‘You Want Me to Do What Now?’ – The Return-to-Work Question and the Quiet Cost of Executive Marriage

She hadn’t written a CV in 20 years. Hadn’t needed to. When her ex’s career took off, they moved every few years. She held everything else together while he earned the money. But ‘everything else’ was a lot. A job that never ended, never paid, and never came with recognition, until now, when it’s being questioned. Because now, as part of the divorce, she’s being asked to outline her ‘return-to-work plan’.

• Journal

• Economic Disparity
• Spousal Maintenance (Quantum)
• 5-Year Career Plan
• Return to Work

• Ceri Griffiths

!30/06/2025 06:00

PN v SA [2025] EWFC 14123 May 2025

Cobb J. Third-largest financial remedy case in the jurisdiction’s history. The judge set aside a separation agreement entered into by W under significant emotional and psychological pressure.

• Cases

• Agreements
• Coercive Control
• Undue Influence

• Caitlin McHale

AP v TP (Pension Enforcement) [2025] EWFC 190 (B)13 June 2025

HHJ Farquhar. Application by husband to set aside a PSO under the Thwaite jurisdiction due to the wife’s sustained non-compliance. The court held that continued enforcement of the PSO would be inequitable given the respondent’s conduct, the applicant’s age and deteriorating health, and the executory nature of the order.

• Cases

• Barder Applications
• Pensions on Divorce
• 'Thwaite Jurisdiction'
• Delay
• Executory Orders
• Enforcement
• Setting Aside Orders (Including Barder Applications)

• Yudhajit Jha

OS v DT and Post-Separation Income: Fairness Trumps Inflexibility

In a previous post Nicholas Allen KC considered the potential impact of Waggott v Waggott [2018] 2 FLR 406 on the argument that income (or the assets or capital generated therefrom) earned in or referable to the first 12 months post-separation should be classed as matrimonial property to which the sharing principle applies. This issue has now been revisited in OS v DT [2025] EWFC 156 (B) per HHJ Hess.

• Blog

• Post-Separation Accrual

• Nicholas Allen KC
• Michael Allum

!08/07/2025 07:00

Final Reflections on Standish: Was It All Worthwhile?

If asked, Mr Standish may say that three rounds of litigation, with another to follow, were worth it – Mrs Standish, perhaps not. But for lawyers, with many questions left unanswered, and a feeling that the opportunity to settle the law on matrimonialisation with clarity and certainty has passed us by, it may not have been worthwhile.

• Blog

• Matrimonial and Non-Matrimonial Property
• Matrimonialisation

• Calum Smith

!09/07/2025 10:15