agreement made - has come back for more

Hi, hope you could advise me..

Me and wife agreed to separate November 2020, she moved in to her own rental home in January 2021.

We both wanted Clean Break though not to divorce yet - mainly for kids. We have 3 kids 6, 9 and 10. We are coparenting 50/50 and over a 2 week period they spend the same number of nights at both houses.

I wanted to stay in marital home for continuity for children and my own sanity as found breaking up family devastating. She keen to start new life and wanted to move out ASAP.

We split all assets 50/50 - marital home equity and additional flat equity. As part of the deal I stay in marital home and she keeps flat though when it's aggregated up we get 50/50 split. I took out extra lending on marital home in order to pay her remaining share in cash. There are other bits and bobs e.g. lump sum for her furniture (she wanted everything new) pay her car each month until end of lease etc.

I work and she gave up her work to look after kids few years ago. She has had various projects that have ultimately been a net cost. Her new life plan was to start a new business and be earning a living enough for her and kids. I paid her £25k up front in cash in addition to equity etc mentioned above as living costs until she got on her feet. Agreement was that was it, all upfront as she wanted it - clean break.

We agreed this between ourselves and that was it - done, with an agreement we would not go back on it. Did not want divorce just yet for kids and because if there was a chance for getting the family back together we wanted that path back (has happened before).

Now, this week she has come back for more money - looking for spousal support each month for an unspecified amount of time.

Her position is it's fair as I'm a high earner and she lost her career.

My position is she got £25k upfront to setup her career and we agreed that was it.

Would appreciate opinions on this awful state of affairs.

Unless you have a court order saying that what you have agreed is it then she can, and probably will, keep coming back for more.

Thanks, though I kinda intuitively knew that.

I was hoping I'd put enough information in the original post for an opinion on whether the deal was way off in terms of fairness. Info around enough time/money for her to resurrect career and therefore income etc.

I don't think you can get a clean break or other order unless you are divorcing. I think I have read that you need a Decree Nisi before that can be done, although you may be able to have a separation order. Even then she could still come back for more when you actually divorce though.

makes sense.

I'm going to fill out the calculator tonight as detailed as I can so will come back here after that.

I suppose this comes down to what work she does going forward. 5 years ago she gave our her good career (circa £60k) to take the lead on bringing up our kids. She has always said how easy it would be for her to get back in to that career as she's well connected and has a good reputation - she's 40 years old. However she's decided to go in to a completely different line of business starting up her own business which since January has net approx £4k.

My issue is that it's not viable and her request for more spousal is based on the non-viability of this approach - i.e. she won't ever be able to sustain herself and the kids half the time in this new line of work.

It's my belief she's only come back for more money now she's realised that. (I told her this 6 months ago).

Would the court look at this sort of circumstances?

We don’t know what she did before but has been out of it for five years so unlikely to simply walk back in where she left off.

She will, however, be expected to maximise her income.

You haven’t stated your income. Are you in a position to pay SM for a few years while she retrains?