I can’t afford a divorce

[santawashisnameo]

I really can’t afford to get divorced, I can’t afford the solicitors fees or to live alone or anything really. I am guessing I am stuck. Is anyone else in this situation?

@santawashisnameo Why wouldn't you qualify for UC?
With all due respect, you could leave. You would have to quite probably struggle financially, but you could leave.

Exactly. I’m glad you are happier now. One of my friends was in this very same position not too long ago. She left a big, beautiful expensive house behind when she left with her boys to move to a small flat that she could afford on her own. No, she doesn’t have the space or the luxuries she had before but I have genuinely never seen her happier and she always always says it was the best thing she could have done. Anything that costs you your mental health is too expensive.

Of course you’re going to sacrifice your happiness if the alternative is sleeping in your car.

Well, no one’s actually bothering to read my replies so I guess I give up. Good to know.

If you earn more than £2k a month part time. then there is absolutely no reason why you can't afford to move if you go full time and double your income. If you can't then you clearly have unrealistic living standards. Your children are close in age and can share a room. You'd only need a 2 bed. Even a 1 bed if you slept in the living room. That's what people do when they desperately want out. 1 bed apartments dont cost £2k a month to rent

It is literally part of my job supporting women through these different processes, child maintenance, divorce, renting, entitlements etc, and I’ve also got a friend who has just done exactly the same. So I’m certainly not naive, and I’ve never said it will be easy, it won’t be, but it is doable.

Oh you know my finances and what I can afford and where I can live do you? Great.

You seem incapable of any action. Why can’t you at least start with the following :

1. take sick leave to book and attend doctors appointment to get help with your depression.
2. start saving for your escape fund
3. Find a counsellor or go to CAB to get support with planning your escape

Sometimes people just don't want to give up the lifestyle to which they are accustomed, they don't want to work full-time etc.
And that's all their choice, but it means having to stay unhappily married.

I know that there is support and there is always a way, not an easy way, but there is always a way. It’s doable, not easy, but never impossible if it is what you want.

You seem to just be telling yourself it’s impossible because it is hard, for example you’re jumping to the far end of beyond “so I’ll sleep in my car then” rather than looking at the rational options you do have available. You have options, more than most given you’re married, employed and have equity in a home, you have a good starting point for the day you do decide to take it

A tad self selecting though isn’t it.

Someone goes to a solicitor and they can either afford it or they cannot afford it but someone else is paying. It isn’t free.

That is like saying that everyone who drinks Starbucks coffee can afford it, so what’s the problem.

I have explained to you and others very plainly that I cannot afford to move out. I’ve said so many times now that even if we could find a landlord willing to rent to us and that in itself is highly unlikely, the initial costs would be way more than I could afford.

It is so tiring and stressful going over this over and over again.

It’s a shame because there are so many
people on this thread who feel for the OP and are trying to offer suggestions but she seems unable or unwilling to even consider them.

No one has given me any suggestions I can work with. But I would actually rather people left the thread than twisted it around like this. All I have had is a lot of repetition around both universal credit and working full time. Absolutely no one has answered how you move out when you’ve nowhere to go and when you can’t afford it, and that is because there is not an answer to that problem.

I'm sorry OP. I don't have any practical suggestions but I just want you to know that I hear you.

Like I have said, I spent 18 months living with my ex, in separate rooms, attempting to coparent two young children so that I didn't have to sleep in my car. That was my sacrifice because for me it was worth the end goal. I have had the most awful 2024, but I'm glad I made that sacrifice because of where I am now.

I think it might be best to get some proper guidance in the real world with someone who can calculate your financial situation and what is available to you as you don't seem particularly engaged in the possibilities of what people are providing on here when they are doing their best to help.

@Freeflight That really can't have been easy.
Are you sorted now for a place?

She can't go full-time because her contract is part-time. I don't know where you all work but most of us can't just rock up to work and say "Imma work full-time now, boss" then tell the childminder that she's taking the children on full-time too and then tell the council to give us a house.

But if you really wanted to, OP, you could grow some wings and fly up and pluck money from the magic money tree at the bottom of your garden. It's that simple.

@Freeflight I am sorry you went through that. It isn’t something I’m willing to do. I would far, far rather just carry on as I am. I think the mental toll that would take on me, him, the children, would be horrific, and too high a price to pay, to be honest.

Thanks @FlabbergastedByTheGorgons i think there are a number of us in the same boat. One of the problems is that people have (understandably as I’ve said) assumed I want to be told how to leave, and it isn’t really about that.

Well, quite, it isn’t that simple. Not simple at all actually, the opposite of simple.

The simplest answers to that specific question

Option 1 (what most people do and is the long game)

• Put the current home up for sale, co-exist in it until sale as you have up to now and then use your equity to start your new life elsewhers.

Option 2

• Provided no abuse etc meaning you need to be out ASAP, start saving an escape fund. Once you have enough saved you have your deposit and ready to go, you then put in your child maintenance claim and check eligibility for any other assistance.

Option 3:

• Put yourself on the council housing list, due to separation needing a home for yourself & children.

Option 4:

• As others have mentioned, loan to make up deposit and apply for rent immediately.

Nobody asks for a divorce and moves out the next day. That’s the reality. VERY few people can afford to do that, you’ve lived with that person for years, you can live together still until the sale of a house. That’s the way it works for the vast majority of people.

I think I would consider moving into a short term let or lodging with someone - give yourself some space and a break, an opportunity to increase your work hours.
You could do that and visit the children, or maybe your DH would stay with his parents at the weekend so you could stay with the children?
Just until the house is sold and you can get your own place.

@santawashisnameo i think you need to let his mental load be his own. You can't function looking out for yourself and him and your kids. Something has to give.

And you then maybe need to see if you can start putting things in place (saving etc) so that at a later date you are able to ask to separate and move out. But that moment might not be now.

@HollyKnight I did exactly that. I spoke to my boss, explained the situation, and increased my hours. And I was earning nowhere near what the OP is, even full-time.
But the OP has agreed now that there are some sacrifices she is not willing to make and that's fair enough. It's her choice ateotd.

I gave you some suggestions but you haven’t replied to my post

How did you afford childcare while you were working full-time on less money than the OP?