Spousal Maintenance

Hi This is my first post on the forum and I am seeking the experiences regrading spousal maintenance payments.

So after 13 years of marriage me and the wife have decided to separate and divorce on the grounds of irretrievable breakdown. My wife has filled the petition.

There are no children involved.

Basically we have no property assets, no shares, endowments, insurances nothing. We do however, have pensions pots of which mine is about 20K more.During our marriage I have always earns far more than my wife, say 2.5X her salary but I always provided 80% plus of this as housekeeping etc a few years back my wife reduced her hours to a four day week and has recently enquired about an early leavers scheme at her work for early retirement, she is 57 im 51, and has talked about moving to Spain.

The thing is I feel that this is terribly unfair that I might potentially have to finance her retirement for another 14/15 years and continue paying for her lifestyle.

Does anyone have any similar experiences of this? and what to expect?

Bump Alert

The point im trying to make is why should I have to continue to fund her lifestyle when she is continuing to work? She always had all of the bank accounts, access to all of the money, I just transferred my wages across. We never had any joint accounts. She asked me to leave when I said we need to talk about things but she wouldnt have any of it. I had £84 in my bank account (28thMay) and I have had to stay with family and friends and basically start all over again. And now she is wanting spousal maintenance payments, surely this cant be right? She wants the divorce, theres no assets what so ever involved, no children, nothing but im expected to continue to pay while she works a four day week and im travelling the length and breadth of the country trying to build my life back up again. You can tell that i am not too pleased about the whole situation because it seems so unfair. I am prepared to pack work in or get a menial job to prevent this happening.

The courts prefer a Clean Break, you are both able to work and support yourself I'd think your wife's chances of spousal maintenance are very slim she will be expected to fit her lifestyle to her means. Are you still paying for the house she is living in? Is it in joint names? It might be wise to sort that out sooner rather than later as if you show that you can afford to pay for accommodation for her as well as supporting yourself she has more grounds to claim. Realistically she only needs a one bedroom flat can she afford one on her current wage?

Thanks for the response Clawed. No I am not paying for her property, its a council house, two bedroom and her son lives there also, who works full time

We dont have any assests other than our pension pots and she is the only one with access to bank accounts, which is in her name anyway.

While you were living together you could share the housing costs and so you had money from your salary to pay for house keeping and so on but now you need to pay for your own housing you are unlikely to have any spare income to pay anything to her.

Another thing to explain to your ex is if she claims any benefits through universal credit then spousal maintenance is classified as unearned income. So hypothetically if you paid her £100 p/m in spousal maintenance the government will reduce her universal credit by the same £100 p/m.

So I would say you just need to say no and explain that if she wants to go to court to have them tell her the same it will cost her thousands of pounds.

Thanks for the response. She isnt on any benefit and works four days a week, she dropped a day off her own back. So i am guessing that I have to quantify all of my income into what I spend but would it have an effect if had money left over at the end of the month? say £500 for instance, would that be taken in consideration as spousal maintenance?

Your soon to be ex wife is housed and can work to support herself so spousal maintenance is very very unlikely. The difference in pensions might be an issue especially as you are younger than her so have more time to increase your pension pot but depending on the value of the pensions probably not worth going to court over. As your finances seem to be totally separate already a clean break Consent Order should be quite easy to agree. If your stbx thinks she is entitled to more it is up to her to consult a solicitor or wiki and get a realistic picture of what outcome is likely and how much it might cost to pursue a claim. I think you can stop worrying.