JUDGMENT
MR JUSTICE MOOR:-1.I have been hearing an application dated 22 March 2021 made by the Applicant, DX to vary and/or terminate a spousal periodical payments order. There is also a cross-application dated 6 May 2021 by the Respondent, JX to dismiss the application. At the time she made the application, she was asserting the court had no jurisdiction to hear it. It was for that reason that this case was transferred to be heard by a High Court Judge. I intend to refer to the parties respectively as “the Husband” and “the Wife” for the sake of convenience. I mean no disrespect to either by so doing. I entirely accept that they have been divorced for some years.2.The Wife is aged 53. The Husband is also aged 53. They met when they were both working abroad. They started cohabiting in the late 1990s and married in this country in 1999. 3.At the time of the marriage, the Wife was Head of Spanish at a school in the country where the parties met. During the marriage, she had a number of different jobs, including running a language school but I am clear that her main occupation was that of home-maker and child-carer. At one point, she had a serious accident but she is fortunately now largely recovered. 4.The Husband is a Chartered Accountant but has made his career in fund accounting. He has had a number of very responsible positions [specifics omitted].5.There are three children of the family. A was born in 2002, so he will be twenty years of age this year. He studies in London where I am told the fees are £23,000 per annum. He is now doing his course over only two years, of which this is the second year. B was born in 2003, so she is now 18. She is in her final year at school in Luxembourg, which is a fee paying school. She wishes to study at university in the UK. C was born on in 2008. He is therefore aged 14 and he remains, at present, at the same school in Luxembourg. Very regrettably, the intense hostility between the parents, clearly evident to me in court, has spread, such that the children now have virtually nothing to do with their father. The hostility was perhaps best exemplified by the fact that, during her evidence, the Wife told me that C was unhappy at school and wished to move to a state school in Luxembourg. It was clear she had not told the Husband and seemed to think it was, in some way, his obligation to find out from C. This is all a tragedy and I do hope that, once I have decided this case, it may be possible to repair some bridges between the children and their father.6.The parties moved to France in 1999 when the Husband was transferred to Luxembourg by this employer. He was based in Luxembourg for 14 years before, in 2013, he obtained a contract as Head of Investment Accounting at an investment fund in the UAE. I accept that this job provided a rate of remuneration to the Husband very significantly in excess of what he had previously been earning. The parties moved willingly to the UAE. It may be of some significance that the initial contract was for three years, so his employment there might not have lasted even for as long as it did.7.For whatever reason, the marriage broke down after a relatively short period of time in the UAE. The Wife petitioned for divorce in England in early 2015. By doing so, she chose this country as the forum for the resolution of any financial dispute between her and the Husband, although I accept that it may have been the only jurisdiction available to her at the time. In fact, she did not leave the UAE until either May 2016 or June 2016 when she returned to France with the three children. The two elder children were enrolled at school in Luxembourg. C returned to the UAE for one final school year before moving to Luxembourg permanently in 2017. The Husband was served with the divorce proceedings in June 2016. A Decree Nisi was pronounced in January 2017 and made Absolute on 14 March 2017. 8.Negotiations took place between the parties to resolve their finances following the divorce. They managed to reach agreement. Regrettably, it is the only example of these parties behaving sensibly throughout these long running proceedings. I am crystal clear as to what the settlement involved. At the time, the parties’ resources were relatively limited. The Form D81 in July 2017 showed that the Wife had assets of £404,843 and the Husband had assets of £494,352. The Wife had a net income of £1,125 per month. The Husband had a net income of £20,661 per month plus a significant bonus. I accept that this took his income up to approximately £35,000 per month net plus some important additional allowances. In any event, ignoring the allowances, he was earning net, each year, about the same as each party had in capital. 9.The parties decided to divide their existing assets equally. The Husband was to pay periodical payments but these were not linked to needs. It was a percentage of his net salary, divided between the children and the Wife. I am clear that the intention was that she would put money aside from this maintenance to achieve a clean break at the age of 65, although I accept that it did not prevent an application to vary should there be a change in circumstances or other good reason for doing so. Indeed, there is no doubt that both parties did put money aside in the following years, such that each now has approximately £1.2 million in assets. Although I recognise that this is a slightly unusual approach, there is clear authority to proceed in this way (see, for example,