WOMEN: Please read this before you get married

I got financially screwed so you don't have to!

nice ring though, tbf

A couple of weeks back, I wrote a piece about my disastrous six month marriage for the Daily Mail: the news organisation that I work for.

It featured the ins and outs of the emotional and financial minefield that has been the last 12 months of my life…including my shock that the man I thought would love me forever instead chose to leave when we’d barely gotten started.

Anyway, share in my anger at your leisure.

What didn’t make it into the piece ( the multiple pictures of my face took up too my space) was a box about what every person, although, women in particular, ought to know before they assign themselves to another person for the rest of their life.

This knowledge is vital. It is so vital that BBC Woman’s Hour dedicated an entire section to it (and sudden break-ups in general) - and kindly invited me on to speak.

If I’d been enlightened before my wedding, I would have been spared half the traumatic clusterfuck I’ve had to endure.

Yes, few things are more magical than romance - and most women want to have a happily ever after, it is only natural.

But anyone entering into this legal contract must be aware of what it entails.

*There are at least 20 more bits of information you need to know, but in the interest of preventing boredom, I’ve narrowed it down to the most important six.

1.   Getting out of it isn’t easy. Despite what you might have seen in Friends, an annulment isn’t really a thing in the UK. Unless you’re secretly related or one of you is an illegal immigrant, that is. You have to wait a year before you can even apply for a divorce. It can take around six months for your divorce case to even be heard in a court - and after that another month or two until it’s final. Annoyingly, the person who applied for the divorce is the only one who can apply for the final order to get it all done and dusted. Only if they haven’t done it after FIVE MONTHS can the other person apply. Ridiculous.

2.   Get this: Even if you are fully, legally divorced, your husband/wife can come still after you for financial assets. Even years or decades later. In short: if you were to become a millionaire, there is every chance your former betrothed could file litigation to fight you for a portion of cash – and win. There is one way to protect yourself, and it’s a legal document called a consent order. This details your financial assets, along with your partner’s, and states that they shall remain separate – no matter how circumstances change. What sucks, though, is that it costs somewhere in the region of £1000 in solicitor’s fees to get this paperwork drawn up.

3.   The UK’s new ‘No Fault Divorce’, introduced in the spring of 2022, is, without doubt, an overwhelmingly positive step for women. It puts an end to archaic laws that make you endure two years of separation before divorcing, freeing thousands of women from abusive relationships. However it can also leave one party feeling robbed of retribution. The party who applies for the divorce on the Government’s website (in my case, him) essentially fills out a tick-box form in which you can cite ‘no fault’. The other party (me) receives a charming email in which the first line reads: ‘Your husband/wife has applied for a divorce.’ The options are: I agree, or I don’t. There is no box for, ‘my husband was fucking someone else’ or ‘my husband spent all our money at a farmyard chicken auction’ (neither of these things were true in my case, just FYI). You tick the box and off it goes into the ether. Then you’re left sitting in the dark nailing an entire chocolate cake and wondering how tf you’re supposed to get closure.

4.   When you get married, all financial assets are automatically pooled. This applies to pension schemes, savings, properties and investments. The piece of paper you sign when you buy a house with someone to say your deposit goes back to you and vice verca is null and void when you get hitched.  When I tell people this the reaction is usually a version of; ‘WAIT, WHAT?’ or ‘HOW CAN THAT HAPPEN?’ Yes my friends, it is as fucked up as you think it is. I have heard several cases of particularly charming men paying thousands in legal fees to drag their ex-wife through the court for the sake of a poxy pension.  Thankfully, there’s a solution which I can explain in a single word: Prenup.

5.   Negotiating money brings out the most demonic, unhinged and truly dreadful side of people you thought were decent. Expect to witness your former beloved metamorphosize into an other-worldly alien who speaks to you as if you’re his slightly inept accountant. Prepare for phrases such as: ‘Please can you do the following’ and ‘as I previously mentioned’. I am sure there are millions of former partners who don’t do this, and offer everything they possibly can to make what is possibly the most traumatic event in your life marginally more bearable. This is, of course, how it should be.

6.   If you find yourself unexpectedly in this position, feel free to DM me. @eviesimm x