Arm after divorce?
ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: For many years, we warn our readers not to rely on the husband as a provider. Has the message arrived?
EVA BECKER: For most women, the realization has prevailed that they need to take more responsibility. and not only when the separation is imminent. Anything else would also be naive, because the goal of the maintenance right reform was to shorten the length and amount of maintenance claims after a divorce significantly. The case law, however, had to settle down first. The first two or three years after its entry into force resulted in extreme judgments. Women who had relied on the man as a provider in their housewife roles had suddenly suffered serious income losses, they did not get any maintenance. In the meantime, judgments are no longer so dramatic, and those involved can usually live with them.
How did the turnaround come about?
In 2011, the maintenance law was again fine-tuned, since then, the duration of marriage is taken into account again stronger. Classically, this affects the mid-fifties, who part with children after a long housewife marriage. If they can not find a job on the job market, it may be that the husband has to pay for the remaining ten years until retirement. That will be decided on a case by case basis.
When I got married in 2002, it was not clear that in the future, women would be more on their own. Does the law make a difference between the women who married before the 2008 reform and those afterwards? because they knew what to expect in the event of a divorce?
Did you have a marriage contract then?
No.
Then you will be treated according to the new law. With you, the legislator is totally unempathic. You are a mature citizen and you have to be prepared to adjust the law. Incidentally, these are the problematic cases today, for example here in Berlin-Zehlendorf, where traditional housewife marriages are still widespread.
After a divorce, do these women have to see that they find work again quickly?
Exactly. Take the case of a woman in her early 40s who has two children and separates from her husband after 15 years off work. In the separation year she first has to change nothing in her life. Until the legal force of divorce, she gets separation support, because the requirements are still very low. Maybe she has to work part-time when the children are older. After the legal force of the divorce, it is over with the privileges. If the woman has learned something commercial, for example, she will have to take on a secretary's job. But the judge may also say: "You raised two children, you can work here as a nanny in Berlin-Zehlendorf, and we can do that for you."
Can she also be forced to move from part-time to full-time?
Absolutely - if there is a full-time care on site.
Sociologists warn lawmakers that women are integrated into the labor market and can increase full-time employment at any time. In practice, however, this is not so easy in many companies.
The judge then checks whether the current job is so meaningful and important that a job change to another full-time position is unreasonable. Or maybe you could accept another extra job. If, after the divorce, the husband no longer wants the wife to be there for the children in the afternoon, which incidentally is not an isolated case, she usually has to work full-time as soon as the children have full-time care. If she does not do that, the maintenance will be cut.
In short, the new divorce law has brought a lot of work to women ...
The new maintenance law has helped raise women's awareness of caring for themselves. This is not bad at first, but a result of equal rights, and that's what emancipated women should be happy about and not complain about. But you also have to consider the social development, and there the family environment is not right yet. Men need to be more involved in caring to relieve women, and they must allow it. Working time arrangements and concepts need to become more flexible, and childcare safer and better organized. But also the attitude of parents, that foreign care does not have to be bad per se, has to change. All this has nothing to do with the maintenance law. The topic is much more complex.
And what do you dislike about maintenance?
That families who have jointly chosen a concept such as the housewife marriage, have to drastically change their life situation with the divorce. Especially children suffer from this, because the uncertainty affects deeply the families.I also lack a balance. One can not put the responsibility more firmly on the women, without taking the men with the responsibility. You have to look after the children as well. Perfect conditions would be as in France, where the working hours regulations allow every employee to work full-time if required and to take advantage of the necessary childcare.
Here is still the social acceptance of all-day care. It's just stupid if your own child is the only one in the hoard until 6 pm ...
That's right, we can not solve the problem solely through the right to children and maintenance. The state has to decide what it wants. If he wants full-time working mothers because of demographic change, he has to make sure that afternoon care is guaranteed everywhere and the rule is. That one does not want to tackle in Germany, also because we have a different story than France. We regard state support with skepticism.
So is the conclusion: Actually, as a mother you can not stay home much longer today?
Yes, but then you should definitely sign a marriage contract. It must be there, how a couple presents the organization of his life when children are there. For example: "We agree that the children should be cared for by the mother: until the end of primary school all day, then from 3 pm We do not want the woman to take up employment after 3 pm" We family lawyers are happy about concrete agreements, because there are fewer conflicts later.
What are family lawyers arguing about today - unlike in the past?
"It's more about fictions, about hypothetical career paths. So what if the woman had not stopped working? What financial and career losses does she have through marriage? If she can prove this, she usually still has a maintenance claim today.
How can that be proven?
That is hard. I once had a client who had quit ten years before the separation, but still had contact with a colleague, with whom she once started in the profession. Using her example as an example, we were able to show in court what her career path could have been if she had not stopped working because of the children. Only: It's never that easy and clear. For example, what about the bank clerk who worked at the cash register, had two children and had not worked for 15 years?
Yes what?
In these cases, the court says that there is no evidence that the woman has progressed professionally and is based on a starting salary. But why should she not be able to work her up as a department head? That makes me angry, but we can not prove an unexercised life. And the husbands are animated by the right to say, "My wife was poorly trained and could not have got anything else." After the motto: Once stupid, always stupid.
So it gets dirty?
Exactly. The new law calls for intellectual attack. In addition, the dispute over the care of children has aggravated again, because fathers want to have more of the education today. The old model - the mother looks after and the father sees the children every two weeks from Friday to Sunday - has had its day. Today, the rule is that the father sees the child every two weeks from Friday to Monday and one afternoon a week and half of the holidays. There are also more change models where parents share care equally.
For women who want to work, that's also a great opportunity.?
However, some mothers also fear the model because they may not be able to support the children and themselves, even though they have suffered career losses. The legal basis for the exchange model is still incomplete. The child allowance, for example, can not be split. The German regulations are unfortunately such that we treat maintenance and care in different procedures. That makes the discussion complicated, because both are connected.
Do you still believe in marriage as a divorce lawyer?
Absolutely! Seeing same-sex couples pushing for the opening of marriage is an indication that she has not yet abdicated. Marriage is an expression of mutual responsibility for one another and an element of cohesion in a society.
