Newley separated, need advice 😔

roleplayer

Hi all,
Apologies if this has been asked already, but I can't find the answer.

My wife and I are separating.
We have been married for 12 years.
We have a house together, I pay the mortgage but it is in both our names.
No children
We both work full time.
My salary is approximately 4 times hers.

In a separation, would I be expected to pay her alimony / support?

If so roughly how much? I have seen it would be roughly €150 / week / child if we had children, but we don't.

Appreciate any help you can give.

jackdunne2018

I've been through this but every case is different. The reality is that when you marry, all your assets become joint assets and she is now entitled to half of everything. That's the harsh facts.
Now, she may or may now enforce that. I've heard of cases where some spouses only want to keep what they came into the marriage with but those cases are rare. Would you be expected to pay spousal maintenance to her? Only if she comes looking for it.

Dial Hard

jackdunne2018 wrote: »

I've been through this but every case is different. The reality is that when you marry, all your assets become joint assets and she is now entitled to half of everything.

No she's not. I have no idea why this idea is so widespread. There's no automatic entitlement to half of anything in Irish divorce law.

OP, did she ever contribute to the mortgage? Does she pay bills instead of the mortgage or do you cover all costs? Did she contribute to the deposit for the house?

And most importantly, what's your gut feeling? Is she willing to be reasonable or is she going to look for maintenance from you?

D13exile

Dial Hard wrote: »

No she's not. I have no idea why this idea is so widespread. There's no automatic entitlement to half of anything in Irish divorce law.

OP, did she ever contribute to the mortgage? Does she pay bills instead of the mortgage or do you cover all costs? Did she contribute to the deposit for the house?

And most importantly, what's your gut feeling? Is she willing to be reasonable or is she going to look for maintenance from you?

In my case, I had a house before I met my future ex and she was renting. I sold my house and we bought "our" house with the proceeds of the sale of my house. She never contributed to the mortgage or bills on the marital home and when we split, she did get half the proceeds! And while she works full time, she was also awarded a share of my pension to "equalise" the pension differential. While I now have our kids half the time, she gets all the child benefit. So the Courts are very sympathetic to women, even when it is proved that they do not make any contribution towards the mortgage or utilities.

Xterminator

Might seem harsh, but you do realise when you get married you make a legal contract with wide ramifications. you voluntarily enter into this contract and among the responsibilities you accept are spouse maintain each other in accordance with their means. Also all property and assets become joint or marital property. This can include, but is not limited to:

Bank accounts
Property or possessions, such as your home, vehicles, jewelry, furniture and more
Debts

so when the marriage is dissolved she/he are not getting half of your house, and pension, she is getting half of the marital house and marital pension.

Its not that she got them when you divorced, but rather that you ceded them when you married. Cant blame the state/judges/society on that.

Squatter

Read the relevant material at this link: http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/birth_family_relationships/separation_and_divorce/


And/or call into your local Citizens Information Centre and ask for a copy of their guide to Separation.

Dial Hard

D13exile wrote: »

In my case, I had a house before I met my future ex and she was renting. I sold my house and we bought "our" house with the proceeds of the sale of my house. She never contributed to the mortgage or bills on the marital home and when we split, she did get half the proceeds! And while she works full time, she was also awarded a share of my pension to "equalise" the pension differential. While I now have our kids half the time, she gets all the child benefit. So the Courts are very sympathetic to women, even when it is proved that they do not make any contribution towards the mortgage or utilities.

And in my case I left my ex in our house with all the contents and signed away my rights to his (extremely lucrative) army pension. There are no hard & fast rules and no automatic entitlements to anything.

Kintarō Hattori

Not separated myself but not married either but having seen the post about a pension I'm curious, hope I'm allowed ask. When a married couple separates, is the person earning less money entitled to a share of the higher earners pension? That seems like madness. Surely if you're both working and both have pensions then the other persons pension is no-one's business but their own?

c.p.w.g.w

D13exile wrote: »

In my case, I had a house before I met my future ex and she was renting. I sold my house and we bought "our" house with the proceeds of the sale of my house. She never contributed to the mortgage or bills on the marital home and when we split, she did get half the proceeds! And while she works full time, she was also awarded a share of my pension to "equalise" the pension differential. While I now have our kids half the time, she gets all the child benefit. So the Courts are very sympathetic to women, even when it is proved that they do not make any contribution towards the mortgage or utilities.

Cash is king and keep it somewhere safe

Riskymove

D13exile wrote: »

So the Courts are very sympathetic to women, even when it is proved that they do not make any contribution towards the mortgage or utilities.

The key difference is children.....it is a gamechanger in divorce

if you have children you are expected to provide and likely maintain the family home for them. especially where one spouse is homemaker.

if you do not have children and both work with their own means that is very different. usually the house would just be sold and shared

stinkbomb

Kintarō Hattori wrote: »

Not separated myself but not married either but having seen the post about a pension I'm curious, hope I'm allowed ask. When a married couple separates, is the person earning less money entitled to a share of the higher earners pension? That seems like madness. Surely if you're both working and both have pensions then the other persons pension is no-one's business but their own?

It depends. If one spouse spent years at home raising the children so has a much lower salary/pension, they need to be compensated for that. They facilitated the earning potential of the person with the large pension. It's not madness to make things fairer, and when you marry, nothing is not your spouses business.

stinkbomb

c.p.w.g.w wrote: »

Cash is king and keep it somewhere safe

Hide your assets to cheat your spouse out of their legal entitlements?

Bad advice on many levels.

Kintarō Hattori

stinkbomb wrote: »

It depends. If one spouse spent years at home raising the children so has a much lower salary/pension, they need to be compensated for that. They facilitated the earning potential of the person with the large pension. It's not madness to make things fairer, and when you marry, nothing is not your spouses business.

Oh of course I get that but I was thinking in regards to the situation of the OP where there are no kids and both are working.

Monife

Xterminator wrote: »

Might seem harsh, but you do realise when you get married you make a legal contract with wide ramifications. you voluntarily enter into this contract and among the responsibilities you accept are spouse maintain each other in accordance with their means. Also all property and assets become joint or marital property. This can include, but is not limited to:

Bank accounts
Property or possessions, such as your home, vehicles, jewelry, furniture and more
Debts

so when the marriage is dissolved she/he are not getting half of your house, and pension, she is getting half of the marital house and marital pension.

Its not that she got them when you divorced, but rather that you ceded them when you married. Cant blame the state/judges/society on that.

It's very unfair though with the "No fault" divorce process in this country. If the marriage broke down due to the actions of one spouse, why should they financially benefit. So the betrayed spouse loses in every possible way.