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A house husband who was supported by his millionaire wife for years is fighting a divorce court ruling he claims is forcing him to quit their £1 million home — and get a full-time job.

Accountant Kirsten Turner, 41, who earned £420,000 a year as a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, was the family “breadwinner” in her seven-year marriage to her university sweetheart, the Appeal Court was told.

Rupert Nightingale “earned little” in the “niche” world of fine art photography and took on the domestic role.

When their marriage ended in 2010 Judge Mark Everall, QC, awarded him a £300,000 lump sum and Ms Turner was ordered to pay him maintenance of about £50,000 a year.

But Mr Nightingale, 42, was unhappy to be told his payout would be partially funded by the sale of the former matrimonial home in Wimbledon where he still lives. The judge also ruled that his maintenance be calculated on the basis he sidelines his artistic endeavours and earns a full-time wage — expected to be £36,000 a year. His maintenance was discounted by that amount.

The husband has now been granted permission to appeal on a date to be fixed. He wants to stay in the house, with maintenance payments increased to more than £85,000 a year.

Speaking at the house, where he has his studio, he told the Standard: “There was a little bit of gender bias going on with how the judgment was made.

“Calculations were made on a salary of a job I did 11 years ago, which I gave up for my family. Now I’m doing something else. The judgment was unfair and unworkable, which is why the appeal was granted on all grounds.

“It has been a long fight, not of my making. It has been horrid. No one wants to go to the Court of Appeal but it’s necessary to seek a fair outcome.”

The couple, who met and fell in love as students at Sussex University in Brighton, had been together for more than a decade when they married in 2002. After having one child, they split up seven years later and Ms Turner moved out in August 2010.

She purchased a £1.3million, four- bedroom semi-detached Victorian house in Wandsworth in September. Michael Glaser, for her husband, told Lord Justice McCombe that Mr Nightingale has “not been employed for 11 years” and in that period had earned at best 30 times less than his wife.

He had acted as a house husband during the marriage while he explored his creative side and provided “stability” and child care for the family.

Mr Nightingale was picture editor and photo director for Men’s Health magazine until 2003, when he became a commercial still life photographer.

He said their daughter, still at primary school, stayed with him three days a week and with his wife for four days.

Ms Turner declined to comment on the case, calling it “a private matter”.