D.I.V.O.R.C.E 21st century-style

Feb 24, 2015
Since her divorce seven years ago Tracey Wright, 51, a mother-of-two, has been supported by her wealthy ex-husband to the tune of 75K a year, including school fees (one child boards, the other is at home) and lives in a substantial mortgage-free house.
Conscious that he may not be able to sustain the payments post-retirement, Mr Wright — a racehorse surgeon — went to court to seek a reduction. Tracey Wright then appealed against the decision made by the (female) judge Lynn Roberts, who couldn’t find a good reason why Mrs Wright wasn’t working to support herself. According to Mrs Wright’s (male) lawyer, the appeal was made on the grounds that ‘the order would cause a plummeting in the standard of living’ of the Wright’s youngest child, aged ten.

However, in predictable calls-a-spade-a-whatever judicial style, the (male) appeal court judge, Justice Pitchford (‘Pitchfork’, obvs) rejected this argument, suggesting that Tracey Wright ‘just get on with it’. He advised her ‘to get a job... like vast numbers of other women with children.’ Entirely failing to mince his words, he added ‘it is possible to find work that fits in with childcare responsibilities. I reject her other reasons relating to responsibilities for animals, or trees, or housekeeping. Mrs Wright has made no effort whatsoever to seek work or to update her skills... I am satisfied that she has worked on the basis... that she would be supported for life. It is essential... that she starts to work now.’ Cue pictures of Tracey looking put-upon, accompanied by her dogs, on the deck outside her house.

Apparently this court case will turn out to be a ‘game-changer’, not least for those divorced women — so-called (by some divorced men, probably) ‘alimony leeches’ — whose antediluvian sense of entitlement leads them to believe that (aside from the extra space in the Superking bed and all that blessed peace and quiet) their post-divorce lives should mirror their married lives.

I am entirely in accord with Mr Wright and Justice Pitchfork: as a former riding instructor (previously she was also a legal secretary) Mrs Wright even has the kind of marketable skills that (analogue horse-riding being thrillingly unaffected by the digital world) need absolutely no updating whatsoever!

‘This is terrible. It gives horsey people living mortgage-free in houses worth half a million pounds and receiving three grand a month pocket money for doing nothing a very bad name’ said one witty reader comment on a newspaper’s website. And while I’m sure that the Moderator had to keep an eye on things (I can well imagine the outpourings of Trollsy-bile towards Tracey Wright from the kind of angry ex-husbands whose anger probably contributed to their ex-ness and whose own family court judgements may not have gone their way) for the most part the comments were quite overwhelmingly sane. Here’s a typically respectful exchange:

‘JAMES’: We expect the children of the filthy rich to go out and get a job, and not sit back living off daddy’s inheritance. So it should be with ex-wives. There is nothing degrading about earning an income and setting an example to your children that self respect comes from achievement, not beggaring your ex in the divorce court.

‘JANE’: I’m hoping you mean ‘ex-spouses’, not ‘ex-wives’.

‘JAMES’: Absolutely, it cuts both ways… by all means we should support our families, and give a leg up to ex spouses to help them get back on their feet after what are inevitably distressing break ups, but in the long term, to regain a sense of worth, if not reality, we should all, as adults, at least make the effort to lead independent, productive lives, otherwise what message do we give to our own children?’

It is (frustratingly) all-but-impossible to argue against points of view so suffused with reasonableness and common sense. And here’s another (slightly more pro-Tracey):

'The ‘bargain’ made here was for this man to have the status and comfort of a stay-at-home wife, and she has now got no history of employment which will, as many here point out, mean she is disadvantaged now. I believe we should all work for a living. I also believe in gender equality. Wealthy women do themselves no favours at all when they accept this archaic, crippling ‘bargain’ of staying at home and earning no money. As this case clearly shows they make themselves dependent on the patronage of a man and the survival of a marriage. Yet she DID work during the marriage — if we believe in the worth of the mothering this woman did, and continues to do — and that work (including bearing and caring for this man's children) will bear fruit all his life, and he should give her a good proportion of his pension to guarantee a modest middle-class life-style. I hope the judge left her with enough to ensure this.'

Hopelessly fair. But the bottom line is surely this, from a different post:

'We simply cannot expect to be kept for life if we happen to marry into money. Marriage is not a business contract. So, it might be hard to make an income when you’re older — many, many of us know this, whatever our circumstances — but that doesn’t mean anyone should be forced to keep us, whatever past relationship we may have had with them…'.

This comment is the product of precisely the kind of hard-earned ‘Fifty Sense’ that the remaining Tracey Wrights of the world would do well to acquire — and fast.