What might divorce look like for us?

[CrumbsInMyBra]

Hi
I’m 29 married to my husband who is 40. We have been together since July 2021 when we first met but married only for a year and 2 weeks. We have a 9 month old. We are in England.

The marriage has broken down beyond repair and it has become increasingly apparent that we are unable to live harmoniously under the same roof so absolutely must go our separate ways. My husband has threatened me with divorce many times but more recently when I’ve asked him to make it a reality and pay the money to submit the paperwork, he is refusing saying I should pay for something for once.

Here is a high level overview about what is going on.

• We currently live in his 4 bedroom 1.5 bathroom childhood family home that he now owns. We live with his brother, his cousin joined us from abroad for university here, his tenant and often the tenant’s gf comes to stay.
• My husband earns almost £6k in a high-pressure finance job. He has investment properties, unsure of how many. He owns a business. I earn half of what he earns in a public sector job but currently on maternity leave. Maternity pay has now gone to zero.
• My husband has £250k of his own money saved up that he intends to put down as a deposit on a new family home. He then wishes to let out all the rooms in the current house we live in for additional income. He found the house that he wanted us to move to and it came down to us agreeing a completion date with sellers. My husband asked me to sign the mortgage deed a couple days ago and I refused. I had told him before that since it’s all his money going for the deposit and he said he will be paying the full mortgage each month then it’s better he puts it all in his name. He said that’s fine because I add no value anyway and he could easily afford it without me. Since I add no value, no idea why he was still insisting I sign the mortgage deed.
• He has over £25k in one of his many accounts. When I told him my maternity pay had ended he said I should use my savings. I have approx £19k in savings with a large majority locked up in a lifetime ISA.
• He pays all the bills. I only cover groceries. He often uses that to throw in my face whenever I say something he doesn’t like or complain about the general living situation.
• We have no shared assets currently.
• We have had a lot of nasty fights about the living situation. He believes I am ungrateful and entitled. I believe he lacks any kind of understanding about how unbearable it is and how it has essentially contributed to the breakdown of our marriage. From my perspective, he puts the tenant on a silly pedestal above me. He tells me he’s known the tenant longer than me, the tenant has been good to him, the tenant hasn’t had a gf the whole time he’s been living with him so now he has a gf coming round he wants to respect their “privacy” i.e. we leave the kitchen for them. If I do something in the house he doesn’t like, he will get belligerently loud and make a fuss about it but if tenant does it he’ll just look the other way.
• It’s not just the living situation, it’s also the lack of love in this marriage. I love my son but we really are 2 people that had absolutely no business having a baby together or getting married together. I’m not perfect and wasn’t expecting perfection from him but I do believe he has traits that are completely incompatible with a successful marriage and he is unwilling to work on these deficiencies and has often said to me “nothing’s changing round here so if you don’t like it, you can leave”
• Last weekend we had a really awful fight when the tenant had put his duvet in our dirty laundry cupboard. To me, that is crossing a boundary and is inappropriate. I had seen tenant before looking through our cupboards where we also keep misc. baby stuff and another cupboard with important filing docs - passport, birth certificate etc. probably looking for a space to put the duvet. He pays for a room, why does he need to put his duvet in our laundry cupboard it just feels like a massive invasion of privacy but my husband insisted that the duvet is going back in there (I had taken it out). He said he had agreed with the tenant before I was ever around that he could put stuff in there apparently. He often says I like to complain about small stuff when he’s trying to focus on the bigger picture and I’m just distracting him and I’m small-minded. That fight escalated very badly and, without going into detail, became physical.
• I have never asked my husband for money in the dating stage nor now that we’re married. He has also never given me money, dating stage nor married. I went into his wallet today and picked one of his many cards and it just happened to be the card for the account that has £25k. I know my husband likes to put all his spending on credit cards rather than debit but I was acting quickly and took that card anyway and went and gave myself a late Valentine’s Day treat by using his card to pay for my nails. The tenant and his gf were in the house today and I’ve repeatedly told my husband that I’m sick of them wiping their bums off my maternity pay used to buy toilet roll. We had ran out of toilet roll so after doing my nails I did a supermarket stop and bought lots of toilet roll and other little things and then I made sure to fill up my car tank all on his dime. When I got home he obviously realised and was furious with me and met me by the car outside demanding his card back saying I was trying to mess up his credit. He then snatched some of the shopping I did and threw it and then stomped on some of it. This would have been in full view of neighbours if they looked out their windows.

I guess what I’m asking is what might divorce look like for us and will it be very costly? I’m not after any of my husbands money really and being that it is such a short marriage with no shared assets I doubt I’m entitled to anything. What I do want though is a quick exit from this marriage at his expense. Plus he has the money for it so why not him. After all I’ve been through this past year, I want him to foot the bill of all the legal costs but how likely would that be considering main factors are short marriage, no shared assets, childcare arrangements and domestic violence?

I know it’s tough leaving OP but it sounds like you would be so much happier without him. I don’t have any legal advice for you as I have no idea how any of it works - but I hope it works out in favour of you and your DD.

Pack your things and move back in with your parents, if that's the post divorce plan. By sitting in there until he agrees to back down and pay for the divorce costs, you're shooting yourself in the foot and stopping yourself getting what you apparently want, which is a divorce.

You need to decide what you want more, him to pay the divorce costs, or, to be divorced from him? Don't let him use it as another battleground, just focus on getting out of there and make it happen, if that is what you want.

With a bit of space away from the atmosphere you're in, you can see a solicitor and work out what you're doing. There really is no point in staying and having arguments about duvets with a man you can't stand the sight of, if you don't have to. Don't do it. Move out, start the divorce proceedings, pay for what you need to pay for, get it behind you.

If you keep locking yourself in over who's paying, you're not seeing the bigger picture, which is that you're locking yourself in.

Just do this and move on. It will be worth it to be free of the whole situation.

Why are you so focused on the divorce. Just separate. Move out. Get proper legal advice. You don’t know what you might be entitled to - or your child might. It’s in his interests to divorce you quickly and keep it a short marriage. There’s no advantage to you financially rushing the divorce. Before recent no fault divorce came in many people waited 2 years to avoid having to blame someone. Before you go take as much info about the rental income / his savings / assets / bank account numbers etc as you can as even if you don’t get much in assets he could try and minimise CM. The court will count the whole time you’ve cohabited not the 1 year you’ve been married. If you have supportive parents go there and take time to sort out housing / work / childcare / maintenance etc and the formal financial split / divorce can be sorted later. Neither of you sound ready to make clear headed decisions now.

Perplexed? Were you really? I thought the context of the OP made it quite clear how that could trigger a major argument. It wasn't about a duvet really, it was about priorities, respect and boundaries. All very significant factors in a marriage.

Also not sure who your ominous "they" is and why OP would need to worry about spending £145 on a supermarket shop and her nails. The police wouldn't care. The divorce courts certainly wouldn't care.

You need some proper advice OP because you're getting some duff information on this thread. You need a clear view of what you and your child are entitled to. You may only have been married a short time but you have a shared child who needs to be housed and the courts will prioritise that.

In your shoes, I'd move back to your parents' house and see a solicitor. If your family has a large home in London then surely they have the means to help you pay for legal assistance if you can't afford it right now. Swallow your pride, get out of the toxic and abusive living situation you're in, move in with your family and ask them for the help you need. Do it for your baby.

Just move back in with your parents and start divorce proceedings. You will have to pay for your costs. He will pay his costs.

it is a short marriage but there is a child. You may not be entitled to 50% of everything but it won’t just be CMS.

It’s clear you are both bad together. There isn’t anything that is criminally actionable in terms of abuse. You both trample all over boundaries and argue like teenagers. This could result in higher tension and toxicity which leads to violence and abuse.

There is nothing to win here. And nothing to lose if you move out. The divorce will sort things out. That will happen quickly and painlessly if you both want to make it so. However given the way you both act in your marriage it will be difficult, expensive and time consuming.

Both of you need to grow up and since he isn’t asking for advice that’s all I can say to you. Life is too short to be actively creating and living in a hostile environment. You can stop doing that if you want to.

It isn't a given that there will be huge legal fees, that's only if it gets really contentious.

Ours came to about £3K in total.

You’re picking the wrong battle. Don’t worry about making him pay for the divorce- make him pay by getting the best settlement for you and your child. You say you’re happy to walk away with nothing, but what about get a just settlement for your child?

Get your ducks as they say. If he has a complicated financial set up get as much paperwork info/evidence as possible when he's left for work to assist you down the line. Then just leave, go to your parents and put in a CMS claim. There's no need to stay when you had a clear exit. There's no need to rush the divorce, but don't quibble over who pays the fees that just a distraction.