More divorced men get cash from ex-wives despite fears it looks ‘unmanly’

SOCIAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT MEN are being awarded more generous divorce payouts, with increasing numbers relying on payments from their former wives.

The arrangement was almost unheard of a decade ago, but women are now the breadwinner in an increasing number of families.

New figures from lawyers show that up to 5 per cent of divorce cases include a maintenance agreement involving payments from a wife to her former husband. There were 111,169 divorces in 2014, suggesting up to 5,000 men received such settlements.

But lawyers believe many more husbands are missing out on money they are entitled to as their wives “bully” them out of making a claim.

James Brown, a partner at family law firm Hall Brown, said men feel too proud to accept payments and are worried it might look unmanly to friends and colleagues. “Even men who object to supporting their former wives tend to accept that they may have to, especially if they are their household’s main breadwinner,” Mr Brown said.

“A lot of wives in the same position, though, consider the very notion of paying maintenance to their ex-husband unfair. Furthermore, some have tried to pressure men into not claiming support by arguing that ‘real men’ wouldn’t do such a thing.”

Lawyers also said that men face a battle to convince courts to settle in their favour.

“We have had husbands ordered to pay wives what was described as ‘nominal’ maintenance, even though the women earned more than they did,” said Mr Brown, whose firm handles 260 divorce cases a year.

Shlomit Glaser, a principal solicitor at law firm Glaser Jones, said that in one case she had to fight to convince a court that her client – a man in his late 60s – would not be able to pay generous maintenance to his ex-wife.

“It’s not a politically correct thing to say, but you will have an uphill struggle sometimes to convince courts to settle in favour of men,” she said.

The court system has historically favoured maintenance agreements which require husbands to support their wives indefinitely more than other countries, which tend to favour cash settlements and shorter-term arrangements. However, according to the Institute of Public Policy Research, one in three mothers is now the highest earner in her family.

Earlier this month, cross-bench peer Baroness Deech said that judges were being “old fashioned” and “over-chivalrous”. She cited a recent settlement in which divorcee Maria Mills, 51, was awarded a higher monthly payment from her ex-husband after losing her money by investing “unwisely” in property, 15 years after they split.

A court of appeal ruling in February 2015 is also being used by some judges to argue that women should only receive maintenance until they have undertaken retraining or found a job.