Can I ask for a female perspective on Divorce please.

[QwertyZXY]

My marriage broke down and was really acrimonious and unhappy with neither my wife nor I able to agree or co-operate on anything, including lifestyle or children.
We spent a year working with a marriage counsellor which failed to do anything except widen differences and strengthen my resolve to leave the marriage.

I separated 12 months ago and moved out of our home into rented accomodation across the road from my childrens school & have the children half the time.

Since separating I have tried to get my wife to engage with mediation for the past 12 months to resolve finances and childcare......although childcare has now largely been resolved more by the children who are mid-teens.

Over the past year I have had four separate firms of mediator contact her and all have been rebuffed with various excuses, the final attempt in December.
Following this, I engaged solicitors and asked them to initiate divorce proceedings.
I asked them to wait until after Christmas, to issue and they wrote to her at the beginning of January.
Firstly to say I wanted to divorce but happy for her to divorce me if she preferred - no response!
Then they wrote again 3 weeks later with a draft petition inviting her to respond - no response
Then issued the petition to court.
She has notified the court of an intention to defend the divorce. WTAF!!!

Wife has accused me of "bullying behaviour" in having mediators and solicitors write to her.

I feel I have been more than patient, delay suits her living in a home rent free which I am paying the mortgage on whilst also renting a home for me and my children.

While she refuses to discuss the future. I can't wait forever!

Am I being unreasonable?

Yanbu. Leave it to the solicitor to come to agreements. If she's making up tales of bullying then don't engage with her at all. That would be my advice.

No. She can’t accept it and hopefully someone close to her (not you) will tell her that she needs to accept it.

She won’t defend it. Very foolish. Ignore the allegations and move forward. People who do recover better from divorce, IMO.

@Viviennemary

Yanbu. Leave it to the solicitor to come to agreements. If she's making up tales of bullying then don't engage with her at all. That would be my advice.

She views the attempts at mediation as bullying. I think that she is really just delaying

She's delaying. Probably because she's living in the house for free for now. The only thing you can do is proceed with the divorce. I think you have to have mediation but as long as you can prove you've requested this from her on 4 occasions and she hasn't complied then you will be ok.

Have you thought about how you wil split the assets? Have you made an offer to her? What about the kids? Presumably they are old enough to decide where they will live.

My first step would be to proceed with the divorce whilst simultaneously making an initial offer.

You're not being unreasonable but... is there some background circumstance that is influencing her reluctance? For example, is she (or her family) super religious? The problem with prompt divorces is they must be "fault" based, which can really upset some people. And, for some religions, divorce means leaving the community or being left out of certain religious customs. Offering to shoulder the "fault" might be helpful. I know your lawyers have explained this but, perhaps, not with informal language; try telling her yourself?

Btw, don't think of it as your ex living rent-free. Your children are simply living in their home. I'd give some thought to how you/ex will present future changes to them. The kids seem to be splitting their time harmoniously with both of you, right now. I'd expect some pushback when they realise how much their lives will continue to change. If at all possible, try to time the largest changes around the kids rather than yourselves eg don't sell the house in the middle of their exams - do it before or after.

Thanks Laudete
I had offered to shoulder all the blame and for her to sue me for divorce.
I think that the reluctance is less religious than wanting to avoid a loss of status.
I am less concerned about getting the divorce than having our finances sorted out fairly, the house is a significant part of our assets and there is enough equity to buy two more modest houses big enough to house the kids.
My solicitor has said that I need to have a divorce in progress in order to have a financial settlement which is final and not open to later revision.

Push the solicitor forward, she obviously has a reason not to proceed.
Perhaps she s thinking of your private pension growing every month.

I don't think it's a female perspective on divorce that's needed here. Your wife is behaving peculiarly but not in a way typical of divorcing wives, if you see what I mean.

It looks from the perspective you've offered as if she intends to be as difficult as possible. I'm sorry for you adsene the children.

Let your solicitor deal with divorce. Be careful about engaging in an angry back and forth with solicitors letters or you'll end up spending the house equity on fees. If she has a solicitor and is still saying she will contest the divorce then I think this could be a protracted and difficult process, if she has yet to instruct a Solicitor then be reassured when she does they will advise her no to do that, no one wins.

I reckon she's angry and worried about the financial fallout - her lifestyle is going to be less comfortable. As indeed is yours. None of that is a valid reason to behave in the way that she's behaving though, and you've done nothing wrong by attempting mediation and engaging a solicitor. Ultimately she's going to have to suck it up. Marriages end, that's life.

I would leave it to your solicitor. It sounds like you want to create an equitable experience for your kids across the two houses financially and custody wise so pursue that. There maybe a trade off to be had on capital V pensions but that's a negotiation.

Hopefully she'll come to terms with the divorce

I know a man who did use defending divorce as a tactic to drag things out and cost the other party extra money. She had to engage a barrister at great expense (not many left with any knowledge of this since it's so rare). On the day of the proceedings he turned up and represented himself. About 10 minutes in he announced he no longer wished to defend the divorce. The law really needs an update. I would be careful to try not to spend too much on this as it is going nowhere (the defence) but will cost extra time and cash.

Thanks for all your replies.
I have tried to limit the legal costs by dealing with her on this and trying to dissuade her but she is not hearing me!

OP, had you mentioned divorce previously?

My xh had an affair and left me with two DC under 5, for her. Six months or so later I filed for divorce. He was shocked! He said he had no idea I was thinking of divorcing . He suddenly became even more of an arsehole in how he spoke to me. He didn't hold up the divorce but he didn't spend a penny on it. No solicitor or anything. I spent thousands it paid off in the end though

Sorry, what I meant was, could this in some way have been a shock? Despite what had been going in between you?

Ex ‘defended’ against my divorce application. His argument was, this is a private matter and none of the courts business that I was a liar and divorce was not necessary... 😆

The court ignored him and gave me my divorce.

Do you know how she’s intending on defending against the divorce application?

Yes, I think it was a shock.
Despite 12 months of marriage counselling which was obvious that the only way forward was separation, it came as a shock when I said that was what I wanted, more of a shock when I followed through on it.
I said that nearly 18 months ago now and now closer to 15 months than 12 since I moved out.
There is nothing untrue, or even controversial in the divorce petition, only examples of issues that we have major differences over and which soured our marriage, all of which I could prove to a court if required.

Agree with a PP that a woman’s perspective isn’t needed.

You know we’re not just one homogenous lump, right? Different motivations, different personalities, different needs...

You’re taking the right steps to move forward with the divorce - just crack on with that.

Has your wife been a sahm to the kids? Or taken a career hit to look after them while your career continued (part time work/different job to fit around/doing the majority of the sick days/being the default parent/etc.)?

One perspective that is more typical of women than men (though by no means the perspective of all women) is divorcing after the children have stopped requiring constant supervision means they have missed out on the opportunity to build a career and now lose out on the financial security they had assumed they'd get through their husbands. So divorce and a financial settlement meaning she will have to start supporting herself when she is unlikely to be able to build the kind of career her husband has might seem somewhat unfair. Used for labour while the children were small and then discarded, as it were. And that might make her more reluctant to end the marriage as she sees the financial support you are providing as a sort of payment.

I don't know if that's the case here, obviously only your wife can really tell you and she doesn't appear to be very communicative. If it is the way she sees it it's not a particularly useful perspective because the divorce is coming and she's going to have to get to grips with the new reality, the longer she waits the worse off she'll be. But I think a lot of women feel somewhat cheated when their husbands want to leave after the hard work of child rearing is done if those husbands didn't do much of the rearing.

Of course there is nothing homogeneous about either gender.
I am just trying to understand what could possibly be motivating her as I feel that I have bent over backwards to be reasonable.
I have finally recognised that there is no point trying to get a reasonable outcome from someone so determined to be unreasonable.

Then just post and ask people’s opinion, none of the “women’s perspective” nonsense.

She has spent a lot of time not working, but she was earning a very good salary, part time and would have earned significantly more than me if she had worked full time. There are more opportunities for her to work than for me. She fell out with her employer after I separated and has refused to get another job "because why should I?" , there are plenty of opportunities.
I think that she is hoping that I will be required to maintain her

How long were you together/married?

So she put in the majority of the drudge work when the children were small (your response isn't totally clear)? I think that can lead to a lot of resentment, even if someone manages to maintain a reasonable career, it's unlikely as good as it would have been if they'd not had to do that or if they'd been able to rely on sharing it 50/50. Even if it was their choice, some women end up resenting it.

But even if that's the case you can't do much about that at this stage other than acknowledge it. Ultimately, if she's not engaging, it's likely the only sensible option is to forge ahead anyway.

She's being unreasonable, just crack on and let your solicitor deal with it, avoid contacting her directly about it as it clearly isn't working.