Spanish Judge orders man to pay ex-wife over $200K for 25 years of housework

Spain has no fault divorce. In fact, nowadays, basically all divorce is no-fault divorce there.

Also, in Spain, when you get married you can choose between sharing your property during marriage or not. In some parts of Spain, separate property is the default. In addition, you can make the equivalent of a legally binding prenup. The system is based on ancient Roman law, where you could do the same. The rules are completely different than in the USA, for example. If you married in another country but get divorced in Spain, Spanish law is what applies (this is the case in all EU countries except Denmark). So an American couple who move to Spain and get divorced may have quite a shock: in Spain there is generally nothing to pay to the other partner and alimony is very low and time-restricted. The non-working partner is expected by the court to find a job as soon as possible.

In this case, he also has to pay alimony of €500 a month for 2 years, plus child support of €1000/month for two children (this is higher than usual (€300 per child) because one of his children is in university, and in Spain you have a legal obligation to support your children until they are 25 or become independent, whichever happens first).

In this case, at the time she filed for support, he was selling the family business for €4 million.

So the outcome is not as bad as it may initially seem: the guy is being asked to pay just 5% of the value of his business in exchange for his wife having run the household over a couple of decades.

This is not a normal situation, nor is it overly burdensome for the guy.