Marriage breakup and divorce

sassyblue

Jim80 said:

DisablednProud said:

What was the reasoning behind her not contributing towards the mortgage at all (even partially) when she was working herself?  

Not sure of the relevance, does it change anything?
For an example, I was vastly better paid than my ex-wife. When she was part time working that money was put aside for holidays and the like. It kinda all goes into the same pot and would all be part of assets. Unless of course wife is giving assets away in order to collect them in a future date...

In a marriage of this length, no it doesn’t matter a bit. 

In a shorter marriage you could certainly argue the point and it could help, but again, if the husband was paid much better than the wife then she could argue the husband knew her circumstances pre marriage and still wanted to marry her.

Divorce is not a 'one size fits all' it all depends on the individual circumstances of the marriage and there can be a multitude of reasons.  I don’t find it helpful when people make comments according to experience when their experience must have been vastly different to the circumstances of the thread. 

Not saying it’s happened here but no judge is going to argue the wife should be worse off here because she couldn’t/wouldn’t contribute half towards the mortgage.  The wife had children to raise and women’s pay (if she worked) can still be worse than men’s.  We also only have the OP's word that she wouldn’t contribute and again, the time to disagree was way back then not 20 years and three children down the line.

everything in this marriage is going to be looked as a starting point for a 50/50 split.