Ordered that the appeal from the order dated April 4, 1991, is dismissed, without costs or disbursements; and it is further,
Ordered that the judgment dated April 10, 1991, is affirmed, without costs or disbursements.
The appeal from the intermediate order must be dismissed because the right of direct appeal therefrom terminated with the entry of judgment in the action (see, Matter of Aho, 39 N.Y.2d 241, 248). The issues raised on appeal from the order are brought up for review and have been considered on the appeal from the judgment (CPLR 5501 [a] [1]).
On December 11, 1980, after 20 years of marriage, the defendant husband left the marital residence, without cause or provocation, with an intent never to return. He had not returned by July 1982, when the plaintiff wife commenced this action for divorce on the ground of abandonment (see, Domestic Relations Law § 170). The court properly granted the wife a divorce on the ground of abandonment as the elements of the statute had been satisfied. The court also properly dismissed the husband's counterclaim for divorce based on cruel and inhuman treatment (Domestic Relations Law § 170) as the evidence showed that the wife's conduct did not rise to a level that threatened the husband's safety or well-being such that it was improper for him to continue to cohabit with the wife, particularly after a marriage of such long duration (see, Hessen v. Hessen, 33 N.Y.2d 406; Denny v. Denny, 65 A.D.2d 658, affd 48 N.Y.2d 915; cf., e.g., Domin v. Domin, 188 A.D.2d 1026; Sullivan v. Sullivan, 188 A.D.2d 953; Zack v. Zack, 183 A.D.2d 382).
We further find that the parties' claims that the court failed to equitably distribute the marital property pursuant to Domestic Relations Law § 236 (B) are lacking in merit. Upon our review of the record, we find that the trial court properly exercised its discretion in concluding from the evidence before it that it was appropriate to award the wife 60% of the net proceeds from the sale of the marital residence, after she received a dollar for dollar reimbursement of her initial downpayment of $36,000. Moreover, the court's award to the wife of one-half of the value of the husband's pension fund, with interest at the legal rate of 9% from July 1982, the commencement date of the divorce action, was a fair distribution, particularly in view of the husband's unilateral liquidation of this fund in 1984.
The court also correctly determined that since the husband had fully developed his law practice during the years of the marriage, his law license had merged therein and was not subject to equitable distribution (see, e.g., White v. White, 204 A.D.2d 825; Duffey v. Duffey, 198 A.D.2d 581; Maher v. Maher, 196 A.D.2d 530; McSparron v. McSparron, 190 A.D.2d 74, 80-81; Finocchio v Finocchio, 162 A.D.2d 1044, 1045; Marcus v. Marcus, 137 A.D.2d 131). It was irrelevant that he was practicing as an associate, rather than as a partner in a firm, by the time the court granted the judgment of divorce. By contrast, the wife's essentially unutilized master's degree in urban planning earned during the marriage which, like a professional degree or license constitutes marital property (see, McGowan v. McGowan, 142 A.D.2d 355), had not merged and was susceptible to equitable distribution. Accordingly, it was appropriate for the court to grant a credit of $9,000 to the husband, in connection with the wife's master's degree, in calculating the wife's distributive award.
We have examined the parties' remaining contentions and find them lacking in merit. Lawrence, J.P., Santucci, Friedmann and Krausman, JJ., concur.