My cheating husband earns £450,000 – how do I stiff him in the divorce?

Eleanor suspects her high-earning husband of cheating (Picture: Getty Images)

The end of a marriage is almost always a traumatic and deeply emotional process, especially when infidelity is involved.

It’s entirely natural to want the legal system to validate that hurt, to ‘punish’ the person who caused it by financially overcompensating the victim. But family courts in England and Wales don’t operate that way.

This week’s Money Problem comes from Eleanor, 42 and a stay-at-home mum living in Surrey.

Suspecting her high-earning husband is having an affair, she asked Metro consumer champion, Sarah Davidson, whether his cheating can be used to secure the maximum possible financial settlement.

The problem…

I am almost certain my husband of 12 years is having an affair with a junior colleague at his private equity firm, but I haven’t confronted him yet because I want to get my ducks in a row first.

She’s keen to get her ‘ducks in a row’ before confronting him (Picture: Getty Images)

He earns around £450,000 a year including bonuses, and we have a £2.5 million house in Cobham and a seaside holiday home in Cornwall. I gave up my own – lucrative – financial PR career to raise our three children.

I feel I’m entitled to at least half of everything, plus enough maintenance to keep my current lifestyle exactly as it is – including the nanny and the horses.

Because he’s the one cheating, does that mean the courts will penalise him financially? How do I make sure I get the absolute maximum payout before I drop the bomb?

The answer…

Discovering that your spouse is having an affair is devastating.

However, you need to prepare yourself for a hard truth about how divorce works in this country: the family courts do not care that your husband is cheating on you.

In April 2022, the law in England and Wales changed to introduce no-fault divorce. This removed the requirement to cite adultery or unreasonable behaviour as grounds for ending a marriage – now you simply state that the marriage has irretrievably broken down.

Even before this change though, the courts rarely allowed infidelity to influence financial settlements.

The legal system views the division of assets as a practical exercise in meeting the future needs of both parties, not as a mechanism for punishing bad moral or ethical behaviour.

So, unless your husband’s conduct has been financially ruinous – for example, if he has gambled away the family savings or spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on his affair – his infidelity will have zero impact on your payout.

That does not mean, however, that you will walk away empty-handed.

The settlement amount will depend on a variety of factors (Picture: Getty Images)

The starting point for dividing assets in a marriage the length of yours is a 50/50 split of the matrimonial pot. This includes the £2.5m house in Cobham, the holiday house in Cornwall, any savings and his pension wealth.

Also, the fact that he earns £450,000 a year and you stay at home does not mean the money is his alone. The courts place equal value on the role of the homemaker and the role of the breadwinner.

The more complex issue is your demand for ongoing maintenance to keep your lifestyle ‘exactly as it is – including the nanny and the horses’.

The courts have moved firmly away from the idea that divorce settlements should be a meal ticket for life. The objective of modern family law is to achieve a clean break wherever possible, allowing both parties to move on independently.

Your husband is a very high earner and you have been out of the workplace for a while.

This makes it highly likely you’ll be awarded spousal maintenance for a period of time, alongside child maintenance, to help you transition to independence. However, the court will assess your reasonable needs – not guarantee your current luxury lifestyle in perpetuity.

A judge will look at the fact that you are 42, have a background in PR and that your children are presumably all still at school.

As such, they will expect you to re-enter the workforce eventually and contribute to your own financial upkeep. They will not force your ex-husband to pay a nanny when you no longer need one, or fund the upkeep of horses you cannot afford to look after yourself.

Try not to think of money as a weapon. If you are hell-bent on fighting, you will likely just run up massive legal bills.

Instead, instruct a good family lawyer, gather all the financial documentation you can find and focus on securing a fair, 50/50 division of the capital and a realistic maintenance order that gives you the security to rebuild your life.

Keeping things civil with your partner, as much as you can, could even result in his agreeing to pay you more than the court-decreed settlement. After all, he’s likely to want his children to remain stable in their current lifestyle as much as you do.

Do you have a story to share?

Get in touch by emailing [email protected].

Comments Add as preferred source