Facts
U. X., born in 1943, and L. Z., born in 1942, married in 1967. The marriage produced a son, born in 1969, and a daughter, born in 1972. The husband holds a middle management position in a professional association, while the wife is a trained nurse. After the birth of the son, the wife initially gave up her professional activity, but then resumed it part-time from 1977 onwards. When the wife discovered in 1985 that the husband was having an extramarital affair, marital discord arose, which also led to a temporary separation of the spouses in 1986. On November 6, 1986, the wife filed for divorce and the husband filed a counterclaim for divorce.
Considerations
The Federal Court partially upholds the husband's appeal and orders him to pay the wife a pension within the meaning of Art. 151 para. 1 ZGB of CHF 2,000 per month for ten years from the date the divorce judgment becomes legally binding, and thereafter of CHF 1,000 per month.
The court states that the long marriage of around 20 years and the wife's age of 45 at the time the divorce judgment becomes legally binding generally speak in favor of an indefinite maintenance replacement pension. However, the wife's reintegration into the labor market has already largely taken place, as she is currently employed part-time (60%) in her trained profession as a nurse. Since the wife will only have to care for the younger of the two children for a foreseeable period, there should be nothing to prevent her from fully entering the labor market.
Nevertheless, an indefinite pension is justified, as the wife would have been able to reduce or completely give up her professional activity if the long marriage had continued. The gap between the wife's achievable income of CHF 4,000 per month and the husband's earnings, which are twice as high, shows that the wife would have been able to participate in the husband's above-average good financial circumstances. Since the husband's adulterous behavior was…