Husband won't accept divorce and ignoring mediation invite.

[christine10]

Hello,
Not sure what to do next... my husband knows how unhappy I am and that I want to a divorce. He has been controlling, manipulative & became physically aggressive on one occasion during lockdown. I now feel strong enough to leave but he is ignoring the invitation to mediation saying "I'm not agreeing to anything that means I don't see my son everyday" whenever I try and talk about our relationship he either walks away or becomes overly emotional or argumentative which makes a huge barrier stopping me from being able to move on with my life. I can't afford a solicitor and for it all to go through the court. Any advice?

Represent yourself and go straight for a court hearing. The judge will be fair. Your husband won't.

Or you could try being nice, spend £6k on legal fees going back and forth for years, fail to reach An agreement and THEN end up going to court for the judge to decide.

I think a lot of solicitors offer a free 30 minute consultation so I'd be using this to clarify how to process things if he won't do mediation. I assume you go to court, with or without representation.

Are you both still living in the family home? Because that is also challenging.

@ThisIsStartingToBoreMe

Represent yourself and go straight for a court hearing. The judge will be fair. Your husband won't.

Or you could try being nice, spend £6k on legal fees going back and forth for years, fail to reach An agreement and THEN end up going to court for the judge to decide.

This is such great piece of advice, thank you! I'm literally going to write it down and look at it until it sinks!

@ThisIsStartingToBoreMe

Represent yourself and go straight for a court hearing. The judge will be fair. Your husband won't.

Or you could try being nice, spend £6k on legal fees going back and forth for years, fail to reach An agreement and THEN end up going to court for the judge to decide.

This is spot on.

Contact a DA charity, you should be elgible for legal aid on the grounds of DA if you don't want to self-rep.

See a lawyer for your free 30 mins. And then divorce him. And be happy🥰🥰

Depends on your personal finances. The threshold is low and if you have a half decent job you won’t qualify even with DV/DA

Lots of links on this page to info on divorce and self representation if you're unable to get legal aid

www.advicenow.org.uk/guides/representing-yourself-family-court-film

Thank you for the advice! Leaving a narcissist is incredibly difficult! All I want is what is best for our son but he will never see that!

@ThisIsStartingToBoreMe

Represent yourself and go straight for a court hearing. The judge will be fair. Your husband won't.

Or you could try being nice, spend £6k on legal fees going back and forth for years, fail to reach An agreement and THEN end up going to court for the judge to decide.

This is great advice.

However, meet with a solicitor in a free 30 minute consultation to manage your expectations. There might be a gap (positive or negative) between what the law says is fair and what you think is fair.

As for those suggesting you could get Legal Aid - I'd manage your expectations on that too. Whilst it is generally honourable conduct to believe someone when they are subject to abuse, I don't think it's in your interests to lull you into a false sense of security that everyone is going to believe you during a contentious divorce. People on this forum are being nice whereas a court has to dispense justice that is fair to both parties. Unless you have a good body of evidence of what's happened you'll create a delay in the proceedings for the "he said, she said" hearing. When Legal Aid became restricted to DV cases, there was a concern that NMOs started to be abused mainly by divorcing wives in order to get Legal Aid. Whether or not that was really happening (and there are strong arguments that it didn't), senior judges in the Family Court became sympathetic to the idea that it is a possibility and you will need to provide enough evidence for an NMO to be granted.

Before you get that far you need to consider the relationship and what he could counter claim against you. For example, you could claim he was coercively controlling over the finances and he could counter claim that you were coercively controlling over the upbringing of the children; manipulation ditto. Physical aggression - depends what that means and you should assess whether you have been physically aggressive too either to him or the children.

Obviously, now you are heading towards a divorce you should only communicate by a recorded form like email and maybe even wear a body camera if he's ever around (you can get one for about £15). That way if you are at risk a body of evidence can build.