of everything....it's been a long marriage. He's been out to work and she's stayed home to raise the family and look after the home. A full time job itself. It seems they had the traditional roles that many marriages of that era followed.
No idea about future earnings though!


XoXoX

Milky_Mocha

She has looked after the home he so loves. She's spent more hours than he has raising their son. In my opinion she is absolutely entitled to at least half his earnings. Its 2007 and a lot of eyes have opened since the Dark Ages but still people don't realise the value of a home-maker and one-on-one attention to a growing baby/child.

In many cases (I don't know the specifics of this case but i'd bet its not hugely dissimilar) the 'working' spouse has been able to achieve all he has in his working life due to the backing and support of the stay-at-home spouse (not to mention cooking, house cleaning, invaluable advice giving, being home to receive his mail packages, giving him lifts to the airport for his business trips, patiently enduring his annoying habits but loving him anyway, taping his favourite TV shows while he's at work, patching his trousers, ok I'll stop now).

All too often when things go sour, all the 'working' spouse remembers is that she (and I appreciate it could be a he) came into the marriage with nothing but the clothes on her back.

Tell him to find a lawyer.

Kimitatsu

Proper legal advice is really the only way.

But there have been several high profile cases recently where women who have split up with their partners who have had large amounts of money have been entitled to everything she is saying.

Just because she has not worked in the business she has enabled him to do so is the way the courts have viewed it and so is entitled to a share of those rewards. Similarly with his pension she will now not have any provision to earn a pension herself and so it is up to her husband to provide her with a living as he can afford to out of his pension which she helped him to earn.

He needs to try and sort out as much of it as he can with her rather than argue through the courts because the only winners in a divorce are the solicitors!

seven-day-weekend

After such a long marriage, I'm sure she will be entitled to half for the reasons others above have m entioned.

She may also be entitled to half his pension as she may have had no opportunity to build one up heself if she has been a homemaker and mother.

I don't see why though having got these things that he should continue to support her after the devorce.

But he needs to see a lawyer urgently.

Hope it works out, what a sad end to forty years together.

teacup_2

I second what milky_mocha has said on this one. Your friend was lucky to have a stay at home mum who felt she could stay at home and not compromise his career, by having to follow her career. Think of all the money she has probably saved in childcare and take-aways by cooking over the years. When the child was ill who moped their brow and cleared their sick up?,. Who washed all their clothes and kept home so he would have a nice home to come home too. Its 50 , 50 in partnership and just because someone has not contributed financially does not mean they have not in other ways time, love etc etc. Also your friend might be tired and cross when he gets in and treat her like a slave. I am not saying he is but , I would say when someone has been a support for this long they are entitled to at least half, when the bitterness has gone (if) I am sure it will settle .
Also he is lucky to have a family as well as a business as he sounds like he was putting a lot in to work. His wife might have got fed up it might have seemed like he was all work work, I appreciate she cannot take everything, but I would say at least half. Also it is hard as no one knows them or their situation.:rolleyes:

ps I am a stay at home mum and if our yearly work was salaried ie, child carer, chef , cleaning services ,ironing services, personal shopper, teacher , gardner , taxi service , nurse, organiser dont need to go on .............................It would mount up to a lot. Sometimes I think that when my husband comes home and the place is all tidy , he just thinks its like that and stays like that all the time, also the fairies iron shirts. In this day and age more woman want careers and i think it is nice that a woman likes to tend to her flock at home ( and I appreciate not everyone can due to financial, personal etc). But I do it because I want to, and I love my family. 99% of the time !

Would it be fare if we split up and I walk away with nothing? and I have to go the housing and say I am homeless?. While my husband stays in the maritial home. She has a life too
I dont agree she is entitled to future earnings from this point

Tao81

:shocked:..........I am speechless!!!!!!!!!

Feisty_Fairy if you are of the female gender then you ought to feel throughly ashamed of yourself?!!............
As if the female role in the home and childrearing arena are not undervalued enough within modern society as it is?!! :eek: (Why do you think so few men take on the role, it can be crucifyingly difficult and thankless, that's why?!!)

We don't need stupidity like this here?!! ......Go post somewhere else where you will be assured the company of your fellow philistines!

Slavery was rightly banned many moons ago?!!!
However, some men remain callous enough to take the view that by simply re-branding it and giving it a slightly softer image, such as using the term housewife (knowing what this engenders), that this sly modern twist somehow gives them the authority and arrogant right to, without conscience, happily inflict the same injustices on a fellow human being here in the 21st Century??????!!!!!!!!! Astonishing!!!!!

I'm behind her all the way:T.......She's deserves a future too!..... especially in view of all the hard work and commitment she has put in to the relationship, children and the home.

I wish her every good fortune during this tough battle!
She doesn't deserve such lousy treatment, my heart goes out to her!:heartpuls

frenchconnection200

My OH works full time I work 3 days a week and I'm therfore subsidised by him financially!! However OH doesn't need to go to the supermarket, take the kids out to buy clothes/shoes, get hair cuts etc and as he pointed out this morning when I came down with yet another load of washing to sort ''it never stops for you does it?'' As others have pointed out I bet the OP's friend has had a cushy life at home with all his home comforts provided for him after a hard day at work. Forty years of that is worth half of everything I reckon.

Dan_Thunder

FAO: Tao81

Are you serious!? How can you possibly call it slavery when the OP has clearly indicated that this woman hasn't worked since their - now 40 year old! - son was a toddler!? I don't see anything in the original post that says that this woman has been forced to stay at home or that she's been chained up in the house!

You talk about other people's stupidity when you've automatically made assumptions about these people without anything to back up your views on them. That's ignorant and it's hypocritical.

Personally I agree that this person deserves a good life post-divorce, but I don't agree that it's for you to criticise these people when you've only got one person's viewpoint on the situation.

grade15

he's 65, how old is she?
why not just seperate and live apart..for a while.. he can rent a place for her
why do they NEED to divorce.. unless she wants to go find a fella