I am thinking of asking DH to leave

[struggling1983]

I have been married to DH for 11 years together for 15
Things havent been right between us for years for about 8 years at least. Having children, bereavements and health difficulties have been hard. Our sex life is non existent and when we do it, I don't really enjoy it.
The spark isn't there for me anymore. I have found myself looking at other men differently. I tried to talk to him a few nights ago but he brushed it off saying we are both tired and we have had a lot on and that he still loves me and everything is fine. Now is continuing like I said nothing. He is a lovely lovely man generally, although admits he has been stressed and suffered with his temper with the children and we have both bickered. I dont want to hurt him but i imagine single life and making my own decisions all the time.
any advice please?

Unless the house is in your name and you're not married you can't simply expect him to leave. It's his home too.

Primary caregiver doesn't mean jack. They are also his kids too. He may decide that he wants 50/50 contact, and why wouldn't he, I'm sure he's also want to see his dc as much as you do. He may even consider changing his job, arrange childcare to accommodate this .

In your shoes op I'd go and see a solicitor and find out what you can do legally and then tell your dh you want to separate and maybe even go to mediation to discuss finances, dc, house etc.

Op, you need to inform yourself of the law regarding divorce and the processes to divorce. You have been reading/listening to much myths and rumours which are simply incorrect.

at the top of this board is a link to ADVICE NOW. Go to it and download all the guides, read and read some more. Understand the principe of no blame divorce which is all there is now. Understand what is meant by “fair settlement”=which is how the law is applied to fiancnail agreements EVEN when you both agree. Understand how you BOTH need to make a full legal financial disclosure of assets that include everything including pensions, inheritances etc . Understand how settlement is based on future needs and if funds are limited the courts will ensure that you are both dealt with in accordance to the 10 or so criteria around “fair settlement “.

your stbex should not leave the house. Nor should you . Not until a draft legal consent order or other fianncial order is submitted to court in its final version ready for “sealing” at your final divorce point. No one should agree to anything with fianncial implication without having done the full financial disclosure first so you both know what’s in the “pot”. He would be financially and legally an idiot to leave his home unless you also have a second home, and he’s moving into that.

you need to understand exactly what the process and law is. You can then instigate divorce simply, on line, without a solicitor to get ball rolling. You will BOTH need to agree rules for living seperately under same roof until the fiancnail orders are done. The government web site has the framework of dos and donts as they’re quite strict to show you have separated during the “Collinge off period”. 1000s of people have to go through this, you can get through it. Focus on parking anger and trying to work togther to get through it as quickly and cheaply as possible . The ADVICE NOW guides are useful to you BOTH to get you on same page over what needs to be done, what you need solicitor for, what youdont, and when you might want to use one.

remember marriage has legal and financial benefits. When you divorce you WILL BOTH be worse off. No matter what you do. The way the law is set up makes no exception for past behavoiurs or “faults”. It is seem
y based on future needs and no fault appraoch now. What the law makers called informally “shared misery” . You need to realise this. You can get though it, you can go on to have a more satisfying life. Work with systems not against them and you can get to that point more quickly, at less cost and overall less stress.

I divorced after 30 years, I’m still trying to adjust but am mentally in better place than I was. Financially it hit me particularly hard as I was only breadwinner so not easy. I am slowly regaining financial security. If you need to divorce then so be it, just get yourself very informed and knowledgable about the process, your rights, the law etc BEFORE you kick this off. Read up. Go to ADVICE NOW LINK

You will be going from the same earnings between you but you will be supporting two households-prepare for things to be hard, for you to have to work full time and for your housing situation to be probably worse

One way or another you need to speak to him about what you are feeling and why you want the marriage to end or change. This can be enabled by counselling, which should allow you both to explore the state of the marriage and what you want to do next. If that is to separate then it helps you do it as best you can.

To simply say you want him to leave is naive. It’s not that easy and it will impact on both of you. Some people are rich enough to run two homes but most people aren’t.

If he moves out he will need a new home and that is going to cost as much as or maybe more than the home you are in at the moment. Leaving you to shoulder the cost of running that home - that means paying the full mortgage and all the bills. Unless he is a big earner he won’t be able to pay a mortgage and rent. Longer term the family home will need to be sold.

Some women post on here confidently that their husband can go live with his parents. But that isn’t in their gift to decide. This is your marriage and your divorce. You got into it and now you need to get out of it. Whether family help out or not is a bonus and it is never long term.

Separating shouldn’t be avoided. But you need to approach it well and accept you aren’t in control and you need to compromise.

The biggest mistake people make is to announce to someone that they want to split and then in the same breath tell them their spouse must move out and make a lot a sacrifice so they can maintain their life as is. They are then surprised their spouse doesn’t go along with the high handed plan.

You need to give the other party time to come to terms with the idea of splitting before you approach on how that split will happen. They are entitled to solutions of their own.

conflict and disagreement in a divorce don’t really change the outcome. It only costs you time and money and creates a horrible situation for children.

You can’t just demand he leaves or try to manifest the notion. You need to do some hard work.

OP you are in cloud cuckoo land. You’d ’like to stay in the house’ while he making him leave???

You say that but it doesn't have to be, I stayed in the family house, the mortgage is paid by both of us. With UC, child maintenance and working my disposal income is very much higher than previously. Not every man wants 50/50 either, although often ask for it for a reaction.

Speak to a solicitor and look at what benefits you would be entitled too.

You say that but it doesn't have to be, I stayed in the family house, the mortgage is paid by both of us. With UC, child maintenance and working my disposal income is very much higher than previously. Not every man wants 50/50 either

Ok, well @struggling1983 needs to answer some questions then?

Will your DH be happy to move out but still pay half the mortgage and then fund his own housing costs?
Will your DH be happy with less than 50/50 so you can have more child maintenance?

If the answer to those is no, then OP will be in exactly the situation everyone else is describing.

I'm sorry about the usual suspects' posts OP. It sounds like your marriage is dead in the water and your H is happy to continue living like this. I'm sorry he just shut you up when you tried to speak to him. I do think individual counselling for you would be a positive move, to think about what you want and need and how to work towards it. You sound done with the marriage and I'm not surprised.

Some men will leave when they've accepted the situation. Your H sounds nowhere near to this. The idea that these men, many of whom barely contribute to family life will all have 50/50 contact with the children on separation is a joke. The comments about you moving out as it's you who wants to end the marriage are just bile.

You need support - both informal and counselling to look at a plan. Your living situation is not healthy for anyone in your family. It's so hard to leave a relationship where the other party won't speak about the issues at all, but many of us have done it and never looked back.

Unless your OH is very wealthy you would have to be able to afford housing for you and dc when they are with you. You would need to pay all bills and rent / mortgage and buy him out or downsize. My ex has one dc every other weekend and the older dc he sees for a meal once a fortnight. I don’t have time for a new life. My circumstances were bad enough that separating was better than staying but I had my own income and could afford to house me and dc. ExH did move out and rent and that didn’t affect his claim on equity so I don’t think comments about both having to stay in house are true. If he purchased a second home or moved in with new partner that would potentially make a difference but courts would not usually see someone renting temporarily as meaning they had less need for capital. The starting point would still be 50:50. Either of you could move and rent short term - if you can’t afford the mortgage and he can it would make more sense for you to move out. UC will cover housing costs for a period while a family house is sold (if you are eligible). You can’t predict how someone will react to a separation I was shocked how little exH wanted to see dc. DC are expensive and require financial sacrifices not everyone is willing to make. You need to be prepared to do most of parenting and also financially support yourself and dc either through work or benefits. There is no legal way to force someone to care for their own children if they don’t want to or can’t afford to. Few people have jobs that are flexible and well paid enough to run a home and cover childcare on one income. Unless he’s very wealthy CM won’t come close to covering costs raising dc alone and if he shares care then CM won’t necessarily be paid anyway. You can look up CM and benefit calculators online and see what your life on one income would be like.

@ThisQuickPlumFinch then you are in a minority

and great that you have more income while allowing both your ex to pay for you and the state.

https://thespectator.com/topic/how-divorce-never-ends/?fbclid=IwY2xjawHgttZleHRuA2FlbQIxMQABHdEIZqkAK_Xz8dVAiTc1ELHY9enqkO-H9ZoMfFNXR8yLB2i2cZ-WUdm8Lw_aem__BdxSzJlPsvfwHbX7hwlhg

The problem with someone carrying on paying mortgage is whether the share of equity will be enough to start over down the line. One reason solicitors don’t advise this anymore is because (mostly) women end up in their 50/60’s when their dc have left home and family house is sold without enough capital to buy again, no mortgage power of their own and insufficient pensions. Often their exH have bought again and been paying a second mortgage so have built up other assets. It is better in long term to be paying down your own mortgage in a place you have 100% equity. if you can’t buy something now you would want to retire in for 50% equity then as house prices generally go up not down your 50% will buy less and less as the years go by.

This is so true. My ex was never hands on but would say about 50/50 and removing himself from the mortgage.

In the end, he seems happy with 30% access to the children. All that stress and worry about he would rather pay more and see them less.

Eh? All the separated fathers I know have 50:50 custody, why wouldn't they want to see their kids?!

The same reason they don't want to get up in the night, prepare a meal or actually do anything that isn't particularly fun.

You need to think about the implications of this - a discussion with a lawyer might be a good start in the NY. I agree you are sounding here like you imagine he will just leave, still pay for stuff, etc and nothing much will change he just won’t be in the house any more. That’s unlikely to be realistic and you need to think about finances going forward. If you want to stay in the house, can you buy him out for example. If not, it will need to be sold and equity split, etc.

I dont know any men that actually want 50:50. Fuck me, they don't generally want to do anything above the bare minimum let alone do 50% childcare. Unless the children are secondary school age and you've already done all the hard work.

50/50 is very common amongst the families at my primary-many dads are brilliant!

And when your ex-husband becomes aware of this, he should apply to the court to stop contributing to the mortgage. This is NOT an outcome the court would be supportive of, with one party in the house with more disposable income than ever and the other paying for a house that they cannot live in.

@ThisQuickPlumFinch I should also add that your husband should be aware that the CMS has been told to tidy up and clarify their guidance. Perhaps your ex is paying child maintenance ordered by the court now but after a year they can:

1. Apply to CMS; and
2. Have the CMS reduced by the amount that they are contributing to a joint mortgage.

I think that settlement is pretty outrageous and I can only assume it was by consent. I could not see a court awarding that (and if they did, a lot of people would sympathise with the ex if they kept litigating and pushing every loophole to reduce what they were paying).

It's not as likely that the ex locked out of their equity will buy something now. They're unlikely to get a second mortgage and unlikely to afford the additional stamp duty. On top of that, rents are much higher than they were and can be prohibitive to saving, especially if they are contributing to the existing mortgage. Consequently, the Mesher Order has become a particularly raw deal to the non-resident, especially when they get less than half the equity at the end of it.

In fact, it is so devastating to the non-resident's finances now that my advice to someone facing being the non-resident in a Mesher Order arrangement is to consider whether they should stop working in order to force the other party to sell. Worst case it's a repossession on the credit score for 6 years but if the alternative is waiting even longer with a Mesher Order imposed and no guarantee that the occupant won't play silly buggers or stop paying their share of the mortgage at some point anyway, then it becomes the least worst option.

His response when you brought the subject up illustrates quite a problem imo. You wanted to talk about how you felt and he shut you down with his opinions and feelings, saying you were mistaken and there wasn’t a problem. He was undermining you and seems to think so long as he thinks all is ok then it is. If that is how conversations about things that are important to you usually go then I can understand why you want to end your marriage. You won’t feel any intimacy with someone who disregards your thoughts and feelings.
What would he say if you said, “No, you’re wrong. There is a huge problem because I’m ready to divorce you?”

What would your children want? Divorce is HARD.

I agree divorce is hard. Consider how the changes will impact all of you. You will almost certainly have to work full time, you will almost certainly have to move house-probably to something smaller where people will have to share bedrooms. They may need to go into childcare and you will almost certainly have less money and time with them.

i imagine single life and making my own decisions all the time.

I think you need to unpick what you mean about these decisions. What do you want your single life to look like?

It doesn't really sound like you have a strong reason to divorce unless you've chosen to leave information out. What are you going to do, get divorced every decade when you get bored of the current one? The sexual honeymoon period of a relationship doesn't last forever, you can't escape the hard or boring things that happen in life regardless of who you're with.