Women happy to walk out rather than work it out

Jacquie Hayes

Getting the message . . . anecdotal evidence points to more women making the decision to separate from their partners.

Family breakdown is not a subject I enjoy because I’ve been through it. When it happened to me, I knew what to expect, on some levels, because as a finance journalist I’ve reported on the technicalities of marital collapse, outlining how to safeguard assets leading into a marriage and dealing with the implications in the event of a split.

It is all about protecting your position.

But nothing can protect you from the emotional turmoil, confusion and disappointment when you’re in the thick of separating, especially once lawyers get involved.

Forty per cent of marriages end in divorce, so relationship breakdown has become a fact of life for many, and fodder for gossip and conjecture for a lot of the rest.

A case in point was a conversation with friends over dinner recently. One guy was convinced a trend had emerged whereby women – working ones specifically – had become emboldened to call things off.

He says he knew of at least 10 couples in recent years where the wives had walked out. They had the money, smarts and the sass, and weren’t going to stand by their men in a less-than-optimal union.

In some cases, he says, the husbands, on being told they were being dumped, wasted no time in scurrying off to hide assets in preparation for a legal stoush. Empirically, determining if women are making the break more often than men is hard to prove – formal statistics look at who eventually files for divorce, not who initiates the split. But anecdotally there appears to be some evidence that my friend was onto something.

Melbourne-based accredited family law specialist John Mazzotta, of Mills Oakley Lawyers, says women’s financial independence is a big factor in more of them initiating the break. “Today, more men will be left the ‘Dear John’ letter and it will come as a complete surprise to them,” Mazzotta says.

The advent of the female entrepreneur in the past five years has brought about a virtual role reversal when it comes to separation, says Caroline Counsel, who runs a Melbourne boutique family law firm in her own name.

“A lot more women have successfully climbed the corporate ladder and are at the top of the pecking order, while their husbands have lost their way in mainstream employment,” Counsel says.

“It’s a difficult place emotionally for Australian men to be, playing second fiddle to a strong, competent woman.”

As women have gained financial fluency and comprehension about their needs, Counsel has seen less of the dependent wife operating from a fear basis.

“Once they would roll over, play dead and accept anything. Now, in the main, even if the woman hasn’t been the major financial player, I’m no longer seeing that real doormat behaviour.”

In NSW, women have pretty well always been the ones to call things off, says accredited family law specialist Margaret Linden.

“The figures [of them doing so] are very high, and it’s been that way forever,” says Linden, a director of York Family Law in Sydney.

What women are doing more of, however, is fighting harder for their share of the assets. They are less likely to take a deal in mediation.

“Sydney has a reputation for being quite aggressive,” Linden says.

“Not quite as aggressive as Perth, but certainly nowhere near as civilised as Melbourne.” The disputes in Sydney are getting tougher. I’m going to final hearings more than I ever did.”

The point about litigation is an important one for those who’ve signed an agreement about who gets what after a split. Such agreements – whether drawn up as a prenuptial or in the course of marriage – are viewed as worthless as a result of recent tinkering with legislation.

The Law Council of Australia is in discussions with the Attorney-General’s Department about suggested improvements, says the council’s chairman of the family law division, Geoff Sinclair.

Fortunately, only 3 to 5 per cent of all separating couples end up in court, says Counsel – “the most dysfunctional families, or ‘the mad, bad, sad’”.

There hasn’t been an identifiable shift towards men or women in the outcomes.

“No one’s a winner once things get to court,” she says. “Healthier families” take a collaborative approach with the aid of financial planners and family consultants who model financial outcomes to satisfy both parties.

The good news is it’s now pretty hard to hide assets given our strict reporting obligations. Disclosure and discovery mechanisms, coupled with lawyers’ willingness to subpoena information, make it tougher still. An exception may exist where spouses operate in cash or have companies through which they can leak funds. They can be very expensive to trace.

Anyone thinking of behaving like that should keep in mind that there’s a strong obligation under the family law system to disclose truthfully what you own. If you get sprung being less than honest, it probably won’t work out too well for you.

“Credibility is important,” Mazzotta says.

As for those preparing to drop the bomb, be smart about it, says Linden. Move all the money from joint accounts into one in your name, so you’ll have a safety net until the court is able to organise regular financial support. Don’t feel bad about protecting your position.

jacquie.hayes@me.com

The Australian Financial Review