UHNW & HNW Women: When Divorce Is The Final Destination
UHNW & HNW Women
When Divorce Is The Final Destination
Living in affluence does not mean following or obeying the mainstream tribe of affluence. It means embracing YOUR difference & dealing with the calling of abundance from day to day.
Join today’s conversation on why you as an Ultra High Net Worth (UHNW), High Net Worth (HNW) or affluent professional woman should look carefully at your situation and take the most appropriate risks that you feel you would be able to handle. Time is of the essence for you. You want to achieve as much as possible as the years fly by. You are getting older and you feel there is still so much that you want to do before your time is up.
Mingled into this are the expectations of others. The others who are YOUR life partner (husband, fiance, boyfriend, gentleman friend, wife, girlfriend, lover, lady friend). The others who are YOUR family (near and distant, bloodline and step family). The others who are YOUR ‘friends’. The others who are YOUR colleagues. The others who are stakeholders in YOUR life.
You are an UHNW, HNW or affluent professional woman and you have experienced a myriad of life trials and tribulations. You have been through levels of hate, stress, anger, self loathing, emotional upheaval, tears and tantrums. You have also danced along your life journey in the giddiness of joy, happiness, affection, glee, love, elation and adoration.
So, you are what you are and that is an affluent woman. You are shy or an introvert. Perhaps with low level autism. You live in an affluent home. You live an affluent lifestyle. You have weight fluctuations. You have dietary impulses. You have relationship quandaries. Yet right now; today, through all that you are going through, or have been through, you are considering the impacts of a relationship break up. A divorce even. You are thinking about the How? Why? When? Where? of the relationship. The What? has stayed with you constantly as things began to get awkward, as things began to get tough, as things began to get lose their way in the relationship. Getting together for you meant staying together, but things in the relationship. Situations took a hold and they were not given to much thought until it was too late, they were ignored, they were dismissed, they were dampened down. In order to keep the peace. In order for the ‘usual’ to continue as per usual. In order for there to be... So today this is where you find yourself. Considering a divorce. Considering a release.
Does divorce always mean freedom?
Although I am not a solicitor or barrister in divorce proceedings, I want to briefly touch on this subject as there may be individuals who read these blogs and need some signposting in this life changing situation. I myself am going through this with a close friend. So I have a bit of an insight to this situation.
First. I want to let you know that most of my wonderful and inspirational clients come from the UK. That does not mean that they are all British born and bred, it means that they are local, national and international individuals who have a home in the UK, or a connection to the UK yet live abroad. They are as diverse as herbs and spices and they have their own unique flavour on life. They are my inspiration and why I love doing what I do to help them on their life journey. Professionally. Socially. Personally. Spiritually.
Second. Why is it that when marriages to affluent individuals become sparkling media fodder, that most people then look to their break up with glee in neon flashing lights? That people look to the cracks of the affluent relationship so that they can step in as a supplanter. So that they can cast their 2p worth of unwanted comments to the lives of two people going through a traumatic emotional time.
Third. Consider the two people who still have to ‘keep on keeping on’ with their professional, social and private life. Having to manage the impacts on their workspace. Having to manage the impacts on their social connections. Having to manage the impacts on their family and close friends. Having to manage everything in their life in real time, in the present and in the next coming months and years.
What more do I have to give?
So now to the nitty gritty.
Will a prenuptial agreement always protect your assets?
As an affluent professional woman, or a High Net Worth (HNW) Woman, or an Ultra High Net Worth (UHNW) Woman, a prenuptial agreement (also known as a prenup) may have had to be signed in order for your relationship to start off from a place where both parties are singing from the same hymn sheet. Understanding that the guidance of your legal team; your solicitor, your barrister, your counsel, your lawyer, had been to advise you up front, with your interests first and foremost protected in the event of a relationship breakdown. That this relationship agreement was a way to protect assets for both parties if the relationship had to come to an end.
The caveat to a prenup is that whilst assets can be ring fenced, you as an affluent professional woman, HNW Woman or UHNW Woman should not assume that what was recorded in the prenup will automatically be upheld by a judge.
It must be said that at the time of the divorce result, that if divorce proceedings concerning the prenup are deemed as inequitable or blinkered that the English judiciary have the power to deviate from it. This deviation can be brought up where the concerned financially weaker partner is shown to endure a life change that results in a deeply lower standard of life as a result of the prenup. Even if the concerned partner came from a poverty stricken or humble upbringing, yet s/he brought value to the life of the affluent, HNW or UHNW individual that resulted in their well-being and growth in affluence.
As an affluent professional woman, HNW Woman or UHNW Woman it is possible for you to put forward a counter to the decision that favours your partner who is financially weaker, by having the amended outcome overturned in your favour.
How acrimonious you choose to be in this prenup judicial situation is purely up to you and what you feel is justifiably yours.
The Court Of Public Opinion
How many actress’, aristocrats, authoress’, personalities, royals, songstress’, etc., in the public domain are you seeing that are going through a relationship breakdown and divorce? It looks vulnerable being in that situation, does it not?
What am I supposed to do?
British affluent professional women, HNW Women and UHNW Women who have worked hard and diligently to become financially independent through their entrepreneurial endeavours and/or working for another organisation, can have their partners put the case forward through their legal team for half of the wealth that has amassed by the affluent women. This is a delicate area for those in the pubic domain whose income may not be received until much later in time. So although an affluent woman will have worked hard during her marriage or long-term relationship and have received a healthy revenue, she may not receive some income immediately and shall have to wait a duration after the divorce before it is made available to her. This is such the case regarding royalties.
On the subject of affluent women who work fully in front of the television cameras or the film cameras as a primary or packaged part of their public exposure, or affluent women who are visible in front of fans, or affluent women who have strayed into the public domain as a personality, let us have a quick look as to what this could mean for you who are seeking a divorce.
How Do You Feel About Selling All Of Your Assets?
Let us look at a situation that you may be finding yourself in as an affluent professional woman, HNW Woman or UHNW Woman. If you have accrued royalties that have significant value, or were earned during your relationship, then a judge could order that the royalties must be sold for their cash value and then to be split between you and your partner. The discrepancy here is that the marketplace for royalties is not liquid and such intellectual property rights can be very hard to value.
A reasonable alternative to this would be to say that if your royalties cannot generate a divisible lump sum, then making an award of maintenance to your partner for a stated term would suffice. It has to be said nevertheless that if you have a clingy partner that wants to stay chained to you, having that partner as an ex-spouse who is dependent upon a share of your royalties can have them linked with you for many years after the divorce. If you want a clean break of the relationship then a type of ‘clean break’ settlement and a severance amount can rid you of the financial responsibility of your partner.
How Long Had You Been Together?
Let us suppose that you were living with your partner for five years and that you were married for one year, a judge may take this into account and warrant that the financial assets of yours should be divided equally when making an award. Especially if it can be shown that your partner aided your ability to be able to increase your income.
It is reasonable that the length of time that a couple stay together in a marriage should impact upon the financial claims in a divorce. But the living together duration prior to marriage will also be taken into account if it is deemed highly significant in the proceedings.
Who are you leaving?
What Had Your Partner Contributed To The Relationship?
If you as an affluent professional woman, HNW Woman or UHNW Woman have a partner who is financially weaker than you, yet they had supported your advancement whilst not contributing financially to the relationship, could lead to a larger award for the partner who is financially weaker.
In the English court system your partner does not have to contribute financially to the marriage in order to get a good piece of your income in a divorce case. It is perfectly reasonable that your partner can show that s/he contributed to the relationship in other ways that supported you during the years that the income accrued.
The court system will look at the argument that your partner created a stable home environment that aided your advancement in business, or that s/he cared for your elderly parents at home, or maintained the well-being of your child from another relationship, or placed their own career as secondary to yours in order to support your development.
Is There A Sexist Bias Towards Affluent Women Like You In Divorce Situations?
As a general rule of thumb the judicial system should not allow any form of gender discrimination to impact upon outcomes of financial payouts in relationship breakdowns/divorce proceedings. However, some judicial teams have witnessed cases where it had been extremely challenging for male partners of affluent professional women, HNW Women or UHNW Women to secure scheduled maintenance payments after a relationship breakdown/divorce. This is in comparison to women; women being the partner of affluent women or women being the partner of affluent men.
It is this bias that has the propensity to take root in cases of a male partner who is financially weaker. In addition to that bias having a sizeable impact upon the size of the award afforded to the man who was in a relationship with you, you an affluent professional woman, or you the HNW Woman, or you the UHNW Woman.
Was it really a mistake?
If you are feeling ‘so-so’, or, not coping well over the Autumn and Winter seasons, as you head into the mish-mash of the festivities and invitations that have already commenced, besides rising within the status of being a HNW, UHNW or affluent professional woman; in addition to handling being different as your place in society changes, drop me an email. At this time of the year how are you feeling about the relationship with your own Self? The most important relationship in your life. How is that going?
“Ladies if it is getting hard for you managing your lifestyle, contact me. Come and contact me. I am here for you.” Jay at RISE for women coaching. Enable your upper hand to provide for you when you click on the RISE button in your life.
Warning! Only click on the link if you are in a hurry to engage yourself with 1-to-1 RISE coaching transformation to iron out a particular lifestyle status circumstance, due to an imminent professional, social or private situation that requires immediate attention.
