Women are still encouraged to “have it all”, juggling motherhood, marriage and high-powered careers without dropping any of the balls. So what gives? A stressful lifestyle can leave its mark on family life: perhaps it is no coincidence that many of the clients we see at Stowe Family Law are in their late 30s or early 40s, with young children.

At the same time, the latest statistics show that divorce rates have fallen to a 29-year low. There are several reasons for this but clearly, the rise of the working mother and soaring stress levels have not triggered a divorce epidemic. So if greater numbers of women are “making it work”, how are they doing it? I have my own ideas…

Winding down after a hectic series of meetings in London last week, I had lunch at J Sheekey in Covent Garden. (For relaxing and taking stock, this fish restaurant is the perfect venue: yummy comfort food, the best wine, white linen tablecloths and old-fashioned puddings!) My lunch companion was in her early thirties. She is very bright and our conversation kept me on my toes. She also has a bustling, highly-pressured lifestyle that makes mine pale into insignificance.

She is married with two young sons. She commutes to Central London every day; her husband commutes to his job on the south coast. Continue reading »

Some female clients point to the lack of remorse shown by a cheating spouse. “He denied it for months on end”, “he told me I was imagining things and that I’m mad” and “he won’t even say sorry!” are just some of the comments that I have heard many times over.

A new study, the results of which were published in yesterday’s Daily Mail, concludes:

Men really do feel less guilt than women… From forgetting to post a birthday card to embarking on an affair, the male of the species is less likely to feel remorse, sorrow, empathy or anger.

The problem, say the study’s authors, is not that women feel too much guilt – but that men feel too little.

Appearing on BBC Radio Manchester yesterday morning I was asked if, as a family lawyer, I agreed with these findings.

From reading the article it appears that men are indeed from Mars and women are indeed from Venus.  At no point, apparently, do we think similarly about wrongdoing in our relationships with one another. Put simply: women will recognise what is wrong and apologise and men don’t recognise what is wrong and won’t. It was a man after all (the late Erich Segal) who coined that phrase: “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” Perhaps that phrase was more telling than even he realised!

It is true that some female clients fixate on the lack of remorse shown by their cheating spouse. They can also spend a long time canvassing opinion as to why he still won’t apologise. If that is the case there is no doubt the divorce process becomes even harder to settle, because in refusing to at least hand her the moral high ground, the husband is also preventing her from restoring some of her lost self-esteem and self-confidence.

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As we bid farewell to the Noughties, I pose the question: which case of the past decade has had the greatest implications for family law and its practitioners?

For me it is White v White: the decision of the House of Lords, delivered in 2000. This was when the concept of equal sharing became the accepted starting point (and usually the finishing point) for financial settlements between a wealthy divorcing couple, irrespective of one party’s role as the bread winner and the other party’s role as the homemaker. Gone was the entitlement of the breadwinner (usually the husband) to retain the lion’s share of the family wealth. The court made it clear that no distinction was to be made.

That decision is now ten years old. With the benefit of hindsight, has White v White unwittingly accelerated the decline of marriage in English society? In short, was it the right decision for our society as a whole? It is not a simple question to answer. Continue reading »

“Our society in England and Wales now urgently demands a second attempt by Parliament, better than in the ill-fated Part II of the Act of 1996, to reform the five ancient bases of divorce; meanwhile, in default, the courts have set the unreasonableness of the behaviour required to secure the success of a petition on the second basis, namely pursuant to s.1(2)(b) of the Act of 1973, even when defended, at an increasingly low level.” – Wilson LJ in Miller Smith –v- Miller Smith 2009 EWCA 1297

Stowe Family Law represented the successful husband in this case. The judgment of the Court of Appeal, heard before the President and given by Lord Justice Wilson, was handed down today. I will not of course discuss the specific facts of the case and nothing that follows does so. But, on a general note, Miller Smith is a useful example of alternative options available to deal with the financial problems caused by a defended divorce.

In such cases, finances cannot be dealt with in the usual manner, as the brakes are firmly applied until the divorce is out of the way, which could take a very long time. What is one party to do, who wishes to move on with his or her life and finds themselves apparently stymied?

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I have a personal interest in the Law Commission’s proposals to revamp the law for cohabiting couples, which would give cohabitees the same rights on death as married couples. As a cohabitee of almost six years, who has only recently agreed to make an honest man of her partner, would I be better off “living over the brush” – or is marriage a safer place to be?

The answer is clear.  As the law currently stands, unmarried partners get nothing if their partner dies without making a will.  A lot of people find this very surprising.  What is even more surprising is that the length of the relationship or the existence of children makes no difference. Surely if you have been together over 20 years and have five children together, you would be entitled to something?  I am afraid not.  If one partner dies and the surviving partner wants to challenge the lack of provision for them, they face protracted and costly litigation under the Inheritance Provision for Family and Dependents Act 1975. There is no guarantee of success.

Under the new proposals, couples who live together for more than five years or who have children together will be treated as if they are married, if one of them dies without making a will. Continue reading »

Jonathan James’ post on the speech by Baroness Deech has attracted a good deal of angry comment from men, who criticize the courts for not upholding their marriage vows, because they did not wish to divorce. In civil law, marriage is regarded as a form of legal partnership, like any other. If one partner wishes to dissolve the marriage, therefore, even if the other does not, this must eventually happen.

But the pain these men obviously feel may be more positively focused elsewhere. In 1992, I wrote a book, “Divorce – A New Beginning”, calling for marriage, rather than divorce, to be made harder. When a marriage has broken down and love has gone, I wrote then and still believe, it should be swiftly ended with dignity and civility, in a process not focusing on the past.

But I also wrote that getting married is simply too easy and should become more difficult in law. I felt then that marriage had become too focused on the Big Day – the dress and the party – rather than what it means in law: a voluntary change of legal status, by consenting adults, to one of joint partnership, with all its incumbent obligations. This is something not to be entered into lightly. I was concerned then that the real meaning of marriage had been lost.

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John Bolch, solicitor and author of the popular Family Lore blog, invited me to contribute to the latest edition of his Family Lore podcast. This was my first foray into podcasting  – and I enjoyed it! We discussed cohabitation, Mr Justice Coleridge’s views on marriage, the recent Radmacher v Granatino ruling, and more besides.  I would like to thank John for giving me the opportunity to take part.

The result, which is around 25 minutes long, can be found here.

Image credit: ralphbijker.

Earlier this week Sir Paul Coleridge, who sits as a High Court judge in Central London, spoke out about family breakdown. His speech has been widely published: I read about it in the Daily Mail and The Daily Telegraph. He talked about his sadness and frustration at the volume of family breakdowns, with lawyers warning that the family courts are “overstretched to the point of collapse”. He lamented the plight of children caught up in what he described as a game of “Pass the Partner.” The judge called for wide-ranging investigations and new laws to try and stem the tide. His belief is that that marriage, rather than cohabitation is the “gold standard” of relationships.

This speech has been widely commented upon, and I have noticed that responses from members of the public tend to fall into one of two categories. Either they back his views about marriage, or they simply dismiss what he says because they believe that he has failed to move with the times and fails to understand the new types of family that are in existence today.

My own view is straightforward. Continue reading »

It isn’t as difficult as you might think to go through a ceremony that looks like a marriage, but isn’t.

When a couple’s marriage is not valid according to English law because the ceremony does not legally marry them – even if, to all intents and purposes, they appear to be married – is it still possible for one spouse to obtain a financial settlement against the other? The answer is, yes, if the Petitioner spouse, thought he or she had actually gone through a lawful marriage ceremony and acted as married thereafter.

Famously, Jerry Hall “married” Mick Jagger on a beach in Bali. When they dissolved their relationship nearly nine years later, she argued that they had been married in a marriage ceremony, and that she believed she was legally married. Mick Jagger refuted her claims, arguing that they had never been married – and that both of them knew it. Their ceremony was invalid because under Balinese law, only Muslim marriages can be validly conducted.

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Eventually you must make a decision… 

• 1. The mobile phone bill goes missing. If lengthy calls to your lover have sent the telephone bill spiralling upwards, the last thing you want is for your husband to discover that nearly all the calls have been made to just one number. Worse than that, you definitely don’t want him calling that number!

• 2. You stop cooking for him. If he gets home, asks what you’ve made for dinner and you reply, “I’ve made reservations’, he knows he’s in trouble.

• 3. You often talk about how good the window cleaner is, how the tennis coach has really improved your game or why the builders need to stay longer than intended. The wife of a rich, successful man, if she feels neglected and second best to the attractions of work, may find solace with a lover who has far less material wealth but does not substitute financial rewards for affection and attention. Continue reading »