I want a divorce but I've no idea where to start

[taytotayto111]

I've been married 15 years. We have a house together. Two children 8 and 10. Husband has very good job and pension. No debts apart from mortgage. I work part time.

I want the divorce. He has controlled my financially all our marriage. He did what he wanted and said I could as long as I could afford to do it which he knew I couldn't!
I pay half of all Bills. We had a sexless marriage. He never wanted it ....ever. we sleep in different rooms.
I've suddenly realized I'm never getting the best years back and want to get my life back and not be told were we go on holiday what we do in the house etc.
Anyway I've no idea where to go from here. Hes finally accepted I want a divorce. Hes offered me 3/4 of the equity on the house plus maintenance as long as i dont chase his pension. He feels that unfair as hes worked 35 years for it!
I want to be fair but hes manipulated me long enough and I dont want to be made a fool and then struggle in later years.
I also dont want to spend thousands in solicitor fees.
What I'd really like to know is realistically how long does a divorce take and what's the cheapest way to get good advice? Any where do I start. I'm all over the place.

You get a free 1/2 hour with a solicitor for advice so choose a fairly local one - there will be visits!! They will recommend someone who can help you if they can't. You will have to have mediation where you can agree everything with someone else in the room with you. Your solicitor can instigate this or you can arrange this together and take your agreement to the solicitor and they will get the ball rolling. If they think you are being railroaded they will say. Mine was fab and guided me with was she thought was acceptable. Mediation agreements are NOT legally binding. Twice we'd agreed something, he'd leave the room and change his mind so our solicitors had to work a bit harder. We did a 60/40 in my favour with a clean break. He never paid maintenance he promised-that gets sorted after the divorce and I just couldn't face it all again. He bought me out of the family home giving me a deposit and bought my own house 51/2 years ago and been very happy 😊
The best thing I did was rent for 6 months. Proceedings started January, I moved out December and wish I'd gone sooner. Expensive but best money I spent. Gave me time to gather my thoughts and got me and kids away from a toxic environment and a controlling person. My strength grew and was able to stand up to him. My life is none of his business and that is liberating. My friend was also going through a divorce and did it all without solicitors, she was happy with his offer. You need a buddy, I hope you have the support network I did xxxx. I have lots of thoughts on this so will stop there! Be strong, I'm here x

Divorce took about 10 months, financial agreement came through around same time 👍 healing took a bit longer 😘