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Kevin and Yvonne Choquette were married in 1979. He found work in securities, while Yvonne worked for the City of Edmonton and later as an accountant. After the couple had a baby, Yvonne stopped working “because we had a good income and I did not desire or choose to return to work.”

She told me that she does not intend to sit about doing nothing, and I accept her statement

The marriage faltered after the birth of their second child and Yvonne Choquette took the two children and left the family home. A messy court battle ensued and Kevin Choquette was ordered to pay spousal support plus a lump sum of $160,000. He would also have to help with tuition if Yvonne Choquette decided to go back to school in an attempt to re-enter the workforce.

At the time, Yvonne Choquette argued she couldn’t work because she was raising the couple’s second child. Although she hadn’t had a job for nearly 10 years, the judge who granted her spousal support believed it would only be a matter of time before she returned to work.

“She told me that she does not intend to sit about doing nothing, and I accept her statement,” the judge wrote in a 1996 decision.

According to Hood, “she chose a different path.”

Kevin Choquette gained custody of both children and became a successful bank analyst, earning up to $2.3 million in 2013 alone. Yvonne Choquette never returned to work full-time — doing only part-time stints with Statistics Canada and Drake International, an employment agency. Her combined income was less than $10,000.

Yvonne Choquette, who has not had to support or raise her children since 1996, used her divorce settlement to buy several rental homes in Saskatchewan. She also has a condo in Toronto — on which she pays $1,301 per month — in case she decides to apply for a job there despite maintaining a permanent residence in Cudworth, Sask.