Women do well out of divorce – except when divorcing an abuser

Like you, I’ve heard people comment in the past that women do well out of divorce. I watched, read about and listened to countless men lament about how they have been taken to the cleaners by the ‘ex-wife’. It’s a particular favourite of male comedians I’ve noticed to make jokes like “I used to be rich but then I got divorced” and so on. I also personally know many women who have never had a career or any opportunity to amass fortunes of their own, have got married and never had to work, then got divorced and now seem to be in the same enviable position (own house/no mortgage and a regular monthly income) but not married. Where is their money coming from? The ex-husband.

With all this evidence around me, I had no choice but to believe the widely held view that women do well out of divorce and (that being the case) the other widely held view is that men do badly in divorces. Being a natural sceptic – actually, sceptic has negative connotations. It’s truer to say that I have a naturally questioning nature and tend to (naturally) differentiate fact and opinion. So, being naturally ‘cautious’, I always thought this belief about divorce and how women do well out of it to be rather hackneyed but I had no evidence to back me up and plenty of evidence not to. That was until I got divorced myself that is.

Irrespective of the fact that he was controlling and abusive throughout our marriage, my ex-husband had his own house before we met. I didn’t but I had my own business, which whilst miles away from being an empire, was doing okay and making enough to pay the bills and then some. My ex had given up his job (in banking) to set up his own business, which at the time we met was not doing well as it was in its early stages. Fair enough. He had sold his house and just completed on a new one a couple of months before we met. Anyway, to cut a long story short, we met, started dating and moved in (at his insistence) within a few months. We got married a year later. During the early stages of our relationship, the money my business was bringing in paid most of the bills while has business got established. He then insisted we join the businesses up. I didn’t want to but we were married and at the time that’s what I thought you had to do as a married couple – share everything. I was also getting pressure from his parents to do what he suggested and “go along with him” because it would be easier in the long run. So, we joined the businesses up – even though they operated in completely different and none complementary sectors. However, mine continued to thrive, his didn’t. Rather cleverly, however, by making himself commercial director of the two companies he had complete control over all of the finances. I didn’t get a salary, instead he gave me money for food shopping and anything else I had to ask for, which always provoked an abusive response. One time, I needed new tires on my car and I’d been telling him for months until the ones I had on were pretty much illegal and I had a business meeting to drive to that was some 300 miles round trip. He still refused to give me the money so I had to do the trip on illegal and downright dangerous tires. In the end I had to resort to what I consider to be under handed conduct to get the money (and which my business was generating!!!) to get my new tires. I sneaked into his office when he wasn’t there, took the company cheque book and cashed a cheque at the bank for the money for the tires. I knew he’d find out, so I told him what I’d done after the tires had been fitted and my car was once again legal and safe and he went absolutely ballistic. I got such abuse after that one.

There were loads of other incidences like that that I could go into but I’m getting off the point here about divorce. I wanted to just set the scene for you to show how things were financially during my abusive marriage.

Anyway, when I left him, there was loads of legal wrangling about the businesses and stuff that had gone on there (he’d been misappropriating money and fraudulently applying for financial grants and so on). Aside from that, there was the small matter for me of divorce and I knew I would have to be the one to do it because he would never divorce me. I also knew, because of his abusive character, that I would need legal help – and the right sort of legal help (your average high street lawyer is not equipped to handle characters like him) and that doesn’t come cheap. So, I engaged an expensive but really good city-based lawyer who knew exactly what she was dealing with and advised me appropriately. I didn’t worry too much about the money because I knew that there was equity in the family home that I was entitled to which would cover the divorce costs. I didn’t really care about money above and beyond that because I just wanted to be free of him and his crap AND I knew I could start making money from my new business (like I had before) as soon as it was all over.

It was at that time, I trawled the internet, websites, forums, blogs and so on looking for information from people who had left abusive marriages, divorced their spouses from those marriages. I wanted to know how much money they’d got – these women who supposedly (according to popular opinion) had done so well out of divorce. I found nothing. I assumed (at the time) that it was because divorce and financial settlements are taboo subjects that people (even anonymously) don’t want to talk about. However, I now know that that wasn’t the case. Certainly not in my case anyhow. I can reveal to the world here that who does better out of the divorce has nothing to do with whether you are a man or a woman, how much money you had before you got married or how much you accrued during the marriage, it all depends upon who you were married to and what type of character they are. Unfortunately, (man or woman) if you were married to a controlling abuser with narcissistic personality disorder or anyone of that nature you will come out of the divorce at best with nothing and at worst heavily in debt. That is just the way it is. And looking back in hindsight I wish I’d accepted that sooner than I did because I perhaps would not have fought quite so hard to defend my rights, which is where the lawyers fees went. I would have just got divorced from him as soon as I could and got on with rebuilding my life.

My ex husband used all his best controlling, abusive manipulation to ensure that there was no money at the end of the day. He sold the house (the one asset) to a “friend” for £100K less than it had been valued some six months earlier, which meant that there was nothing left after all the mortgage arrears were cleared (yes, I also found out he had £23,000 of mortgage arrears). I had no way of proving that there was money elsewhere, he’d made sure of that and yet my side of the business had generated over £125,000 of business during the previous 12 months! Where was all that money? I didn’t know and to this day I still don’t.

So, if anyone is out there, like I was three years ago, looking for evidence that they will get a financial settlement, if you are divorcing this type of character, chances are you won’t. They are the meanest people on earth and in my husband’s case, also very astute. They know exactly what they can do to get away with it. and unless you can prove otherwise and even then the law is not on your side because certain information such as that obtained without their prior knowledge is not acceptable in many courts.

So, all those women I know who are living a life of lunches and golf days in a house that was paid for with the divorce settlement and enjoy monthly maintenance payments so they don’t have to work and all those ex-wives of comedians were not only married to rich men, they were married to honest and decent men (although, I doubt they would agree). It’s true though, if your ex is the type of character who approaches divorce from the point of view of winning the battle – NO MATTER WHAT – like my ex was, there will be nothing left. My husband was determined I would get nothing and he was even willing to destroy himself in the process as well as me.

There is an upside to this though: he destroyed himself and thought he was destroying me because he thought I needed the money like he did to survive. Well, while he is now destroyed, I have survived – even without the money. Ha, he didn’t see that coming did he!