Divorce in England and Wales

[mtbc]

I caught an odd story on the news this morning about divorce, probably related to the Owens' appeal court case in England with a judge explaining, it is not a ground for divorce if you find yourself in a wretchedly unhappy marriage, and I got to thinking about it. mst3kmoxie and I can barely afford to live together in one small house in which even with limited possessions we are much on top of each other. We have no nearby family and are tied to the area to keep the children in their current secondary school. I doubt that we are unusual in this. So, how do people divorcing on good terms actually afford to do so, if they remain friends and are happy to continue to help each other out? At least couples with children ought to try to avoid unnecessary ugliness.

In England and Wales the legal grounds for divorce seem to involve things like abuse or adultery and being able to live very separately is relevant. What if a couple have simply grown apart: there is little romance or even interaction and they want to no longer be legally entangled financially or contract-wise or whatever? It sounds like, unless they are wealthy enough to truly live separately or want to behave very poorly or whatever, then they are stuck in the marriage. I don't know what people in this situation actually do but I can't help but wonder if they could do with a website through which people who want no-fault divorces can find another such local couple and one partner from each can pretend to live at the other couple's house. Maybe they can even pretend to be adultering though it seems silly to me that they would have to consider such perjury. Up here Scottish law is probably different but perhaps not greatly. I wonder if there could be many couples trapped within the legal consequences of marriage by high property prices that force them to continue to live as a unit.

Comments

[aldabra]

If you don't contest an unreasonable behaviour divorce it tends to go through on the nod; I know someone who was divorced for, inter alia, "having a facility with words and language." The problem with the case currently in the news is that the chap is refusing to be divorced for unreasonable behaviour. In which case, and if she can't demonstrate actual unreasonable behaviour, she has to desert, and then wait five years.

In your case, if you withdrew to some cheap flat with your salary your family would become eligible for a bunch of welfare benefits they're not eligible for while you're supporting them (and you would become liable to pay support at something like 20% of your net income; disclaimer: I haven't needed to know any of this recently and it may have changed; second disclaimer: it may work less well depending on immigration status). In cases I've seen recently, the person withdrawing withdraws to live with a new partner *who has housing already*, so doesn't incur all of the costs of housing themselves, and the person who is left stays in the existing house.

[mtbc]

Thank you, that is interesting and informative. I had generally assumed that welfare benefits are so paltry as to be negligible, probably increasingly so under the Conservatives, but I certainly may be wrong about that: goodness knows a fifth of my net income would leave mst3kmoxie and sprogs a massive hole to fill even if we also take their car away.

True, in our specific case immigration status would be a major thorn; let's ignore that as being too unusual, against how common it must be for families' income to already be borderline treading-water before trying to also budget for a cheap flat (which I am guessing are rather lacking in many places, certainly around here I'd expect £100/week or somesuch) and more council tax. I guess it thus makes a lot of sense that many cases of people actually achieving divorce would indeed include availing themself of their new partner's abode. It's as if one really ought to line up a new partner before divorcing the previous, which might work less well if one quite sensibly weren't much wanting to quickly reentangle oneself.

In my ignorance I hadn't realized that uncontested divorces tend to go through on the nod. That is at least reasonable. It is amusing to think of in my case what I could possibly cite. I was a bit irritated when I would leave pens around the house so that I always had one handy and mst3kmoxie would tidy them all up again! We seem to have worked that one out.

[aldabra]

I don't know how welfare benefits work out (because I'm an unusual case, and working, and on tax credits, which have been replaced by universal credit which is distinctly less generous). But I think the general strategy would be to leave and take any savings with you (because having savings makes you ineligible for benefits), and pay more in maintenance if the savings were meaningful (because maintenance payments don't make you ineligible for benefits), and then they get universal credit and housing benefit and child benefit reduced council tax and pressure to find work.

I'm not advocating this 8-/

[mtbc]

I was saving around $1000/month in Boston while managing to eat out and whatnot and at the time I left I had become rather underpaid given how the market was recovering. However, clearing our debts then moving to Scotland and setting up here emptied our savings and the lower income and higher expenses here have since prevented us from accumulating any again. (We didn't even need to own a car in Boston.)

Yes, the universal credit thing sounds rather miserable, though at least maintenance payments don't count against them, that's a good surprise. I do increasingly suspect that there are people, at least in England and Wales, staying unhappily married only because they can't actually afford to divorce. Though, from what I recall when I last looked in a wholly different conversation, housing benefit is actually at a reasonable level, at least around here. As a single-house family we're enough at the tipping point that child benefit, while not a lot, actually wins us appreciable extra breathing space. Though, I consider myself to be on a pretty decent salary (high-40s) by local standards, I shudder to think how it might be for a more average family.

[aldabra]

I think there have always been people trapped in unhappy marriages because they can't afford to leave, and we may in fact be as good as it has ever got, give or take the last parliament and a half. My Grannie had to leave her job when she got married (as a teacher), and I think didn't start it again until she was widowed; there was a lot of structural keeping people dependent, which we've managed to reduce.

[mtbc]

That makes a lot of sense … I just hadn't really thought about it before hearing today's news coverage and looking into when one can divorce here. Also I suppose that, coming from living in Ohio for many years, I am very sensitive to how much more expensive property is here, so how it interacts poorly with those grounds.