It's difficult to know what to suggest without a lot more information. Every divorce is different and a solicitor will tend to tell you the outcome depends on the facts. My experience of the process, from reading countless other posts from people on forums like this and others and looking at the statistical outcomes is that this is only partially true. A divorce won't just depend on the facts, it will also depend on negotiation, the consent of the parties and, if relevant, the whims of judges (who will act within the law but have very wide discretion).
However, before we start all of that, the first thing you need to do is sort out your short term financial stability and there are five things in particular that you will need to do that.
- Submit your claim universal credit;
- Identify how many hours you are able to work and find suitable employment;
- Start claiming child benefit if you are not doing so already (e.g. if your husband was earning too much to be eligible);
- Arrange child maintenance from your husband, if relevant (i.e. if you are to have the children for more nights a year than him);
- Claim your single person discount for council tax.
You'll probably notice a lot of "facts" are necessary to steer these decisions, such as how many hours can you work? That depends on the ages of the children and who is looking after them? Child maintenance similarly depends on the question who is looking after them the most? Also, when it comes to work, it might depend on whether you have had a career before children or not. If you have, you'll be reasonably expected to retrain for that career. If you haven't, your expected earning capacity might be a bit lower for a while.
Once you have those basics sorted you then need to start considering a fair split of assets. So, again, a whole range of facts to consider. How much can you work and how much can you reasonably earn? What does he earn? What are your respective mortgage capacities? Do you own a house or do you rent? What other assets are there (e.g. cars, furniture, savings, jewellery, pensions). The first objective is to house the children, then to house you both.
Then comes the question of any maintenance to pay. Child maintenance is payable where there is not a 50/50 split in childcare between you and follows a set formula. Spousal maintenance is based on needs and, whilst increasingly rare, is still paid in the right circumstances (e.g. someone who hasn't worked for 10 years might reasonably get 1-2 years of maintenance to adjust even if their ex is not a particularly high earner. Someone with a modestly high earner might get something for slightly longer). Spousal maintenance depends on need and ability to pay but universal credit is reduced £ for £ against spousal maintenance received so it is rarely worth receiving unless the payer is a high earner (e.g. I was on about £80k a year at the time, my wife received £1k a month in UC and realistically was going to struggle to convince a court that I should pay more than about £250 a month for about a year, so she just took £2.5k up front to close out the claim).
Then there is pensions. Generally you will be entitled to half of any pensions saved during the marriage. However, you may need to offset some of these claims to get more of the capital in the house if you own one.
Other things to consider.... some people might say you can get an order to stay in the family home until the children are 18. Depends on a lot of factors like how old the children are, whether you can afford to pay the mortgage on your own, your ex's ability to house themselves and many other factors. Bottom line is that if it went to court it's extremely unlikely you would get such an order but they're still very popular in negotiated settlements.
On that subject, statistically you'll probably agree the finances without recourse to a court (which you will only need to use for the consent order). Unless the two of you are very rich, the legal fees are almost certainly not worth it. Nevertheless, you will be unwise to not use a solicitor to ensure everything is drawn up properly. Oh, but don't take what solicitors say as gospel either, there are countless posts here and elsewhere of solicitors missing important details or suggesting outcomes that ended up in a losing court case with lots of fees. I spoke to 5 solicitors before I appointed one, they all had very different views on what the outcome would be and they were all wrong.
One final point on that. Solicitors can advise on the law but the reality is you won't get any stability if your only recourse is to the law. Breached court orders are notoriously high in family law and the enforcement rate is notoriously low. The best way to achieve stability is to negotiate a divorce settlement you can both live with. Where that is not achieved, the most likely outcome is not that one side "wins" and gets what they want but instead expensive (and ongoing) legal fees, vexatious future legal challenges, damaged children, breached court orders (up to and including people leaving the country and moving somewhere the orders can't be enforced) and two adults with no motivation to improve themselves! So it's normally important to try and negotiate an amicable settlement that allows both people to move on without future claims on the other as soon as possible.