A Fairer End To Relationships: Cohabitation, Divorce & Abuse Reform Analysis

When relationships end, the law is often asked to do something very difficult. It must untangle money, property, pensions, children’s needs, caring roles, vulnerability, and sometimes abuse, at precisely the moment when trust and communication may have broken down. The Government’s consultation, A Fairer End to Relationships, is therefore more than a technical review of family finance law. It is a test of how modern family law should respond to the reality of family life in England and Wales. The governing statute for finances on divorce was introduced 53 years ago. Is there need for reform and how has it stood the test of time? Has it adapted to modern relationships?

Published in June 2026 and closing on 14 August 2026, the consultation brought together three connected areas of reform: financial remedies on divorce and civil partnership dissolution, financial protection for separating cohabitants, and inheritance provision for cohabitants where one partner dies without a will. The Government described its aim as making financial provision at the end of relationships clearer, more consistent and better aligned with modern family life. It also proposed a “codification-plus” approach to divorce finance, introducing statutory principles of sharing and needs, alongside possible qualifying nuptial agreements and new rights for eligible cohabitants.

One of the advantages of working both as a judge and as a mediator is seeing family disputes from different perspectives.

As a judge, I see cases that have reached the point where agreement has become impossible. I see parties entrenched in positions that often bear the scars of years of conflict, mistrust and sometimes abuse.

As a mediator, particularly in hybrid mediation where lawyers and other professionals can be involved within the process, I often see something different. I see people who may still be able to find solutions if the process is designed carefully enough to manage power imbalances and create a safe environment for discussion.

What both roles have taught me is that many of the consultation’s most important questions cannot be answered solely by reference to legal doctrine. They must be tested against the reality of family life.

The law is often dealing with relationships in which one person earned while the other cared for children, relationships in which one partner controlled the finances, relationships in which one party had little knowledge of the family’s assets, or relationships in which coercive control shaped almost every aspect of decision-making.

Those realities should sit at the heart of any reform programme.

• The responses and commentary from Resolution, Rights of Women, Family Solutions Group [FSG] and a variety of contributors to the Financial Remedies Journal show a striking degree of agreement on the need for reform. They also reveal important disagreements about how far reform should go, how much discretion judges should retain, and whether the Government’s desire to preserve the distinct status of marriage risks undermining the protection of vulnerable cohabitants and children.

The first common theme: reform is needed, but clarity must not become rigidity

There is broad agreement that the present law is too difficult for ordinary people to understand. Resolution supports reform across the consultation’s three areas and broadly supports the scheme proposed, subject to practical “fine-tuning”. It emphasises that its members regularly see the consequences of legal uncertainty, particularly where people cannot afford advice or assume they have rights that do not exist.

Rights of Women also welcomes reform, particularly where it improves clarity, safety and fairness for women, children and victim-survivors of domestic abuse. However, it cautions that codification must not become a rigid rulebook. In its view, clear statutory principles are helpful only if they preserve sufficient judicial discretion to respond to the facts of individual cases, especially where domestic abuse or economic abuse has distorted the financial picture.

The Family Solutions Group (FSG), a multidisciplinary body comprising solicitors, barristers, mediators, psychologists, academics and judges, broadly supports reform and the Government’s codification-plus approach. However, it argues strongly that any new framework should preserve judicial discretion while placing children’s welfare at the centre of decision-making. FSG supports greater clarity and accessibility but warns that artificial distinctions, particularly between “essential” and “discretionary” needs, risk increasing disagreement rather than reducing it. The Group’s response consistently approaches reform through a child-centred lens and argues that legal reform should be judged by whether it improves outcomes for children experiencing family separation.

The most significant themes that occur to me from the FSG submission are:

• Child welfare should be the primary, not merely the first, consideration in financial remedy reform.
• Reform should remain a codification-plus model, preserving judicial discretion while providing greater structure and certainty.
• The proposed hierarchy of needs risks creating unnecessary disputes and should not distinguish between “essential” and “discretionary” needs.
• Children should not experience materially different outcomes because their parents were unmarried. This is a theme that Rights of Women lead on too.
• Greater emphasis should be placed on early resolution, NCDR, mediation and child-focused processes.
• Public education is essential to dispel myths such as common law marriage.
• Financial reform should be assessed through the lens of the child’s welfare, emotional wellbeing and long-term development, not solely adult financial entitlements.

Reform is required is also a major theme in the Financial Remedies Journal coverage. The FRJ has published a variety of articles on the reforms by practitioners from a variety of standpoints and experience. Its collected articles include commentary on the overall shape of the consultation, the hierarchy of needs, domestic abuse, children, cohabitation reform and qualifying nuptial agreements.

The shared message is therefore not “leave the law alone” but reform it carefully. A statute that merely replaces flexible case law with hard-edged assumptions may make the law look clearer, while producing less fair outcomes in real life.

Equal sharing: a useful starting point, but not always a fair destination

One of the Government’s central proposals is to codify the sharing principle in divorce finance. In simple terms, this means recognising that matrimonial property should usually be shared equally. The Government’s consultation identifies the sharing and needs principles as the foundation for financial remedies reform.

Resolution broadly supports equal sharing as a starting point, but strongly resists any suggestion that equal sharing must always mean a 50:50 division of every matrimonial asset. It proposes wording that would make equality a starting point within an overall objective of fairness, rather than an inflexible rule. Resolution gives examples where equality by value may not be fair, including cases involving businesses, partly matrimonial assets, post-separation endeavour, domestic abuse, or cases where needs require a different outcome.

Rights of Women goes further in its critique of the Government’s formulation. It answers “No” to the proposed objective if that objective is understood as dividing matrimonial assets equally. Its concern is that equal division of assets does not necessarily deliver equal benefit. A partner who has given up work or reduced earning capacity to care for children may receive half the capital but still face a much weaker financial future than the higher-earning partner.

This is an important public point. Fairness is not just about what is in the bank account on the day of separation. It is also about how the relationship shaped each person’s future financial life. A parent who has stepped back from paid work may have lost career progression, pension growth and earning capacity. A survivor of economic abuse may have no assets in their own name, even after a long relationship. They may also have a weaker earning capacity because of the effects of the coercive and controlling behaviour [CCB] and economic abuse [EA] which is not easily quantified. An apparently equal division may therefore conceal a very unequal future.

The likely consensus is that equal sharing should remain a powerful and comprehensible benchmark. The conflict lies in whether it should be expressed as the objective itself, or as one route to fairness. Resolution and Rights of Women both prefer the latter.

In my experience both as a judge and a solutions based lawyer and mediator is that whereas the starting point may well be an equal share of the matrimonial assets but once you have taken into account the statutory factors, particularly needs, the children, responsibilities and earning capacity, the conclusion is often not an equal split, but it is a fair one.

Needs: the danger of creating a hierarchy that shrinks fairness

The Government proposes that the court should consider needs in a structured way, starting with children’s welfare, then capital and income needs including housing and pension needs, and then further discretionary needs where resources allow. [financialr…ournal.com]

At first glance, that may appear sensible. Most families do not have enough money to meet everyone’s aspirations. Prioritising children, housing, income and retirement provision is intuitively attractive. But several responses and commentators identify a real risk: once needs are put into hierarchical categories, arguments may shift from “what is fair?” to “what is essential?”.

Resolution is particularly concerned that separating needs into different stages could make settlement harder and encourage financially stronger parties to argue that only basic needs should be met. It warns that this could be especially damaging in modest asset cases and could echo older approaches that limited awards to “reasonable requirements”, an approach heavily criticised in the modern law of financial remedies. Resolution instead suggests a two-stage approach: first, the welfare of children; second, capital and income needs, including housing, income and retirement, assessed in the context of all relevant factors.

Rights of Women’s concerns are related but framed through substantive fairness and safety. It argues that the law must expressly recognise relationship-generated economic disparity, including the long-term financial consequences of caring responsibilities, interrupted careers and economic abuse. It is wary of any model that leaves the economically weaker partner with only a narrow version of needs while the other partner retains the benefit of earning capacity built during the relationship. Does a focus on the children’s needs also mean private education costs are put as greater priority rather than securing capital for the financially weaker party. It should not in my view.

FSG also opposes the Government’s proposed three-stage hierarchy. It argues that attempts to distinguish between essential and discretionary needs are unlikely to work in practice because needs are highly contextual. What may appear discretionary for one family may be integral to a child’s welfare in another. FSG considers that dividing needs into categories risks generating further disputes and increasing parental conflict, contrary to the consultation’s objective of improving certainty.

The Financial Remedies Journal coverage also identifies the “hierarchy of needs” as a major area of debate, including specific commentary questioning whether the distinction between different categories of need can be policed easily in practice.

For the public, the concern is this: a hierarchy designed to improve clarity may instead create new disputes. Is a child’s stable home an essential need or a lifestyle need? Is pension provision a present need, a future need, or a discretionary one? Is a holiday with children a luxury in one family but part of ordinary life in another? The law may need structure, but it must avoid a vocabulary that invites people to minimise the other person’s needs.

Children: everyone agrees they matter, but how much does the law really protect them?

There is strong agreement that children should be at the centre of reform. The Government identifies fair outcomes for children as one of the consultation’s underpinning principles.

If there is one issue on which the FSG response is particularly distinctive, it is its insistence that child welfare should become the primary organising principle of any reformed system. FSG proposes that welfare should be given a broader statutory definition extending beyond financial needs to encompass emotional, psychological, environmental and safeguarding considerations. It further proposes restructuring the statutory checklist itself so that child-focused factors appear before adult-focused factors. In effect, the Group argues that family finance law should become far more explicitly child-centred than it currently is.

Rights of Women makes a sharper equality point: children should not experience different financial outcomes because their parents were married, cohabiting, or had opted out of a statutory framework. This is a significant challenge to the Government’s desire to preserve the distinct status of marriage. If children’s welfare is genuinely the first principle, it is difficult to justify children being less financially protected because of their parents’ legal status.

Resolution also warns that any needs framework must be careful not to produce outcomes that discriminate against children by creating a marked disparity between the child’s standard of living in each parent’s home. The availability of the Sports channels, Netflix and Amazon Prime in one household and not the other can be an influencing factor for children in child arrangement decisions, even if it should not be.

This is one of the most important tensions in the consultation. The Government wants to protect children and vulnerable people, but also to preserve marriage as legally distinct. Those aims may be compatible in many cases, but not all. Where a child has lived in a financially interdependent cohabiting family for many years, the child’s need for housing, stability and continuity may look very similar to that of a child whose parents were married.

Domestic abuse and economic abuse: a common priority, but with different emphases

Domestic abuse is one of the clearest common themes across the responses. The Government itself identifies domestic abuse, including economic abuse, as a key issue in both divorce and cohabitation reform.

Resolution refers to domestic abuse repeatedly in its response. It warns that equal sharing, matrimonialisation and needs cannot be considered in isolation from coercive control or economic abuse. For example, a perpetrator may preserve assets in their own name, spend matrimonial money, or use the litigation process to continue control. Resolution also refers to its October 2024 report, which found that around 80% of professionals believed domestic abuse, and specifically economic abuse, was not sufficiently taken into account in financial remedy proceedings.

Rights of Women places domestic abuse at the heart of its response. It argues that family law cannot be understood without understanding domestic abuse, and that legislative reform must be accompanied by specialist training in domestic abuse and trauma-informed practice for judges, practitioners and professionals across the family justice system. It also stresses intersectional barriers faced by Black and minoritised women, migrant women and survivors experiencing forms of abuse such as immigration abuse, “honour”-based abuse and dowry-related abuse.

The common ground is strong: domestic abuse must be expressly addressed. The difference is in emphasis. Rights of Women calls for a framework built around safety, trauma-informed practice and substantive protection. Resolution focuses on ensuring that abuse is properly reflected within financial principles and case management. Family Solutions Group highlights practical workability and the need to avoid process-driven harm.

Over the past few years, all family law judges have had intensive training on understanding and recognising domestic abuse and its effects. Decisions the judges make now should be better informed. If there is a change in the law about the emphasis of domestic abuse and how it is taken into account, then there will need to be some forceful judgments from the higher courts as to how this change will affect outcomes. Without these judicial leading judgments, those working in the non-court dispute arena will not have an easy job improving outcomes where there is domestic abuse.

While much of the consultation is framed around financial principles, domestic abuse is arguably the thread that runs through almost every proposal.

In my own practice, both as a judge and as a mediator, some of the most challenging cases involve coercive and controlling behaviour. Frequently this does not resemble the stereotype many members of the public associate with domestic abuse. Instead, it takes the form of economic control. One party may have controlled all bank accounts, restricted access to information, accumulated assets in their sole name, withheld funds for household expenditure, built up debts in the other person’s name or insisted upon complete financial dependency throughout the relationship.

By the time separation occurs, the economically weaker partner may not simply have fewer assets. They may have little understanding of the family’s true financial position and very limited confidence in their ability to negotiate on an equal footing.

Domestic abuse through the litigation process itself is also damaging and often not sufficiently taken into account by the courts.

This is why I find one of the strongest themes emerging from both the Resolution and Rights of Women responses to be the recognition that financial remedies cannot be divorced from domestic abuse realities.

Any future statutory framework therefore needs sufficient flexibility to recognise how abuse may have distorted financial outcomes long before a case reaches a courtroom. But where the responses are silent is just how the existence of CCB or EA should be factored into the outcomes of these cases. More income or capital to the victim, but how much and how far should we be concerned, if at all about the net effect upon the perpetrator. Cost penalties are an easy option but they do not work where the victim is unrepresented and does not have significant costs to pay.

Cohabitation: the broadest agreement and the deepest conflict

The most publicly significant part of the consultation may be cohabitation reform. More than 3.5 million couples live together without being married or in a civil partnership, and the Government recognises that current protections are very limited and can leave cohabitants, especially women, children and victim-survivors of abuse, facing serious financial difficulty when relationships end.

There is widespread agreement that reform is needed. Resolution has long campaigned for rights for unmarried couples and says that rights for unmarried couples were at the top of its policy asks in its Vision for Family Justice. Rights of Women welcomes stronger protections for women in cohabiting relationships and argues that the law should reflect lived reality, financial interdependence, caring responsibilities and vulnerability, rather than assumptions about whether a relationship was formalised. Family Solutions Group also identifies cohabitation reform as a key area where clarity is needed, because many couples mistakenly believe that they already have legal rights as “common law” spouses.

But cohabitation is also where responses diverge most sharply. The Government proposes that protection for cohabitants should be narrower than the protection available on divorce. It suggests eligibility criteria, a starting point that each person keeps what they legally own, and remedies based on more limited needs, with clean break outcomes wherever possible and maintenance only in exceptional, time-limited cases.

Rights of Women does not support treating the preservation of marriage as a reason to restrict protection for cohabitants or limit the court’s ability to achieve fair outcomes. It argues that the framework for qualifying cohabitants should broadly align with the principles that apply on divorce, while retaining flexibility for different circumstances.

FSG goes further than the Government’s proposals in one significant respect. It argues that where parents have children together, financial protection should potentially extend even where they have never cohabited. The Group considers that the presence of children fundamentally changes the policy considerations and that a child’s financial security should not depend upon whether the parents shared a household. This places FSG somewhat closer to Rights of Women’s emphasis on the realities of family life than to the Government’s more formal distinction between cohabiting and non-cohabiting relationships.

Some Financial Remedies Journal commentary is more critical in the opposite direction. One article argues that the proposed cohabitation regime “casts the net far too wide” and risks imposing an unfair regime on millions of couples. Another critiques the proposed framework from a different angle, arguing that although statutory reform is compelling, the Government’s model may still permit or cause injustice by making cohabitants’ remedies less generous and harder to access than divorce remedies.

Some critics think the proposals go too far because they may impose financial obligations on people who deliberately chose not to marry. Others think they do not go far enough because they preserve a hierarchy that leaves vulnerable cohabitants and their children insufficiently protected.

Qualifying nuptial agreements and opt-outs: autonomy, but only with safeguards

The Government also proposes qualifying nuptial agreements, allowing couples to make binding financial arrangements in advance, subject to safeguards.

There is likely to be significant support for greater certainty and autonomy. Many couples want to make their own arrangements and avoid future litigation. But the responses suggest that agreements must be treated with caution where there is inequality of bargaining power, lack of disclosure, lack of advice, domestic abuse or pressure.

Rights of Women’s general approach is especially relevant here: any framework must prevent perpetrators from exploiting legal mechanisms to continue coercive control or obtain financial advantage. Family Solutions’ emphasis on accessible support and early informed decision-making also matters, because agreements are only meaningful if people understand what they are signing and have access to advice.

The same issue arises with cohabitation opt-outs. Allowing couples to opt out of a statutory cohabitation scheme may respect autonomy. But if one partner is financially dependent, pregnant, caring for children, subject to abuse, or simply unaware of the consequences, opt-out agreements could become a route to injustice. The key question is not whether agreements should exist, but what safeguards make them legitimate.

Access to justice: the reform that sits behind every other reform

Perhaps the most important shared theme is that legal reform will fail unless people can access advice and support. Resolution highlights the impact of legal aid cuts, the outdated means test and low legal aid fees, and says funding for initial legal advice and signposting is one of its main policy asks.

Rights of Women is equally clear. It argues that new rights and statutory principles will not improve outcomes if people cannot understand, assert or enforce them. Early legal advice is particularly important for survivors of domestic abuse, who may be negotiating from a position of fear, trauma, financial dependence or coercive control.

This is where law reform and family justice reform meet. A beautifully drafted statute is of limited use if people cannot get advice, cannot afford representation, cannot safely negotiate, or cannot access a court when they need one. Public legal education, early legal advice, triage, mediation, safeguarding, and specialist domestic abuse support are not add-ons. They are the infrastructure that makes rights real.

Why hybrid mediation matters to this debate

One area that receives less attention in the consultation than it deserves is process. The public discussion often focuses on what the law should be. Equally important is how families reach outcomes. Much of my work now involves hybrid mediation. This model allows parties to remain within a mediation framework while their lawyers and, where appropriate, other professionals participate constructively in the process. Hybrid mediation can mean that the parties are not in the same room or Zoom.

In cases involving allegations of coercive control, economic abuse or significant power imbalance, traditional mediation may not always be appropriate. Equally, immediate resort to adversarial court proceedings may significantly increase conflict and cost.

Hybrid mediation can sometimes offer a middle path. The ability to use separate rooms, different arrival and departure arrangements, legal support throughout the process and carefully managed information-sharing enables some families to engage in discussions that might otherwise be impossible.

That is why I would have welcomed stronger recognition within the consultation of the role that mediation, hybrid mediation, lawyer-supported dispute resolution and arbitration can play alongside substantive legal reform.

Better legal rules are important. Better ways of helping people resolve disputes are equally important.

Where the responses conflict

The main conflicts can be summarised as follows.

First, there is disagreement about how far codification should go. Resolution and Rights of Women support clarity, but both resist rigidity and argue that fairness must remain central.

Second, there is disagreement about equal sharing. Resolution accepts equal sharing as a starting point but wants the objective framed as fairness in relation to matrimonial property. Rights of Women is more directly opposed to a formulation that treats equal division as equal benefit.

Third, there is disagreement about the hierarchy of needs. The Government seeks structure, but Resolution and FRJ commentators warn that a hierarchy may encourage arguments about “basic” needs and produce unfairness or additional litigation.

Fourth, cohabitation reform divides opinion most sharply. Rights of Women argues against limiting protection simply to preserve the distinct status of marriage, while some FRJ commentary warns that the proposed cohabitation regime may already go too far and impose obligations on people who chose not to marry.

Fifth, there is a tension between autonomy and protection. Qualifying nuptial agreements and cohabitation opt-outs may give people certainty, but without strong safeguards they may disadvantage the very people reform is intended to protect.

Other observations that could be added to the proposals

Several further points deserve attention.

First, public education must be central.

Cohabitation reform will not work unless people understand both the current law and any new law. The myth of the “common law spouse” remains powerful. Family Solutions Group rightly emphasises that reforms should reduce confusion rather than create new uncertainty.

Second, the law should be tested against ordinary cases, not just exceptional ones.

Many families have modest assets, limited pensions and high housing costs. A reform that works well for high-net-worth cases may fail families where the main issue is how to house two households from one family home. Far too many of the influential reported cases deal with high net worth families. There is a lack of judicial authoritative cases for the type of incomes and assets bases there are in the vast majority of separation cases. Those are the most difficult to resolve or decide upon because there is often too little to go round.

Third, pensions need particular attention.

Resolution’s response highlights the importance of retirement income and warns against treating pension needs too narrowly. In many relationships, particularly where one person has undertaken more unpaid caring work, pensions are one of the clearest places where long-term inequality appears. Pensions do not form part of the cohabitation law reforms either.

Fourth, domestic abuse must be addressed procedurally as well as substantively.

It is not enough to say that abuse is a factor. The system must prevent abusive litigation tactics, ensure safe negotiation, provide specialist support, and make sure judges and professionals are trained to recognise economic abuse and coercive control. Rights of Women is particularly strong on this point.

Fifth, children’s welfare should not be diluted by adult status distinctions.

If the law puts children first, it must confront the question of whether children of cohabiting parents should receive weaker protection than children of married parents. Rights of Women expressly argues that children should not experience different financial outcomes because of their parents’ marital status.

Sixth, there is disagreement about the role of children within the statutory framework itself.

FSG argues that child welfare should not merely be the first consideration but the primary consideration throughout the legislation, with child-focused factors moved to the forefront of the statutory checklist. While Resolution and Rights of Women strongly support child-focused reform, neither places as much emphasis on restructuring the legal framework around the child’s welfare as FSG does.

Seventh, reform should become more overtly child-centred.

One of the most thought-provoking aspects of the FSG response is its argument that financial remedy law has often paid lip service to the welfare principle without fully embedding it in decision-making. The proposal that child welfare should become the primary consideration, supported by an expanded definition encompassing emotional and psychological wellbeing as well as financial provision, deserves careful consideration. Whether or not all practitioners agree with the detail, it is difficult to disagree that children are often affected as much by parental conflict and instability as by the level of financial provision itself

Conclusion: fairness needs both rules and judgment

The Government’s consultation is a major opportunity. Few would argue that the current law is clear enough, accessible enough or sufficiently responsive to modern family life. Cohabitants need better protection. Survivors of abuse need a system that recognises economic harm. Children need stability. Divorcing couples need clearer principles. The public needs a law it can understand.

But the responses also show that reform must be handled with care. Certainty is valuable, but not if it produces injustice. Autonomy is important, but not if agreements are signed under pressure or without understanding. Marriage may remain legally distinct, but that distinction should not leave children or vulnerable partners exposed to hardship.

The strongest theme running through the responses is that fairness cannot be reduced to a formula. The law needs clearer principles, but it also needs humanity, discretion and practical support. A fairer end to relationships will not come from legislation alone. It will require early advice, public education, non-court options, trauma-informed practice, proper legal aid and a family justice system that sees the whole family, not just the legal status of the adults.

That is the real challenge for reform. Not simply to decide who gets what when a relationship ends, but to build a system that helps families separate with dignity, safety and fairness.