Please check my divorces

[TheRedChamber]

I'm in the process of dipping my toe in the LW acrimonious divorce genre. I think I've got the details down for the legal sides of things, but I'd like anyone with any experience of UK divorce law to give it the once over for sanity. Here are just the facts.

Husband A (i.e. the MC) is married to Wife A and have two kids (10 and 8ish)
Husband B is married to Wife B and no kids (or possible adult children).
Husband B and Wife A had an affair lasting more than a decade on and off.
Wife B discovered her husband's infidelity. She divorced him three years ago, but there was no benefit to her naming Wife A in the divorce, she did not want to break up another marriage and Husband A remained unaware of the infidelity until the start of the story. Wife B gets a good settlement.
Because Husband B is remiss in payments to her (and possibly other disagreements), she sends proof of the affair to Husband A.
Husband A starts divorce proceedings. He wants full (or primary) custody of the children.
Wife A gave up her well-paid job on the birth of the children. She stayed at home but also started writing a lot during this time. Husband A supported her writing career financially (and through effort) significantly during this period.
She's since become a semi-famous author. Her book may or may not become a major TV series soon and she may reap huge financial benefits from this.
Both Wife and Husband A are good parents. Husband A cared a lot for the children when work allowed (e.g. evenings and weekends)
Husband A is told that the infidelity will not materially impact the results of the divorce and that Wife A will likely be considered the primary caregiver (which she was)
Husband A is also worried that Wife has videos and photos of twenty-years of BDSM sessions, a very small part of which could be twisted to make husband A look bad if the divorce turns nasty.
Husband A punched Husband B three days after finding out, but has otherwise stayed out of conflict.
Wife A genuinely feels guilty about what happened, but not to the extent of giving up her children completely.
Throughout the legal process, Wife A openly plans to marry Husband B and have more children with him.

Final result is wife A and husband A agree an 'amicable' true fifty-fifty custody agreement. Husband A gets the house on the basis of waiving his rights to potential profit from the movie and on the understanding that it goes to the kids.

Does this seem about right?

 

[stonedinstilletos]

Depends on the state really. Most generally favor a 50-50ish split but there’s differences with how they get there. Now, if I’m the lawyer, I would have a hard time signing off on the waiver of the community share of the wife’s movie money in exchange for the house. Allowing my client to do that would really depend on how the wife’s deal with the movie studio is structured. Is she getting more than just a one time payment. What do her residuals (I forget the term) look like.

I realize that the wife is going to put the money towards the kids, but she is going to be responsible for a share of what the kids need, either in time or money. The issue of child support in most states is it cannot be waived and usually has to go along a formula. It’s been a while since I did it in my state but I don’t think ti can be stipulated away without court approval.

If the wife did try to use the BDSM video I would advise my client go to the DA. Using that sort of thing to gain advantage would be blackmail. I would also notify the court of what the other side was threatening. It sounds good to have that sort of thing, but if you were to get caught and it could be made be shown that blackmail was provable, judges would be unhappy over that sort of thing.

 

[SimonDoom]

I didn't know anything about UK marital law until after you started the thread and I looked it up. It appears that the law is finally changing, but until very recently the UK still had fault-based divorce law, which nearly all (or maybe all) states in the US abandoned a long time ago. We have no-fault divorce, so there's no need to bring up nasty allegations of the partner; they don't affect whether the divorce happens or in most cases how the property is split up and, except where the facts implicate the welfare of the child, who gets custody and how much child support to pay.

 

[TheRedChamber]

Thanks for the replies.

I didn't know anything about UK marital law until after you started the thread and I looked it up. It appears that the law is finally changing, but until very recently the UK still had fault-based divorce law, which nearly all (or maybe all) states in the US abandoned a long time ago. We have no-fault divorce, so there's no need to bring up nasty allegations of the partner; they don't affect whether the divorce happens or in most cases how the property is split up and, except where the facts implicate the welfare of the child, who gets custody and how much child support to pay.

This is basically where I got to with it.

Depends on the state really. Most generally favor a 50-50ish split but there’s differences with how they get there. Now, if I’m the lawyer, I would have a hard time signing off on the waiver of the community share of the wife’s movie money in exchange for the house. Allowing my client to do that would really depend on how the wife’s deal with the movie studio is structured. Is she getting more than just a one time payment. What do her residuals (I forget the term) look like.

I realize that the wife is going to put the money towards the kids, but she is going to be responsible for a share of what the kids need, either in time or money. The issue of child support in most states is it cannot be waived and usually has to go along a formula. It’s been a while since I did it in my state but I don’t think ti can be stipulated away without court approval.

Maybe I need to firm this up a bit. Plotwise the only real important thing is the MC wants to stay in the house (which is probably only 10 years into it's mortgage) and is willing to 'overspend' to ensure he gets that. Both parents are financially stable and there's no question they're going to support the kids. But maybe I need to think about what that support looks like, especially if the wife becomes super-rich. Again, plotwise the idea is that she has had some success as an author and will almost certainly continue to do so. The question (which will be unresolved till the end) is whether she is successful like, say, George R.R. Martin before Game of Thrones (either the show flops or never exits production), or mega-successful like GRRM after GoT. The husband does have the attitude that he doesn't want to take the wife's money, but naturally if she's able to support the kids at a much higher level than he is, how much does that kick back up to him with her spending on their upkeep?

If the wife did try to use the BDSM video I would advise my client go to the DA. Using that sort of thing to gain advantage would be blackmail. I would also notify the court of what the other side was threatening. It sounds good to have that sort of thing, but if you were to get caught and it could be made be shown that blackmail was provable, judges would be unhappy over that sort of thing.

This is a more minor point and not that important, it's going to be shout back to some earlier episodes. The wife is never going to actually blackmail him and she never mentions it. It does occur to him that he's left 20-years of video on a hard-drive in the house and he's no idea exactly what could be made to look like what. That may encourage him to settle for 50-50, but even without it, maybe his odds of getting full custody are slight.