How can I afford to live without DH?

[Peanutwaffles]

How can I even afford to get divorced? We've got 2 chikdren. One is in nursery. I work p/t, husband works f/t. We jointly own the house.
The mortgage and bills come to £900 per month. Which he pays. I pay for childcare and food which comes to £1100 per month.

The house is worth £220,000. We've got about 50,000 paid off.

The cheapest houses around here that I can live in are about £170,00. We'd probs split childcare 60/40 to me.

I earn 28,000 he earns about 35,000.

How is it even possible for me to afford to live on my own with the kids??

I'm guessing I wouldn't get much in maintenance from him since the child care split would be almost 50/50.

You’ll need to go full time, split childcare - and all child related - costs 50/50 and claim for everything you can as a single parent, single adult council tax reduction, . Plenty of people do it, and many with the kids 100% of the time not 50.

It will be hard but will it be harder than living with someone who makes you miserable? Only you can answer that.

Apply for UC. You may get some because you're paying childcare costs. It's worth a try.

He doesn't make me miserable. He is miserable because he's depressed and thinks the cause it me whereas I think it's because his mum died a few months ago. His Dad was never around. He's grieving.

But if kids were with me 100% of the time I'd get more maintenance.

Why are you paying more, on a lower salary? Can that be changed for now so you can at least start to save up a bit to prepare for a separation?

How will you afford it. You can't afford a £170k house can you?

Speaking as a single parent, I’d do every you can to make it work rather than go it alone.

*everything

Why are you paying for all the childcare and food which works out to more than what he's paying? He works full time and earns more; he should be paying more.

Why have you been paying more than him when you earn less? You are both probably going to have to look at flats, not houses, if the cheapest house is too expensive. That’s what everyone I know who divorced had to do.

Could you try and have some counselling perhaps first? Sounds like it could be helpful.

Get a full time job
apply any benefits you’d be entitled to
don’t go for increased % residency just to get more maintenance!

I don't want it to end. I'm willing to work at it. At the moment he is not.

Realistically I don't see how we can separate until youngest is in school. Then at least I we won't have the biggest chunk of the child care fees to pay.

He pays for other stuff like he bought my car. Paid for decorating the house and doing the garden. He pays for other expenses like school uniform and other stuff that comes up. I get the child benefit. So it does even itself out.

Has he actually started divorce proceedings?
Agree with pp that it sounds like counselling could help him. Is he willing to pay for that?

No he's not started proceedings. I've told him that I'm not willing to separate until youngest is in school, hes agreed.
So far he's not willing to have counselling bothe individually or coulples. I hope this will change.

Well it’s ok for now that he’s agreed
but he can change his mind Anytime
he can separate when he wants in reality

when kids are at school you’ll have breakfast club/after school club / holiday cover costs?

so
get a full time job
look at what top up benefits you might get

start planning

Have you gone on the turn2us benefit calculator? You can use it anonymously and type in different hypothetical scenarios to see what benefits you can get on what salary and how much. It might be quite interesting.

benefits-calculator.turn2us.org.uk/

Well, it’s not up to you to agree to be “willing to separate” right now. He can choose separation whenever he likes- tomorrow or in a few months, whenever. However, now is the time to start making serious plans about what you can afford to buy, maybe look at upping your work hours etc, change how you deal with your finances.

I don't even know how I could get a full timejob I work self employed now and I'm doing it as much as I can. I'm sure being self employed will cause issues with claiming UC. I think I'd have to get min wage job to top up my p/t self employed work.

I'll have a look at turn2us thank you.

This is so shit. I just really hope his mental health improves and then he can that there is a chance for us to work through this. I have also just seen a 2 bed flats that is more affordable. Literally one in this area as I really don't want to move my oldest schools.

Can you just agree to live separately under the same roof? Can you really afford to each buy somewhere new on those salaries/small deposit? Renting might be more realistically where you end up.
Or can you up your hours/salary?

Don't separate while one of you is grieving, marriages often go through a difficult patch around losing a parent, I know mine did, be supportive and make sure he gets some counselling.

The OP doesn’t want to separate. The DH does. He refuses to go for counselling. What do you suggest she does?

He's going on a solo holiday soon, hopefully that will be a reset for him. I can't stop over thinking about what our life would be like if we split.