Family law resolves the assets. It does not resolve the income gap left behind, and that gap does not stay private. It shows up in court lists, in payment queues, in ongoing conflict, and in outcomes for children that follow them for years. ForBothOfUs is privately funded income protection, agreed between two people before separation happens. Every couple who uses it is one less family relying on the public systems below to fill the gap.
None of this is a criticism of the systems that carry it. It is a description of what they carry, and why the load exists in the first place.
Financial disputes are a major driver of contested separations. Where income arrangements are unclear or unresolved, matters take longer to settle and return to court more often.
The partner who reduced paid work to raise children is usually the one with the least income after separation, and often turns to income support to cover the shortfall.
Money is one of the most common ongoing sources of conflict between separated parents. Reducing financial uncertainty removes one of the recurring triggers.
Children's stability after separation is closely tied to household financial stability. A predictable income for the caregiving household is a predictable home for the child.
Around 24,000 divorces a year in Australia involve a child under 18. But that number doesn't include de facto separation at all, and de facto relationships have gone from 6% of couples in the 1980s to 20% today, separating at higher rates than marriages. Nobody counts how many primary caregivers this actually happens to each year. It's larger than the official number, and it's growing.
There's a harder truth behind some of these numbers too. Financial control is one of the most common tools used in abusive relationships, present in the large majority of cases where women seek support. It doesn't stop at separation either: withheld or manipulated payments, and the systems meant to enforce them, are a well documented way that control continues afterwards. This mechanism is built against exactly that, verified independently against ATO data, paid automatically, and not something either partner can quietly withhold, delay, or renegotiate. And because the fear of not being able to afford to leave is one of the most cited reasons women stay in an unsafe relationship in the first place, removing that fear isn't only a fairness measure. It's a safety one, both before separation and after it.
This isn't only a support problem. It's a prevention problem. Right now, the decision to become a primary caregiver is made in the shadow of a financial cliff: if the relationship ends, the person who stepped back has no safety net, and both partners know it. That knowledge shapes decisions long before any separation happens, sometimes keeping people in relationships they'd otherwise leave, sometimes stopping a partner from stepping back at all, sometimes making separation itself more adversarial than it needs to be, because money is the only leverage left. Remove the cliff, and you change the decision, not just the outcome.
Over the next twenty years, a policy settled today could reach hundreds of thousands of Australian families. If it works, there's no reason it stays only Australian. Countries that led on superannuation didn't keep the idea to themselves either.
ForBothOfUs is a Binding Financial Agreement, signed by both partners while the relationship is intact, that specifies how income will be shared if they separate. Once separation occurs, it is verified monthly against ATO Single Touch Payroll data and paid by automatic direct debit. There is no negotiation at the point of breakdown and no reliance on one party to enforce it. The agreement was made when both people were on the same side.
"The public system exists to catch families when private arrangements fail. A product that keeps more private arrangements from failing in the first place is a direct reduction in what the public system has to catch."
A 20 page discussion document: the problem, the mechanism, real after tax numbers, the business case, and what it takes to build. Written for a policy team to evaluate.
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