Know Your Money with Bronwyn Waner and Craig Finch
Know Your Money with Bronwyn Waner and Craig Finch
99. Spousal Maintenance and Financial Independence in Divorce
Unravel the complexities of spousal maintenance with insights from Bianca, the expert behind D is for Divorce. As our guest, Bianca shares her wealth of knowledge on the distinctions between spousal and child maintenance and the often complex negotiations involved in crafting fair agreements. Our discussion promises to enlighten and empower you, especially if you're navigating the financial hurdles of divorce. Craig Finch, Bronwyn Waner, and Warren Grimsley join forces to explore the emotional facets that come into play when financial independence hangs in the balance between former partners.
We delve into scenarios such as support for stay-at-home parents and how these agreements shift with life changes like remarriage. With Bianca's guidance, we tackle questions of fairness and complexity, like balancing lifestyle support while encouraging independence. Whether you're a financial novice or seasoned pro, Know Your Money offers a comprehensive, engaging look at financial literacy through the lens of divorce and spousal maintenance. Join us for this episode as we aim to demystify these critical topics, ensuring you are informed and prepared for the financial journeys ahead.
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www.growthfp.co.za
Welcome to Know your Money, where we will explore our relationship with money and how the psychology of it impacts our financial decisions, as everyone thinks about money differently. In our podcast, we'll be presenting a variety of financial topics in an easy to understand way, which we hope will assist you with managing your money.
Speaker 2:Hi, I'm Craig Finch, co-owner of Growth Financial Planning, an independent financial planning practice, and I've been a financial planner since 1986.
Speaker 1:Hi everybody. I'm Bronwyn Wehner, co-owner of Growth Financial Planning. I'm a certified financial planner and our philosophy at our company is to grow yourself to grow your wealth.
Speaker 3:Hi everyone. My name is Warren Grimsley. I'm a director at Rogue Media and help facilitate this wonderful podcast. My main goal here is to try and understand what these two lovely people are saying, so that we can all understand.
Speaker 1:Hello everybody, Welcome to Know your Money. Back in the studio is Bianca, who's been giving us some incredible advice around marriage and money. She is from D is for Divorce and she is a coach and a confidence coach. Just to help you understand that we are all humans and we're just trying to act human to human. Bianca's philosophy is so much about mediation and trying to let people see both sides of the party and today we just wanted to talk around spousal maintenance and how to make that picture pretty for both sides, plus the children, you know. Yeah, Hello.
Speaker 4:Bea, hello, hi, thanks for having me back, guys, I appreciate it. Okay. So spousal maintenance, yes, right. So, as we discussed in a previous episode, right, we've got two kinds of maintenance maintenance for kids and then spousal maintenance. Now, the maintenance for kids is automatic, that is, every parent has a responsibility towards maintenance. Spousal maintenance is not automatic.
Speaker 4:Spousal maintenance is something that you will have to apply for or fight for, okay, and it's where the higher earning party will have to pay a monthly amount or a lump sum amount. It can be structured however. It needs to be structured right. You can say, oh, I'm going to pay you X amount and you can leave me alone. Or, if you go, whatever you do with it is your problem. Yeah, clean cut. It's better that way, I would say.
Speaker 4:Or it can be a monthly amount that you pay for a certain period of time, so six months to a year, and the courts will take in to consideration various factors in determining spousal maintenance. So duration of the marriage the longer you've been, the more likely it is that you're going to qualify or obtain spousal maintenance right. The earning capacity of the parties. So if you are a stay-at-home mom and you have kind of sacrificed your career to support your spouse, then you will be granted spousal maintenance right For a limited period of time. So if you're in your 30s, for example, you've been married for 10 years, they might give you spousal maintenance for three months six months a year to allow you to get back on your feet and start earning.
Speaker 2:Even though you were never earning. What happens?
Speaker 4:Sure Depends on the age right, I mean in your 30s, you can start working, you can find a way to get back on your feet Again. It depends on every divorce you structure according to its own personal circumstances. So some might even agree. Some parties can agree to say, well, I'll just keep you living in this lifestyle for 10 years, 20 years.
Speaker 1:Until you get married again.
Speaker 4:Oftentimes it's until you get married again, right? So a lot of times spousal maintenance is leveraged against oh, but you have to stay single because I'm not going to be paying for you if you're going to be dating somebody else, which is fair.
Speaker 2:I think that's fair.
Speaker 4:I think that's really fair.
Speaker 1:Absolutely fair and I don't think you have to stay single. I'm going to look after your lifestyle until you find someone else that you can go into a life with and carry on. You know they can make that decision.
Speaker 5:But that's also difficult because, I can date independently.
Speaker 4:I can have somebody and have a great lifestyle and you're living in your house and I live in mine. But do you know what I mean? Yeah, so, it's difficult. That's where conflict comes up.
Speaker 2:You can see why this is such an emotional thing because you're not with that person and you still got to pay for that person 100%, and then what's the longest that you could pay for?
Speaker 1:The rest of their lives.
Speaker 2:The rest of their lives.
Speaker 1:But spousal maintenance like by court order.
Speaker 4:It has to be by court order.
Speaker 1:That one for the rest of your life. They make that decision. How does the court decide? Well, she could fight for it.
Speaker 4:right? She could say I've been married for 25 years. I mean this couple who've been married I think it was 42 years that I heard of recently that are getting divorced and so she's in her 60s and they're like, well, you need to pay. She's been staying at home taking care of children, and you know.
Speaker 1:And how long does he have to pay for?
Speaker 4:Until her passes away, or he passes away, or until her circumstances change, or at any point with maintenance, right, you can go back and revise, even with maintenance for kids. If your circumstances change, you have an obligation to go back to court. So let's say, god forbid, you are retrenched and you have to pay maintenance. You have to go back to court and say, listen, I've been retrenched, I need to have this amount varied, and the same would be with spousal maintenance. So you've agreed to it. So, for example, with he would pay my medical aid for the rest of my life.
Speaker 4:Then his circumstances changed. He had two kids and I was like, okay, listen, that's not really fair. You can just pay for the kids for the rest of their lives and I'll take care of my own. Sure, okay, because again, this is somebody that you have had a life with, you respect them in certain respects and you've got to be fair. That's the reality. So a lot of people find themselves stuck in marriages because they're concerned for their financial freedom or their financial well-being. Right, and actually it is. If you go to domestic violence courts, financial abuse is actually something that is recognized, right, somebody who uses finances against somebody.
Speaker 4:So I think a lot of people stay in unhappy situations for two reasons financial well-being, but also you think it's better for the kids.
Speaker 5:I think you said earlier in another episode that men will often weaponize the finances. Women will weaponize the children. Yes, I think that there are men out there who stay in toxic relationships because they are worried about the weaponization of their children and they don't want to not be able to see them. Does that happen?
Speaker 4:Absolutely, and it is disgusting and it's terrible and an unhappy home.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 4:And it's worse for children Because you feel it.
Speaker 2:It's absolutely worse as a child. They know what's going on, Absolutely.
Speaker 4:And to have an unhappy mother and an unhappy father is worse for the kids. They feel such a tremendous amount of pressure to.
Speaker 4:Oh shit, I have to make sure the kids are okay, the parents are okay, and I have to behave a certain way and at the end of the day, you take out your emotions on your kids right, Because you take for granted that they're always going to love you. So that's definitely, and I think one thing to understand is that contact and maintenance are two separate issues. Just because you don't pay your maintenance doesn't mean you don't get to see your kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:And just because, you don't see your kids doesn't mean you don't have to pay maintenance.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right.
Speaker 4:You cannot say, oh, I'll only let you see my kids, or the kids if you pay maintenance. No, Sorry for you.
Speaker 2:That doesn't work.
Speaker 4:That's not how it works, it Just really do better, because you're not helping your children at the end of the day. Yeah, so that's frustrating.
Speaker 2:So, Bianca, back to when you the payment settlement on the spousal maintenance. And let's say you come to an agreement for a lump sum. Yes, can you take use your, let's say, the person, let's say the marriage regime was accrual with no assets initially. Okay, so everything's going to be split.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And there's the. Well, obviously the partner won't have any extra. Can that partner say I'll take that portion of my accrual benefit? Sure, you can do that, so you can do that.
Speaker 4:You can agree to settle it however you want to However you want, to, okay, it's only if there's conflict that you then go and rely on your ANC so you can say I mean it's a decent thing to do. Somebody stayed at home and they have supported you in your career and they've taken care of I mean.
Speaker 4:There's value in that it may not be monetary value, but to come home and know that things have been taken care of and in that and you lose sight of that because of your ego, whatever the case may be, but at the end of the day, ego is the worst right. And then also you add emotions to that and you're just in for a bit of a shit show. So I think, yeah, if you can just manage that, manage that. It's about your children and it's also about mutual respect for the other human being yeah and also don't make the other person feel cornered.
Speaker 5:Sure, as soon as you corner someone, they're going to fart.
Speaker 4:No, absolutely. Or they won't, and they'll just submit, and then you end up walking away with even less.
Speaker 5:That's just as bad, yeah.
Speaker 4:So, yeah, it's a very difficult thing to do. You do find that men are staying in circumstances because they don't want to lose their kids, as you said. And also women are staying because they don't have financial freedom. So for me, if you are in a situation where you can't financially afford to get divorced, then start putting a little bit of money aside. Consider doing some kind of side hustle. Yeah, start making a financial path for yourself or reach out to people who can help you with that.
Speaker 2:So I came from a divorced family as well and a lot of years and years of unhappy marriage with my folks and eventually they split up. And it was a welcome relief when they split up because the house was calm again, there was no conflict in the house and my dad left and we didn't my sister and I we had an animosity towards him because he caused that kind of thing. That's what we thought. My mother, throughout the whole process, she just said to us he is your father, sure. My mother, throughout the whole process, she just said to us he is your father Absolutely. You love him as your father Sure, never mind what happened between the two of us. And that was brilliant advice.
Speaker 4:Amazing.
Speaker 2:I love that From her Incredible, which caused us to have a very good relationship with our father.
Speaker 4:Amazing.
Speaker 3:Because your mother put you first. Yeah, it.
Speaker 4:You can be a really terrible spouse. Doesn't make you a terrible parent.
Speaker 2:That's right.
Speaker 4:And why wouldn't you want that for your kids? I would. I mean again, I've been divorced for nine years, right? My ex left when my kids were three months old and 16 months old, right, so he's. And I want them to be adults to say I actually have a great relationship with my dad and my mom.
Speaker 4:Yes, I actually have a great relationship with my dad and my mom. Yes, and to keep your side of the street clean. Your kids are going to grow. You may think it's cool now to manipulate them and try and alienate your co-parent. They're going to grow and when they get to 23, 24 and be like but why did you keep my dad from me? Why didn't you let my dad see me? Or why didn't you help my mom financially?
Speaker 2:You will reap what you so. Kudos to your mom. That's incredible, and I must say my dad as well, because they were married when the old regime was no cruel.
Speaker 2:So the house was in my mom's name because he had his own business and he didn't blink an eyelid, he said that I provide a home for my family, my kids, and he walked away from it like that and that was incredible. So probably two mature adults with a bad marriage Exactly no ego in the room. Exactly with a bad marriage Exactly no ego in the room. Exactly that helped us, my sister and I grow through that.
Speaker 4:Yeah, love that.
Speaker 2:Bianca, thanks on that note, talking about how two adults should be adults in the end of the day and hopefully that both spouses can see that the other one has needs and they're both as you say initially I think when I met you has needs and they're both as you say initially I think. When I met you you said two families are joined together to make it better for both families. Yeah, that's one of the tensions of marriage. Absolutely, and let's hope you can be both mature enough to, even though the divorce can be very hurtful for both parties. Yeah, thank you for your time. I appreciate it.
Speaker 4:Thanks for having me, guys.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, bea, it was awesome, thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening. If you have enjoyed this podcast or would like to subscribe, please visit our website wwwgrowthfpcoza. The information we have provided in this podcast is our personal opinion. For more detailed information, please discuss your financial situation with a financial planner.