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Recently I have been surprised by the number of cases in my office in which women are the principle breadwinners.  Perhaps I’m showing my age, but not that long ago women were most often not the primary financial support of the family and consequently the wife was economically disadvantaged in divorce.   Today husbands are finding themselves in need of financial support and wives are not always comfortable with this reversal of fortunes. 

 

Decades ago when wives went into divorce court, they expected that their role as mother and homemaker would be recognized as a valuable contribution to the marriage and it was, but husbands often resented having to pay out support/alimony.  Courts decided that wives were entitled to support based on the length of the marriage and other details specific to each case.  Today, In my office, we see couples who by mutual agreement assign the role of Mr. Mom/Househusband to the husband.  These couples understand from the start that the husband will need spousal support for a period of time at the end of the marriage.  

 

However, when couples have not clearly come to this agreement, and have fallen into the new roles by chance, there is often deep resentment and resistance on the wife’s part when it comes to providing support after the marriage ends.    It may be that one of the reasons the marriage is failing is because the wife is “fed up” with supporting the family by herself.

 

Both husbands and wives are struggling with how society might perceive them.The husbands struggle under old cultural values, such as the Puritan work ethic, and society’s idea’s of a man’s role as provider. Some men are insisting on their role as caretaker and the value of the role they’ve played with the children or with taking care of the household.  But there still exists a feeling of failure because they are not contributing to the family finances.

 

The wives also struggle.  They maybe very proud of their careers and success, but at the same time, they, too, want to live up to the social expectations of being the primary, caregiver to their young children and the homemaker.  They may harbor feelings of inadequacy if the children see their dad as the one nurturing and caring for the family.

 

Many articles are written about women trying to have it all. Women feel they should be able to do it all; top of their game with the career and excellent mothers so they don’t have to say “I couldn’t have done this without you.”  Many of them are willing to acknowledge the husband’s contribution however, when divorcing, that’s usually not what is uppermost in their minds.

 

In mediation, we must work with these various dynamics, acknowledge each person’s feelings, while keeping the process on track.   Where the fathers have been the primary caretakers, if the father is too adamant about how little care the mother has given to the children then the mother becomes defensive.  At the same time, the process will derail if the mother emphasizes how little her husband contributed financially.   A lot of feelings of self worth are at play so the mediation becomes a balancing act.

 

Given where we are now, will we ever be able to deal with the question of spousal support free of gender bias and social/cultural judgement?

 

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Image © Carlosphotos | Stock Free Images &Dreamstime Stock Photos

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