How would it look financially?

[Breakingpoint22]

Am married, considering leaving after too much time spent in unhappiness

we have 2 young DC, co-own a property we bought spring last year. Both on the mortgage and deeds etc.

no savings, currently in £6k debt from home improvements. DH earns 90% of our monthly income, I work 2 evenings a week so contribute some but not a lot. We have Childcare costs for youngest, eldest at school with no costs for clubs etc yet.

I gave up my career to support his years ago so haven’t got any ladder as such to return to, would need to consider retraining etc which feels like a marathon in itself but must be considered

i honestly have no idea where to even begin to unpick the financial implications of leaving or anything. What am I realistically looking at here as best course of action? I need to know this before I can decide what to do for the best

Sorry you're in this situation. I am at the beginning of the divorce process. My understanding is that you will be entitled to a higher percentage of the equity in the house of you were to sell it, and to a percentage of his pension too. The court will look first to the best interests of the children, so will look to ensure they are provided with adequate housing and income. If you are able to increase your working hours there would be an expectation for you to do that as well so they you can continue to let childcare. Presumably you would have main custody of th children and their dad would also have to pay maintenance. I hope this helps. I recommend following The Legal Queen on Instagram - she has lots of videos

If you can stand to stay for a bit, I would use your time wisely to get yourself in a better position. Use the excuse that the youngest will be starting school in the future and you want to return to work, and then use this time to retrain and find a job. There's no point in having a higher percentage of the equity if you don't have any income to support yourself. And once both DC are in school, it'll be much easier. While you may get benefits, you can't guarantee that you'll get child maintenance (even if you have the kids 100% - I know from experience!).

You don't say how long you're married for , that's relevant .
Starting point is probably 50.50 of equity available but you'll probably be entitled to slightly more as you've given up work . Any settlement would expect you to work full time though so you may as well get looking at that now .

@Crazycrazylady married 7 years, together 16

i wondered about working FT - that would obviously affect the amount of childcare needed and costs incurred too. Also, heartbreaking to leave them so much when they’re still little

When you divorce you will become two single income family. Once the assets have been split and child support agreed you will need to support yourself. Your ex has a decent salary but it probably isn’t enough to give you more in spousal support than you would get from benefits. Unlike child support, spousal support will count against means tested benefits.

At the moment you don’t know what changes he will make to his life. He might want to pick up more child care and you could be in a 50:50 arrangement. That would leave you with more free time to work. Or not the choice would be yours for a while. As your children get older the more the state expects you to look for work.

Conversely he might not want to increase his share of parenting. This would mean you get child support. But it won’t give you the same standard of living. Because it will assume he has housing costs as well.

The modern world might not be perfectly adjusted to it but men and women can have careers and be parents. Most people don’t have a choice over it. You did but now you might not unless you want to reduce your quality of life, now and into retirement.

How much are equity and pensions do you have ?

How much does dh earn
how long have you not worled
what t career did you give up
how old are you ?

General principles are

add up you assets less debts ( inc pensions) and understand how much there is

what does 50% each give you? Is that enough to meet housing needs for both of you ( v rarely is)

so, you’ll be expected to either work full time to
inceease mortgage capacity, or apply for universal credit to top up part time plus cms

spousal maintenance is quite rare, and generally small in nature and time bound eg for a few years if at all

look at child arrangements, where will they reside and what access to other parent / calculate cms due based on this

general factors to decide on split are
length of marriage
ages of both parties
total assets available
housing of minors ( both parent need adequate to accommodate children)
earnings and earning potential
severing financial ties ( apart from cms) as soon as possible

have you looked into childcare financial assistance!

@millymollymoomoo

£100k p/y
havent worked FT since 2019, P/T since spring 2022
Office manager/Trainee bookkeeper
32 and 35 yrs old

assets must only total around £60k with the debt removed

Married 7 years, together 16

youngest DC will be entitled to 15 free hrs from April but as splitting is all currently theoretical I havent looked into much yet

3 years out of workplace is not long and while you only work pt you haven’t sacrificed your career. If you were a trainee book keeper their is nothing stopping you finishing that and working full time and that’s ultimately what the expectation will be,

At best you might be looking at limited spousal for a few years but likely not

you may be lucky to receive most of equity but you’ll still ultimately need to pay your own way re mortgage/rent/bills etc m. At those ages courts will be looking to you to be financially independent, at least once your children are both at school

you’re young enough to build your own pension

I guess what I’m saying is you need to assume you will have to return to work full time, or claim uc, as you’re v unlikely to receive long term financial support other than child maintenance- which depending on how many nights you share the children could be around £1k a month ( you can plug into cms calculator)

How much equity do you have in the house ? you need to bear in mind that once the assets are sorted, if you have more than 16k in equity/ capital you won't be able to claim Universal credit unless that money is being put into purchasing another property in which case it can be disregarded for a period of time. I would try to increase earnings so that you may have some chance of being able to get a mortgage to try to buy him out of his share?