Newly Separated - Is this fair?!

[Walesmam23]

Bit of background, DH and I have been together 11 years, married five. Each of us have 2 DC from previous relationships and one DC together. After at least two years of awfulness for a number of reasons, mainly his aggression and treatment of me (which he has admitted and accepted was wrong) we have separated. We don't own a home, I have stayed in our family home and he has moved out. He isn't currently paying maintenance but is paying the finance on my car.

I cannot afford to run our family home alone, I work PT school hours to be there for our 5 year old and also run a business some evenings to make extra money. I am now claiming UC but I am still not breaking even on bills and so am looking for somewhere else to live. Until then I've had to rely on help from family to make ends meet every month.

He earns circa £60-70k more than I do annually, if not more, and gets a big bonus annually too. When we met he was worse off than me, I worked FT and had my own car, was financially independent. Over the years his career has advanced and mine has stalled due to having our daughter. I've worked PT since she was 1 and have tried my best, but the demands of caring for three, sometimes five children has of course limited my career. On the other hand his has gone from strength to strength and he has managed to clear his debt, buy a car outright and now has moved to a smaller house with fewer outgoings.

He has now decided he is going to sell my car as he 'can't afford' the finance and I am therefore going to be left with nothing, and no means to buy another. He has basically said it's not his responsibility and he has no way to help me but I frankly think this is unfair. I'm being really bullied here and feel cornered, I can't afford to divorce him, can't afford anything right now really and I don't know what to do. I'm honestly quite scared of him so don't want to get into arguments but also can't be without a car, I won't be able to work.

I'd be really greatful for people's thoughts on this....thank you x

Whose name is your car in?

Well he needs to be paying maintenance for a start! Others will know more detail on that but I would be working out how much he owes.

I take it the car finance is in his name then?

I do think you will need to move to something more affordable asap. If little one is 5 could you look at some wrap around school childcare to enable you to start working more?

Don’t let him steal your car or sell it and keep the money for himself. That’s a marital asset. As may be any savings “he” has accrued during the relationship.

You do need to speak to a family solicitor. Don’t agree to anything with him until you have,

Yes, see a solicitor. And get a divorce asap as right now you are jointly responsible for running two houses and any debt he chooses to accrue.

That’s way out of order. You get thirty minutes free time with a family solicitor and I think you’ll be reassured by that visit.

Apply to CMS straight away - it reduces conflict in the long run and on his salary it will give you a reasonable buffer to help meet bills each month. It might allow you to buy/ run a small car. If you are on UC you can apply for council tax support too and should be paying the single person rate.

You can apply to court for interim maintenance pending suit but it is far from straightforward. I would push hard for mediation whilst getting individual legal advice on what is a fair outcome for you on divorce. Ideally you could reach agreement/ settlement on finances and child arrangements this way rather than the court route but you need to be ready to go the court route if he does not engage. Separately You can apply for a divorce online yourself to keep costs down. Do not proceed beyond decree nisi until you have a financial consent order finalised though either through mediation or through the court route. You can honestly do most of it yourself but take legal advice in the background.

Personally I wanted a fair outcome to meet the needs of my children and I wanted financial freedom from my ex and I did get it eventually via the court route for financial resolution. The outcome was far better than anything my ex had proposed and that was with me self representing and him having a city barrister. The law is there to protect you in this scenario. Be prepared for how protracted and stressful it is though. It's brutal. I would always try mediation first.

Great advice from @momentumneeded - get onto the child maintenance calculator if you know his salary and have your joint child 100% of the time then you can see how much he should be paying you. Then get a CMS claim in straight away, its a safe way to approach him to honour financial obligations towards his child. I assume you are no longer looking after his other 2 children.

The car is a marital asset so he shouldn't be selling it and keeping the money for himself, but if its solely in his name you may not be able to stop him, but he will have to declare it when it comes to divorce settlement.

Hopefully the CMS payment will help you afford finance for another car.

Some advice I'll leave here in case it helps is to take advantage of solicitors' free hours, especially if things are financially tight. When you first speak to them, they may give you a half an hour/one hour free consultation so have a list of questions ready that you want answered and beware that they are also trying to get you to hire them so focus on getting your questions answered first before making any decisions to hire if you want to do that.
Another thing that is really helpful is free online guides that can take you through the divorce so you can do it yourself. It's 100% possible. I did it myself because solicitors were just too expensive. I used this one to help me understand my options and what was going on - https://iamlip.com/ I know others who have used free online guides whilst having a solicitor so they could save money doing a lot of it themselves e.g. forms so you can always do this if you feel a solicitor is really necessary but definitely think it through first as they can be highly expensive.
Hope this could help x