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What do you suggest Skip?

I have my biggest test of not being conflict orientated in what is a naturally conflict orientated situation... tonight... financial mediation. It will be me, her, the mediator and a bunch of numbers. Her numbers aren't factually correct which sends my ESTJ alarm bells ringing (£55 per child per month on school trip, £278 a month on afterschool care when the number is currently 0 and 2/3 kids take themselves home).

At this point, I would advise you go to the meeting and ask questions about what you don't understand.  Let her present her figures and answer your questions.

Resist tearing down her figures.

If she won't participate, then let the question hang out there about how you move forward/make decisions.

Looking at it from bpdfamily point of view.  Don't invalidate/inflame her by tearing her numbers apart. 

If she invalidates/inflames herself, should you save/enable her to avoid the natural results of her own financial analysis?

Best,

FF

Think about incentives.

If her analysis really is about the after school care, then agree with her as long as there is a clause in your parenting document that if you (or your agents) provide after school care, then she gets to keep the cash.

Then you and your Mom (and others) sort out the details.
 
There would have to be language in the parenting order putting you in charge of after school care/not letting her interfere in your efforts to add to your parenting time more than 50/50.

Said/asked another way.  Would you rather "win" the financial argument and be "right" over there or would you rather "win" or "get more time" with your kids.

(All of this assumes divorce actually happens, which I'm suspicious about.  Saying this for clarity that I don't think this (your wife's actions) are about getting a divorce, although a divorce may be the result)

Last:  This is why I'm resistant to working on anything except parenting agreement first and represents and effort to "keep the main thing"..."the main thing".

Best,

FF

That makes sense and kind of what I was thinking about.

I am keen to build in flexibility especially on the Child Maintenance side that if/when children time changes, the financial support moves with them.

Thank you

Enabler

Many will have good experience and opinions on this...

If the mediation fails, you ultimately go to court and a lot of money will be lost in the process... so go with the intent of settling/compromising. Compromising usually means painful... neither of you get what you want, but you compromise.

I assume you will meet part of the time together and part of the time in separate rooms (for the negotiation part). The mediator will go from room to room a deliver "sanitized" comments from the other side and tell you what is reasonable to the court.

Family court is formula. The court will fit you into a formula and that is how this will end, plus of minus a few % or a few days. As you know, visitation is formula. So are financials. This is it, man. If the court formula is 25% of net income goes to spouse when there are 3 children on a 70%/30% split, that is likely where it will end up.

So, for the most part, you are "horse trading" for a few percent at best - 24% - 26%. I'm not a UK attorney so ask this directly to your counsel and press him for an honest answer.

The big fact questions that the mediator will be looking for is both your incomes, the net worth of the family estate, your wife's earning power, and how many days each of you are feeding/housing the children. This is will drive the formula and the percent.

She will likely argue that your salary will increase, hers will stay flat, she will have the majority of the child care expenses, and that your family's expenses are above the norm and an exception needs to be made. She may throw in there that you are are abusive, your feet smell, and she deserves more because of it. She will paint her future as bleak and downplay the affair is headed to cohabitation of marriage (they already signaled that). It will be an uphill battle for her to move the percentage dial much. The mediator will try to sooth her and school her and bring her around to thinking 25% is fair and he may give her after school care she wants and shortchange her somewhere else.

On your side, it will play the same.

You can dig in your heels, fight the minutiae, or you can focus on the drivers - the high end fact questions... your earning prospects, that you will have a 50%/50% split (or whatever you think you can handle), and that she is in a martial affair for years and they are "playing the system" to get the most money from you.  For example, certain aspects of spousal support can end on remarrying and new partners make those decisions based on that.

Does that help?

It is zero about meeting your standards for proof of anything. If you go down that path, the mediator will label you high conflict in his mind and start pushing harder on you to get you to yield (and that could trigger you to push him harder). This will not end well for you.

I'd be friendly, open minded. I'd get your lawyer to tell you the formula or at least what is a reasonable percentage compromise and I would focus on the topline.

How does that incentivize your wife to "allow" you more time with kids?

My idea is more time with kids equals more $$ for your wife?

Does your wife really want more time with kids?

Do you really want more money in your pocket?

If you had less money in your pocket, but more time with your kids, how satisfied could you be with that?

Best,

FF

there is some analysis by proxy going on here, so I would invite others to poke holes in or support my theory.

My idea is that right now Enabler wife is NOT using the kids as a weapon against Enabler and that kids ARE NOT being fought about.

Enabler wife seems all caught up in status of the OM.  She seems more than happy to let Enabler do all sorts of child care/house care to "enable" her to live her life with OM.

So, create incentives that allow/encourage her to keep it about something other than the kids.

So, she "allows" Enabler to watch kids instead of putting them in paid after school care.  

Enabler gets time with kids and Enabler wife has extra coin in her pocket which likely makes her life with OM easier.

Thoughts?

Best,

FF

Thanks you both of you, that is excellent thought process material.

My "source" or "point of view" is MBAish.  Time and time again they hammered home that people usually do what they are incentivized to do, so pay attention to how you analyze incentives and how they analyze incentives.
 
If you are trying to influence your wife's behavior, which analysis is most important?

Best,

FF

Neither you nor I are UK lawyers, so our advice is very general. We certainly don't know the habits of the jurisdiction or the bias of the Judge with the case... and these are real.

My understanding is that UK likes "clean break" divorces... even to the point of making a discounted lumpsum payment at divorce.  The opposite side of that is contingent payments and courts are generally not keen on that idea.

One possibility would be to make an agreement that you will pay money into escrow and a third party will pay childcare, tuition, and medical bills. You could try to jam as other expenses into this category... if this is something that a court would accept.

You could put the house in a trust and let her live there for 10 years for a percentage of ownership transferred to you. Maybe at the end of 10 years, you mostly own it and she has to move out so you can liquidate. If she moves our earlier - you come out ahead.

These are all ways to be sure the children benefit from the money you pay out.

60/40 was batted around before when we started the process. She has since taken legal advice which could make her seek more. That said, I believe she wants to be reasonable and seen as ‘good’ in the process so maybe she sticks with that. There is a decent amount of capital, well enough to buy a adequate house. Her incentive is “freedom”, she wants freedom albeit conflicted because I guess it’s starting to sink in that physical freedom from me is replaced by captivity of responsibility, not least of r he children and money.

I am concerned about agreeing to a global maintenance order, it combines spousal and child maintenance into one lump sum thus making it harder to adjust. I can’t see the reason for it given my income is corporate pay as you earn and visible, I don’t own a company so have no additional income streams and I have almost zero flight risk.

Clean break would be a bit of a disaster for her, she would likely handle the responsibility of a large lump sum badly and go to one extreme or the other in an attempt to manage the responsibility... spend all... hoard all. I believe that she wants someone there giving her pocket money. Clean break is also less optimal for me as financial security is a bargaining chip.

Enabler

I do like the idea of trustee / escrow account. I’d imagine that would be every fathers dream

Enabler, I don't know if anyone has mentioned this book, but please read Billy Eddy's, "Splitting," if you have not done so.  Eddy is a lawyer, and an American, but the book might give you some ideas.

How did it go?

I’m not sure what to make of this evening. We ran through the numbers, she got a little bogged down by legal advice to double check pension valuations. Then we spent the second half of the 2.5hr session discussing how to split assets and income. I didn’t put anything on the table and just listened. The mediator tried to help her understand that something needed to be fixed for us to start the process of working out other things. We kinda settled on ‘needs’ as that’s what the lawyer said she should focus on. She wouldn’t be pinned down to what she needed and seemed somewhat overwhelmed by everything. There was a lot said in an attempt to get her to get it and at points I think she felt a bit intimidated. She’s been given some homework to find out about benefits she can get and houses that meet her needs, but looks like it’s been booted into next year.

She didn’t seem at all prepared to come to a deal, not even a ridiculous one that I wouldn’t agree to.

When asked whether she had a new partner in the 2 years since the last mediation session, she said “I have a special friend but we have no intention of cohabitating”. The mediator spelt out that there was no point in playing games as it would only be temporary and any partner would soon be discovered and adjustments made. That was relatively near the beginning of the session.

Thoughts?

Enabler

This sounds like run of the mill divorce stuff... especially the part where she feels intimidated, and overwhelmed... that happens more than you might think. I wouldn't red anything into it other than she is not skilled at this.

Hopefully you can see that the "non-cohabitation" thing had nothing to do with a change in direction of the affair. And hopefully you can see that even the little bit of communication with OM was actually helpful.

I think you got a break in the sense that you have time to explore some of the options talked about above - get an idea what is acceptable in your jurisdiction.


Sounds to me like her attorney dropped the ball.

We have all mentioned that we don't "get" UK law.  You need to specifically ask and read the "fine print" about what types of relationships cause "adjustments"  (do not share this with your wife)

I'm very interested in the use of the term "partner".

How do you plan on handling discussions/helping her?  (FF says don't "rescue" her)

Can you share the plan that you were will to agree to/sign this evening?  I'm assuming you had one or at least an idea of one.

Best,

FF

FF, adultery rarely impacts financial settlements in the UK.

I don’t know what you mean Skip

Maybe I have a narrow view of what the affair (whatever it is) and what it’s end zone is. I always figure that an affairs end zone is being together.

Hey lawyer wasn’t there and maybe advised her to agree to nothing and get more info. I think what’s more likely is she expected others to put something on the table and tell her what she was going to get.

FF, I wouldn’t have agreed to anything today. Not sure I want to say on here what I would have agreed to.

Correct.

Cohabitation and financial union normally amounts to a reason for stopping spousal maintenance. Mediator suggested a 6m period of cohabitation meant supper could stop as it meant the relationship was not just a flash in the pan.

I get it.  

I wasn't talking about affair, I'm talking about the comment about partners being found out (by the mediator)

Why wasn't her lawyer there?

Was yours?

Best,

FF

No lawyers present. This collaborative law, me and her and the mediator. He walks you through the process and helps you to hammer out something that is agreeable to both parties.

Mediator doesn’t care about whether is a special friend or f@ck buddy, he cares if they are financially supporting each other and sharing an abode. In essence she can date him for eternity and he can pay for her drinks forever... but if they stay in special friends state... I keep paying.

I changed narrative from Disney dad to “I’d have as much access as possible”, she thought only Disney dad was on the table.

I find the word cohabitation to be a strange word.  It isn't a word I would normally use in a sentence, however it seems to be showing up in financial discussions.  You mentioned that the agenda of the OM in the email he sent you had a Non-cohabitation guarantee.  Maybe they are trying to set things up so that you pay more?  They keep making that assurance even when you aren't asking for it.

You are doing collaborative divorce without representation?  I've never heard of a mediation without lawyers present... that has to be hard. I can see why you wife felt overwhelmed.

Sounds like neither of you were prepared with offers or to sign anything. This was like a pre-mediation.


Will you have a lawyer and offer next time?

There are varying setups for mediation -- it can differ from state to state. My own divorce mediation was done without lawyers, in two sessions.

Regarding compromise, my buddy divorced his wife of 12 years in California, they have 3 kids, then 6, 8, and 10. They negotiated, but both had lawyers.  He offered to pay alimony until the kids were 18, rather than fight alimony out (she wanted to, as he was about 70% breadwinner). He put no stipulations about remarriage. She thought that fair and agreed. Child support from him was by guideline. They have joint custody. He's paying a hell of a lot, in my opinion. I might have fought more,  but I wasn't in his shoes. 

He gave up interest in their home.  She paid him some back in a refi, but he went into being a renter. Kind of a blow given the amount of sweat equity (and majority money) he put into that home, but he wanted to be done.  He gave to get.

It's been over a year and they seem to be doing well apart, despite drama for a while. 

No lawyers this time and no plans to have lawyers next time. I have numbers in mind which if we get around I’d agree to. The point I’m trying to make is she didn’t even have a starting point. She hasn’t even visualised it yet. I know that a few years back she was looking at houses all the time, now she doesn’t, where’s I’m already redesigning the glass roofed conservatory.

This is a totally doable process but you both need to have a clue about what it looks like, and I’m not sure she does.

Incidentally she took quite a victim personality during the session, saying that she just wanted something simple and basic which met the kids needs. She made a big point of saying that she didn’t want to take me for everything I had and do me over. I could feel my white knight jump in and wanted to say “oh no dear you’ll not be living in that”... that said, there’s no point in her staying in that mental space because whatever we do agree needs to be reasonable and stand the test of time and stand the test of her lawyers when they review what we’ve agreed.

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