My financial divorce from a brutal banker... he takes exotic breaks with his girlfriend, I worry about rent and supporting my kids

Last week Boris Johnson advised rich spouses to divorce in London  — be warned, says Lise Belle, as she tells her harrowing tale of what happens when brutal bankers want a younger model  
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30 November 2012

I remember when he dropped the bomb. We were walking in Greenwich Park, the snow crunching under our boots. “You’re so distant these days,” I was saying, nestling my chin in my scarf. “What’s going on?” He stopped dead and turned: “Lise, I want an open marriage,” he said. Digging his fists in his pockets, he added: “And I want a financial divorce.”

I got open marriage, but “financial divorce”? “I will give you a household allowance,” he explained, “but you will have no access to any other bank accounts.”

Stupid as it sounds, I considered it. We’d been married for 12 years; we have two beautiful children. I’d surrendered my life to him, forsaking my legal career to accompany him round the world while he worked as a banker. Our last move had been from Washington to London. What was I supposed to do?

Feeling as if I’d been punched in the stomach, I did what most women would do: I saw a lawyer. You’re thinking: “So you took him to the cleaners, and lived happily ever after on a big settlement. Right?” Wrong.

Nothing prepared me for what happened next. My husband played the injured party because I’d initiated proceedings. His infidelities were brushed aside and I was treated like a grade one gold-digger.

It soon became obvious that he’d been planning this (“financial divorce” is legalese). He knew every trick — from quitting the bank and taking a job as a school teacher (ensuring his income dropped from £1 million a year to £20,000), to squirrelling away our assets in his name alone, and donating large sums in his sole name to charity (we’re not talking Unicef here, but his old college).

He hired a rottweiler who terrified my lawyer so much he suggested I consult a bigger firm. The costs? £750p/h (plus VAT). And it snowballed: a year and a half of bitter wrangling and our legal bill stood at £1 million.

London once had a reputation for fairness in the divorce courts. In 2001 Lord Nicholls ruled on appeal in the White v White case that the non-financial contribution of a parent caring for children had to be considered when dividing the assets “to ensure the absence of discrimination”. Lord Justice Thorpe effectively overturned that this year by ruling that wealthy wives should no longer expect big payouts “to keep them in the style to which they are accustomed”.

There’s a distinct ring of sexism in Thorpe’s words. They take no account of a wife’s contribution to the marriage, what she’s given up, what private deal she’s struck with her husband. If you’re divorcing a high-earning man, he seems to be saying, you should be financially humbled.

And here I am: test case. I write from a small flat the size of our old garden, surrounded by tenement blocks, while my ex is living with a girl half his age (60) in one of London’s richest neighbourhoods.

I face the daunting prospect of returning to work aged 48 with a 12-year hole the shape of my marriage in my CV.

While he takes exotic breaks with his girlfriend, I worry about rent and how I’ll get my kids through university. I desperately miss Washington, my friends and my family.

But I am not alone in this experience. Increasingly I meet ex-wives of wealthy men who have been similarly trounced by the English legal system. When Caroline’s husband left for a younger woman after 37 years, she assumed they would split the assets. He was worth £15 million. For the next three years, however, she paid £40,000 a month in legal bills for “liaising, chasing up and drafting” and “hiring private detectives to track him in Europe”.

He dodged three penal notices and two committal orders to make him disclose his net worth — something he never did. “The fees kept ticking up,” Caroline says. “£40,000 a month for what? I felt like killing myself! So I walked away.”

Another wife, Deborah, had two children with her husband of 10 years, a banker on £700k. “I signed a pre-nup,” she told me, “but was awarded £2 million for a house and a small settlement for child support.” Her husband appealed “and won. I lost the house. I’ve never had a job, because I brought up the kids. It’s late in the day to start again.”

Sarah was made to sign a gagging order “to protect the reputation” of her very senior banker ex-husband. After 20 years and four children, he quit his job and ran off with a younger woman. Sarah moved from their mansion in Richmond (with media room and swimming pool) to a two-bedroom flat above a shop in Shepherd’s Bush. He’d spent £500,000 on his mistress but the judge didn’t care. “I cope by not dwelling on it,” she tells me. “You should do the same.”

Bankers, perhaps because they’re money-obsessed, seem particularly wily in divorce cases. Some keep top London lawyers on a retainer so that their wives can’t access them.

In America it’s different. Lawyers are onto the tricks. It’s classic to quit a high-paying job (they call it RAID: Recently Acquired Income Deficiency), so they hit “earning potential” instead. My husband turned down lucrative offers during our divorce, but, according to my lawyers, “the judge won’t force a man in his late fifties to get a better job”.

My lawyer in the States was incensed. “It’s ridiculous!” she said. “You’re entitled to $20,000 to 30,000 a month child support on his income!” In London, I get a fraction of that; it doesn’t cover the rent.

I met my husband at a party in Washington. He was charming, 10 years my senior, strong and in control. Yes he was successful — as was I. After we married he asked me to quit work and we had an enviable existence — Christmas in Mauritius, safaris, five-star hotels. We travelled by private jet. He wanted the best: we saw the same doctors as the US president.

He cried with joy when the kids were born. “My life is devoted to looking after this family,” he would say. As was mine.

Soon afterwards he announced we were going to London. “It’ll be the adventure of a lifetime,” he promised. “We’ll be back in two years.” His new employers wooed us: they put us up at a Mayfair hotel before covering £5k a week rent for a £5 million house in Chelsea. Our life was a banker cliché: we had housekeepers, nannies, tutors, gardeners, florists, dog walkers. Financially, we were in the top 0.1 per cent. Our children attended a famous prep school. I took unpaid work at a charity for Third World women — I thought I could afford to.

And then that winter’s day — bam — it was over. Yes, people get divorced. It’s ugly. I know. And in the plush offices of my legal firm I thought, “well, they hear cases like mine every day”.

But I was so naïve.

My husband portrayed me as someone so extravagant it would make Imelda Marcos blush. He said I forged cheques and withdrew “unaccounted for” sums of “his” money from the ATM.

“You’re going to have to stop shopping at Marni,” one lawyer sniped, with a sweeping head-to-toe glance. “Wear a sack to court. Otherwise it doesn’t look good.” They advised: “You need to be whiter than white. Don’t date, don’t stay out late, don’t drink, don’t party. Don’t do anything that makes it look like you are having a good time.” The tone was sexist, patronising and humiliating.

Meanwhile my husband, who had a girlfriend, acted like a man drained of resources. At no point did he say that the life we led was every bit his.

When he repeatedly refused to settle, my legal team whispered, “he’ll get stuck with your fees”. But he didn’t. Two days before the final hearing he made an offer. My QC said, “forget it. You’ll get more”. But I didn’t.

I hear his girlfriend has learned from my mistakes: she refused to move in without her name on his assets and in his will. It was 13 years before that thought occurred to me.

And now I’m paying for it.

Some names and details have been changed.

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