Divorce, where would I live...

[LetsdothisL6]

I want to divorce my husband and have been looking into the process. From what I can see it's a minimum of 26 weeks from start to end. I'm assuming nothing financial will be agreed and no money available until the end of the process.

What do people do about living situations? I can't live with him for 6 months after I have told him. We also have 2 primary school aged children. We have a joint mortgage so I am responsible for paying half of that which means I could afford to pay for somewhere else to live.

Anyone been in a similar situation? I am planning on getting legal advice.

Would he move out in the meantime, unfortunately he may decide to not pay mortgage, so you may also have to claim CMS, but yes, you need legal advice and get as much paperwork together as you can, mortgage, bills, pensions, payslips etc.

Would it be dangerous to live with him, or just awkward?

I stayed in the marital home, for about 4 months - whilst I bought a house. We were in separate bedrooms by the anyway, and I planned lots of weekends away with my kids. Fortunately young, so didn’t need to be around for things like football matches.

It’s not unusual to stay in the same house.

You have to come to an agreement about who lives where (someone to move out; who will this be, you or him, where will the other person live - rent a flat, will there be enough room for the children etc) and about how this is paid for.

Divorce is expensive and requires negotiation, so you both have to compromise and accept it’ll be difficult and everything will cost more for a bit.

The way you write your post makes me think you are not expecting to be able to ask him to leave, or have money-related discussions easily.

Have you consulted a solicitor to understand your situation?

I got absolutely ripped apart on this board recently for saying I was leaving my DP, I have started to set things in motion but he is unaware at the moment. Because like you I can live with the current situation, but I can’t live with him for 6 months whilst everything is figured out.

my advice would be speak with a solicitor in the first instance, they will give you an idea of the process and what needs to happen and when.

they might also outline some different options, such as you asking him to move out early and recovering money from the sale proceeds. Or if he insists on staying you moving out, with him covering the mortgage for the period up until sale.

in this situation you look after your kids first and then yourself, you don’t owe him anything. Speak with a solicitor understand your options and timeframes and go from there.

You will need to agree on finances and have a financial consent order in place from the court before you finalise your divorce. I've just been through this process.
It goes - application, 20 week wait period which is when I instructed my solicitor to sort out the finances, conditional order pronounced in court, then 6 weeks later you can apply for the final order. During that time I got our consent order drafted up, we both took legal advice so the judge could see we'd had independent advice, and then my solicitor submitted it to the court about 5 weeks before final order could be done. Then it was a waiting game, but thankfully it only took 2 weeks for the order to be approved. I got divorced last week. If you have a house and mortgage together it's important not to finalise the divorce until you've agreed and got a financial order approved by the court. Otherwise you're not protected when you're no longer his wife.

I did the opposite to previous poster. I found out he had cheated on me. Bagged up his stuff and rang him to come and get it. He came and got it and found a flat to rent. Ranting at me the whole time. I got locks changed on house. I put in for divorce immediately. I knew finances would be hard because we owned a house, caravan on Haven site and business together. I finalised divorce and it took a further 10 months to sort out financial split. Mostly because he refused to go 50/50 with me and had the strange notion he should all of business and I get house. Business was worth almost 3 times house. In end judge ordered if exh wanted all of business he had to buy me out for 50 percent shares but could use his share of equity in house as part trade off. He took out a business loan to pay me. Originally I had not asked to share his pension but he pissed me off so much by delaying everything I told solicitor to do pension share too.