Eve Simmons: I thought I didn’t need a prenup, then my husband left me and I feared he’d take half my savings

I have never seen my mother angrier than when I announced, at the age of 11, that my ultimate goal was to marry a rich man.

Outraged that I hadn’t absorbed her feminist attitude, she responded plainly: “No, if you want to be rich, you must make money for yourself. Never rely on a man for cash.”

It is a motto I have endeavoured to live by. It meant I was proud to be the breadwinner throughout my nine-year relationship – until, that is, it ended abruptly, just six months after I walked down the aisle at the age of 31, when my betrothed announced he didn’t want to be married after all.

Especially not to me.

While the heartbreak left my brain tangled with despair, I assumed that at least the particulars of our divorce would be simple after such a short marriage. What was mine was mine, and his, his. But I was wrong.

A series of uncharacteristically callous emails from my husband informed me that he was, by law, entitled to half of everything I had. Savings, pension, investments and, most upsetting, the lump sum my mother had contributed towards our three-bedroom semi. My mother’s hard-earned savings were ‘a shared gift’ – and, therefore, I had no legal right to ask for it back.

While we both contributed equal amounts of our own cash, and the same monthly mortgage payments, borrowing as much as we did would never have been possible without my salary. I called a friend of the family, a divorce lawyer at one of London’s top firms. Surely he’d got this wrong? Her response: “He’s right – you didn’t get a pre-nup.”

I was embarrassingly naive about money throughout our relationship. Like many heterosexual couples, he assumed the role of finance and life admin manager.

I had always worked long and painstaking hours, which made things such as calls to mortgage companies virtually impossible during the day. He had more spare time — and said he didn’t mind our arrangement.

Unfortunately, this also meant he could claim that my mother’s money had been “spent” — and there was nothing I could do to contest it.

Like most doe-eyed engaged couples, we were allergic to the word “pre-nup”, assuming they were only necessary for those who a) were secretly planning an eventual exit or b) had shedloads of cash.

How silly I was. It’s not only the financial losses (or rather, my mother’s) that sting. But perhaps, if an agreement was already in place, I’d have been spared the traumatic dealings with a husband I barely recognised.

Negotiating money can bring out the most dreadful side of people you thought were decent. Expect to witness your former beloved metamorphose 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’.

All this coming from the person who, just months ago, wiped smudged eyeliner from your face and hung your knickers on the washing line.

Now, two years later, I have become the marriage death knell among my friends, raising an eyebrow at any mention of matrimony and asking about their savings portfolio. You can never know what someone is truly capable of, I tell them. While it might sound cynical, I couldn’t help but feel relief when I read the vast majority of Britons are in support of pre-nuptial agreements.

According to a survey by a London law firm, 66 per cent of adults think the financial agreements are a force for good.

Increasing numbers of couples are opting for them, too, with the proportion rising from just 1.5 per cent of couples in the 1970s to 17 per cent today, according to the most recent poll.

But I don’t think this figure is nearly high enough (sorry, romantics). As increasing numbers of women out-earn their male partners, with 25 per cent of married couples having a female breadwinner in 2020, we need to protect ourselves.

I would bet that most of these women have faced more hurdles than their male equivalents in the quest for an appropriate salary.

Many have climbed to the top of their game while also managing the lion’s share of housework and childcare. Yet the sad reality is that, after all the battles for equal pay, a man could, quite possibly, take away half your success if you tried to divorce him.

Divorce lawyers tell me high-earning female clients are shocked when they learn this is a possibility. ‘Popular culture tells us divorce is about men getting financially screwed,’ says David Brown, solicitor specialising in divorce at Leicestershire firm Wartnaby Hefford.

‘But that’s only because men, historically, have earned more money which is no longer always the case. All too often clients wrongly assume that financial split is based on gender.’

Traditionally, divorce agreements were slanted this way to protect women who often were not financially independent but had sole caring duties of the children. This is sometimes still the case but increasingly less so. In the modern world, such a default seems outdated and wrong.

Thankfully, my husband decided not to come after my savings and pension, possibly because the legal fees to pursue them would have made it not worth the hassle or perhaps because he knew deep down that it would be wrong.

But, thanks to a hefty student loan I had yet to pay off, I was left with less cash than he did when it came to buying our individual properties. I stayed at my mother’s flat for a year to save for a deposit.

So would I have kept mum’s savings if I’d have asked for a pre-nup? The answer is probably, although it still wouldn’t be guaranteed.

A pre-nup is essentially a contract or deed signed by both parties before they marry, stating details of a financial split in the case of divorce.

The cost on average is anywhere from £1,000 to £5,000 in solicitor’s fees. Yet ultimately, they aren’t legally binding in the UK. ‘A judge makes the final decision about who gets what during a divorce. If he or she doesn’t agree with the terms of the pre-nup, they won’t uphold it,’ explains Brown.

This is because as circumstances change, with children and changes in employment, an old pre-nup will no longer be considered fair or relevant.

‘A pre-nup should be updated after the birth of every child and roughly every five years to give it the best chance,’ Brown advises.

However, in cases like mine, where the marriage lasts less than three years and no children are involved, a pre-nup is likely to be upheld.

‘The court will also want to see that the contract was drawn up at least a few months before the marriage and that both parties had independent legal advice,’ says Brown.

There is a common misconception that pre-nups are reserved for the rich. In fact, anyone with more than £10,000 (AUD$19693) in savings – roughly double the cost of obtaining the document – can stand to benefit.

‘A few thousand pounds on a pre-nup is considerably less than £5,000 to £6,000 on solicitor’s fees, which is what it would cost you to fight for your money through the court system,’ Brown says. ‘It’s better than nothing.’ Perhaps the most mind-blowing fact I learned about divorce during my uncoupling was that, even decades after your divorce is final, an ex can still claim rights to your financial assets – pre-nup or no pre-nup.

The key is to ensure a ‘clean break full and final settlement’ or consent order so no future claims on either side can be made.

In one high-profile case, a woman was awarded half a million pounds of her ex-husband’s riches 30 years after they divorced. He spent their marriage living in a caravan with virtually no expendable income but made several million from business deals a decade after they split.

If it wasn’t for a family friend in the legal industry, I would never have known about a standard contract that prevents this called a consent order.

This is a simple document, costing around £1,000 to £2,000, that essentially erases each parties’ rights to income they may acquire after the divorce.

If it weren’t for my consent order, my ex-husband could potentially be entitled to 50 per cent of the earnings from my upcoming book about my divorce. And how ironic would that be.