To be clear - I'm the STBXH - I've also posted in Legal but hoping for a more real-life set of replies based on experience here.
My wife has decided that I should now become the ex husband. Totally against my desires, but we've had our issues and I can't pretend it's a surprise or totally unwarranted.
We live in a large 4 bed house - with currently a circa. 65% LTV mortgage. Payments are a bit more than 1100/month.
Being a SAHM she has no / very minimal income. I am what I believe is described here as a "high earner", base around 100, with car allowance + bonus + shares nearly 130.
We have two children around 4 & 7 (by the time this happens)
Her thoughts are she'll stay in the house with the kids. I will be paying around 1100-1200/month in CM and she has suggested to me I should cover the remainder of household finances via spousal maintenance. This would be a total (CM+SM) of around 2400/month. This would not include any of the extras like house savings required to run a house or child's activities.
This would leave me a little over 2500/month from my salary.
We appear to be in the exceptionally fortunate (and rare - thus I am struggling to find other posts) position that there is more than enough money in the monthly pot to fun a reasonable lifestyle for both of us and our children.
My concerns are this:
- Without selling the house, we can't release equity (monthly payments would become an issue etc) thus I can't move on and buy my own house / home.
- By her staying in property, as it's joint ownership, any future property I bought (I could save a deposit by living with parents for a while) would attract a silly amount of stamp duty almost equal to a deposit.
- There'd be nothing stopping her finding a new partner and him living with her in the home that I pay for in it's almost entirety.
Thus, my desire is to sell the property, I can then buy a new family home where I can live and the children have their own home at my place - none of this "dad sleeps on sofa" stuff.
This would leave her with a sizeable amount of cash (maybe 90-100k?) however no benefits (due to cash) and limited options for a mortgage. A 3bed house here is crica. 200k on the bottom end of the scale.
What I'm really looking for information on is
- Has anyone been in a similar situation - if so how did it work out for you?
- Am I being unreasonable expecting to sell our family home, given the consequences of that are that she'll likely need to rent?
- Should I accept that kids always come first and that I should accept that there's enough money to achieve this and that this is probably the least worst option? Even if I fund this for the next 16 or so years until the kids are no longer living at home?
As I said, I've posted over in Legal so I'm less interested in the legal / technical side and more interested in the moral sides.
Thanks