A Quick Guide To Surviving Divorce

We've all been there, seen the video and got the T shirt. You meet somebody, fall in love and get married. You buy a house or apartment, settle down and grow together. Maybe you have kids, you bring them up and educate them, you send them off to university or an independent life with a home and partner of their own 

And then you look forward to retiring and enjoying those golden years you've worked hard for all of your life. Life is wonderful, if you are lucky enough to survive the grind of a working life and the minefield of a marriage. And they all lived happily ever after, end of story.

However, what happens if your marriage all goes base over apex long before you get even to the halfway point? Now you will enter a battle field of acrimony and ruin, if you are not careful. And being careful must start right at the beginning if you are to avoid all the pitfalls of getting divorced. 

What normally happens is that we generally do not give the slightest attention to divorce at the start. That is because we are all starry eyed with our partner and cannot imagine it ever going wrong. So why prepare for something that is never going to happen? And that is everybodies very first mistake.

Think of it as a business agreement. In business, it is normal to set out an agreement, one which includes the terms of an exit. No businessman would dream of signing an agreement that in the eventuality of a separation one partner gets all and the other nothing. That is not only ill advised, it is absolutely insane. And yet that is effectively, exactly what I did when I got married for the second time, to a Spanish woman, and I am not the only man to make that mistake.

What I neglected to investigate was how Spain works in matters of separation and divorce, before I got married. I just presumed that if it ever came to divorce it would be dealt with as was my first divorce back in the UK. Now things may have changed a little over the last few years in Spain, but not much.

In Spain they put the children first and foremost, which to a point is fine. However, as long as a woman can justify the keeping of anything for the benefit of a child or children, she can claim just about everything.

The man has to move out of the family home, leaving the woman with a stable home for her and the children. Of course it stands to reason that she gets to keep all the fixtures and furnishings, to make that house into a home.

His car? She needs that to take the child to school. His clothes? The child will need those when he grows up. That very expensive business computer? The child will be needing that for his IT classes at school. The man, he gets the clothes he is wearing, and a big, fat goodbye kick up the arse, as he leaves the house, and nothing more.

Next step, his ex wife will apply for a very substantial amount of his salary (in my case my ex wanted and applied for all of my salary, though she didn't get it).

In addition, if there is still a mortgage on the family home the man will have to keep paying that so his ex can stay at home caring for the children. The car loan likewise, the man will have to maintain the monthly pay ments, along with house insurance, health care, etc, etc, etc. And to rub salt into the wounds, she can take in a lover to live rent free in the man's house. 

Also, a man will have to pay his ex a monthly amount for her and the childrens' needs. And according to Spanish law, a child is a child until the age of twenty five years old! In far too many cases children are discouraged from working or leaving home in order to protect their mother's income from the father.

Lots of men end up going to live back with their elderly parents in an over small house. And they wonder why in Spain marriage is in decline. The only sure way to avoid this total destruction is to not get married and not have children. Surprise surprise, the Spanish birth rate is also in free fall and has been for a number of years. Fortunately, there is another way out of this disastrous scenario.

The Nine Golden Rules Of Engagement

1. No joint account or credit cards.

2. No joint ownership of any property or investments.

3. Make a legally binding prenuptial agreement clearly stating that what is yours is yours and what's hers is hers. 

And if she ever asks you ever so sweetly to put a house or a car in her name only, to prove how much you love and trust her, politely decline and perhaps reconsider staying with that person. Clearly in the asking, your partner has a hidden agenda very much not in your favour. It's the same as when your partner suddenly asks for an open relationship, for sure she or he is already cheating on you.

And here follow another six rules of engagement.

4. At the first sign of any violence towards you, get out as fast as you can.

5. Never, ever move in to her parents' home with all your stuff.

6. Do not get married until you have passed two years dating or living together. Really get to know your future partner in life, warts and all.

7. Set limits on who pays for what and how much.

8. Never marry somebody who has nothing, unless you also have nothing.

9. Set limits on what sort of behaviour you find acceptable and what not. Divide the work load evenly, as well as the space available in your new home.

Now sadly, I have to tell you, I broke every single one of those rules with my second marriage, and I ended up getting well and truly fleeced of every single cent I had ever worked hard for over 40 years. Talk about an innocent abroad.

I was new to the game and had no concept of how the world operates. I did not make a single mistake the third time round and after eight years together, we are still very happily married. Tis a shame I didn't meet her fifty years ago, mind you, she was only just born fifty years ago, so her parents might have had a problem with that.

They say you live and learn, but when it comes to marriage, try to learn before you live, and that way you stand a very good chance of surviving divorce.