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Original poster

help me feel less angry about his separation proposal

176 replies

hell0kitty · 24/10/2018 10:41

Please can anyone help me be less angry about this?

My husband moved out just over two years ago and is now seeking a 50/50 asset split and offering £5 a week maintenance.

Me and our three kids want to stay in the family home which is close to all our friends and their schools. In order to buy him out, however, I will have to give him most of my savings and the buy to let that was to provide my pension and is currently my sole regular income (he left home after I'd cared for him full time for three years following a serious life-changing illness and I've been full-time sole carer for the children since (no family nearby). I have part-time work but am mainly surviving on child tax credit). He is now living separately in a house in his name just down the road, with lots of support and sympathy from mutual friends and neighbours.

After several traumatic years and many suicide attempts, he is happy to be alive, living day to day, and in love with someone else. I am trying not to feel aggrieved at having given so much to him (we were together happily for over 20 years) and now being left with no partner, income or security, apart from the house, and facing 15 years until retirement age in which I have to bring up the children alone and somehow earn enough to get myself a pension too.

This feel especially hard since he already owns a property outright, has his own substantial savings and pension, although he is on disability benefit (hence the £5 a week maximum maintenance I would be able to sue for) his parents regularly subside him and will make sure he is well provided for later. Plus he says he is now in love with someone else.

I can't see how I would ever meet or trust someone again, when the children and work will take all my energy. I am thinking of retraining but god knows what as!

The only upside I can currently think of is that at least he has left me (I would have felt too guilty to be able to leave him) and this way I will not have to care for him into old age, as he has become a bit of a selfish cantankerous bastard. Also that I will at least have a house, and the children. But it is daunting.

Please don't flame me, or be self righteous, because I can't feel any worse about this.

OP posts:
Juells · 24/10/2018 11:15

Your anger is perfectly reasonable. You're feeling angry because you recognise that he's being a nasty shit. Go after half of everything he has.

MulticolourMophead · 24/10/2018 11:16

Yes, get a solicitor, he's counting on you not doing this so he can shaft you.

Awaytome I'm 50 and still have children under 18, I had them later in life.

AnnieAnoniMouse · 24/10/2018 11:16

Love, get yourself a shit hot lawyer and tell the cantankerous bastard to see you in court. With any luck you’ll come out of this with him owing you money.

You deserve so much better than this 🌷

SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius · 24/10/2018 11:16

@hell0kitty - I'm afraid I don't have any useful advice for you, but I wanted to say how sorry I am that you are going through this. I know that marriages break down - but I cannot understand any person who would deliberately be so unkind to their ex and their children. No decent person does what he is doing to you and your children.

LanaorAna2 · 24/10/2018 11:16

His savings can't be that impressive if he's on ESA. It's means-tested after a year. PIP isn't, but that's not much money.

He's trying to hang onto everything, which doesn't work if you've got 3 kids under 18. Lawyer it, this week.

Are the kids in touch with GP? As a source of help, consider them.

You must be furious. You've been phenomenally good to him and he's returned the favour by leaving. Well, you dodged a bullet - he could have stayed and you'd have wasted your whole life on him.

Heave a sigh of relief - he's left. Between you, there are three properties to split. You're about 50, which is young these days. Being a landlord is a lovely way to get a living.

Quartz2208 · 24/10/2018 11:17

a 50/50 asset split seems sensible and fine - however I can confused as to why you think you would have to give up all of that given it doesn't sound like a 50/50 split.

I would say that you will leave his pension/savings and house alone if he signs the rest over to you (family home/buy to let and your savings) that seems fair

MulticolourMophead · 24/10/2018 11:18

I think even if the house had been bought after the split, it can still be taken into account if it was bought using marital funds/assets.

Which is why the OP needs a solicitor.

Mummyoflittledragon · 24/10/2018 11:19

He wants to own his home outright plus recoup the money from half the marital home, where you will continue to live with your children. That’s not a 50/50 split. That’s a split heavily in his favour and it most certainly should be the other way round.

It sounds as if he wants to abandon his kids and take you to the cleaners in the process.

Don’t get mad, get everything as the saying goes. Bastard.

AnnieAnoniMouse · 24/10/2018 11:19

OH...and I don’t want to help you be less angry. I want you to be fully furious and determined to get what is rightfully yours from the shitty twat. Feel the anger and make it work FOR you.

WinterSunglasses · 24/10/2018 11:19

Definitely get legal advice! The solution suggested by Quartz above sounds good to me but I'd put the wind up him with a solicitor's letter first.

curious2 · 24/10/2018 11:20

I'm assuming you're 50 if you're 15 years to retirement. Are the children not reared?

I am 49 and mine are 12, 14 and 16. I had them at 32, 35 and 37 - is that unusual?

Original poster
hell0kitty · 24/10/2018 11:21

Thankyou all!
Yes I am in my 50s and my youngest will be (hopefully) starting uni when I turn 60.

I have done the disclosure of assets and I do have a solicitor, supposedly a good one highly recommended, who insists that because of his official lack of earning capacity, unless he voluntarily offers me more assets to cover rearing the kids, I am unlikely to get more if I fight him in the courts (which will also cost me ££) as a judge would reckon the burdens of his disability, which is permanent cancels out the kids, which is finite. it would cost me about 750-£1500 to get an informal opinion on this from a barrister/judge.

i just can't believe he would want me to be financially insecure after everything we've been through, but he says he doesnt see why I can't manage on a £8k state pension. He refuses to see that 50 50 isn't 5050, because its one person's needs versus 4. he has one pair of shoes, why should the kids need more than one, he's apready paid for one pair of school shoes. Etc etc. All while going to gigs and parties and restaurants...!

OP posts:
Dollius01 · 24/10/2018 11:24

He is massively taking the piss. He is not entitled to 50% of everything if he is leaving you with three kids to raise. Plus £5 a week maintenance??

Original poster
hell0kitty · 24/10/2018 11:26

Also, to clarify, he is on PIP and non-income related ESA, which he will continue to get however much rental/investment income he gets, even if he never works. And the house he is living in we have owned for ages and was rented out while he was ill to provide us with an income, but as its worth less than the family house hence me having to give up savings and buy tolet to be able to stay here. Other option is to move away to a cheaper area/smaller house, but none of us want to do that, esp as my support network is my local friends.

OP posts:
MyBrexitIsIll · 24/10/2018 11:26

YABU to want to feel less angry at the situation.
He is trying to pull the rug from under your feet wo a second thought about his own dcs.

So please stay angry and use that anger to fight his requests.
Go and find a lawyer ASAP.
Try and have as much information as you can about his savings and the house (eg is it under his name?)
And do NOT just accept whatever he is asking for wo checking first this is an acceptable request.

BewareOfDragons · 24/10/2018 11:27

Ask him to give that speech with a straight face to his children. They're old enough to see what he's really like ... a man and father who would happily screw over the woman who did her best by him and then and his own children.

mummiesNwitcheSOLOvertheplace · 24/10/2018 11:29

It's not unusual at all these days curious2 my youngest is 11 and I was almost 43 when I had her.

OP, you do need good advice from a good solicitor and you should come out with much more than 50/50. Good luck; it will be very hard but, don't let him win just for it to be over.

ohreallyohreallyoh · 24/10/2018 11:29

Many solicitors will do a free initial consultation. It would be worth running it past another one for a second opinion. The disability is an issue but so are the children. And 50/50 means 50/50 of all assets, it just the ones he chooses. You may find wikivorce.com useful.

user139328237 · 24/10/2018 11:30

Sorry but if the marriage has the assets to support the partner who is unable to work they need to be given those assets to stop other taxpayers funding them.
It is a difficult situation but you have the opportunity to continue to earn whereas he doesn't so he pretty much has to live on his settlement for the rest of his life.

Figgygal · 24/10/2018 11:30

What a shitty situation but you do sound like youre a very strong person. I'm sorry it all sounds very unfair on you. How old are the children can you up your hours?

Could he live in the house but it still be a joint assets and then potentially sold in future so you get profit back that way?

Juells · 24/10/2018 11:31

Get a second opinion. Not all lawyers are good.

OliviaBenson · 24/10/2018 11:31

But he is housed, so has no need for the OP to buy him out. He has suitable living conditions, so does the op.

I'd get a second opinion as I'm not sure your solicitor is right in their thinking.

MyBrexitIsIll · 24/10/2018 11:32

If he can go out to gigs and restaurant then he isn’t living JUST on PIPS.
Where is that money coming from??

I would also argue that if he can live with the money he has atm, go out etc... then there is no need to sell the house yet. At least not until the youngest is 18yo and at Uni.
THEN, you could actually sell the house and split 50/50 ish accounting for you paying the mortgage on your own.

I would also WAIT as long a possible re buying him out.
The housing market is extremely volitle atm, prices are likely to go down so I wouldn’t want to do an evaluation now when it’s likely the prices are going to go down in a few months time.

mummiesNwitcheSOLOvertheplace · 24/10/2018 11:32

Sorry OP, you answered before I'd posted.

BrendasUmbrella · 24/10/2018 11:33

I agree, second opinion asap.