If you are a sahm and you leave your husband...

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How do you do it and how do you sort the financial stuff out?

I have no money and I don't think our marriage is going to work. How long does it take to come to an agreement about money? And what can I do to get the ball rolling?

Name changer - I did not say the lone parents I know are well off, but neither are they living in poverty. They and their kids have all the essentials they need, food, clothes an occassional treats/ days out/ breaks. The kids do activities, have swimming lessons, go on brownie camp. they are not denied basic things that other kids have.

Ok Babyroobs, sorry for misunderstanding you.

OP I just used the calculator on turn2us (a benefits help site) based on you not working with 3 young children it thinks you will be entitled to:

Income Support £73.10
Tax Credits £171.02
Council Tax Support (guessed at C/T bill being £1400pa) £18.47
Child Benefit £48.10
Income Support Housing Costs Help (guessed at having £150k outstanding on a mortgage) £90

Those are weekly figures so over the year £20,835

Maintenance: Three or more children: you’ll pay 19% of your gross weekly income on the first £800 and 15% of your gross weekly income on the rest

For those of us who don't get any benefits or tax credits I am not sure we want to encourage people to become claimants of the state of up to £20k a year when currently they claim nothing though! All that money just because someone wants a new partner and sex with someone else.

Are you in an abusive relationship or are you just arguing a lot and not being nice to each other. There is a vast difference.

Abuse is a continuum in my view.... Some people are in highly abusive relationships, and clearly in such circumstances an exit is required... But in most relationships under stress, behaviour from either individual will often contain elements of emotional abuse, albeit relatively mild. A heated argument can readily end in name calling for instance...

Do you want to talk to us about how things are between you and your husband OP? I agree that things can be very challenging with very young children but you describe your dh as abusive.

Honestly, I would be very surprised to hear of any married couple with children that small who are blissfully happy all the time. It must be completely overwhelming sometimes (most of the time!) with those ages, and my own natural instinct would be to blame my DH for absolutely EVERYTHING, up to an including him breathing at night. And he would naturally push back against that pretty vigorously, so we would end up hating each other for a good bit of the time. I think that's only natural (nature's way of stopping you adding a fourth baby to the mix!?).

I think that from what you describe, counselling should be your first step, not working out post-split finances. How have you been feeling in yourself since the baby was born, besides utterly exhausted?

I think it would be more weird if you always thought your husband was fantastic, under your current circumstances. However, you presumably married and had three children with him for a reason, so he must have some redeeming qualities, and you WILL start having fun again when Baby 3 is sleeping through the night and you start getting out together more.

Fighting because you are both overtired and freaked out about having hundreds of small children isn't the same as emotional abuse. Apologies if you are suffering real emotional abuse, but what you say suggests more that you are going through a stage of hating each other a bit, which is very different, and is fixable.