I told DH years ago that I wasn’t t happy and needed things to change. During Covid I told him I wanted a divorce. We have been nesting ever since partly because of our ND kids and exams which finished in June etc.
Since I moved into the spare room, he has cluttered up the main bedroom which fully reveals his mental health problems. And otherwise he’s very difficult to live with - repeatedly shouting and saying he will be going, but then he never does. He probably won’t be able to organise this himself but he will argue about everything if I try to do it for him…which is why I’ve steered clear of getting involved up to now.
We had agreed he would find a place to rent this summer and move out but he’s not done anything about it. Im not surprised as his ADHD really gets in his way.
A couple of weeks ago he started saying he was stuck and demanding that I buy him out of the house. We are in SE England so our 4 bed is worth £1.5m. That’s a lot of buy out!
We have no mortgage (overpaid consistently for years to clear it) and 2 kids 14 & 16. They are neurodivergent as well so they’d ideally not want to move house. But even they are fed up with his erratic and grumpy behaviour.
When they were tiny DH did very little at home when I was on maternity but did 1 day childcare/morning drop offs (and I did 1 day plus all the pick ups/evening/bedtimes as he works late) when I went back to work. He went full time once they were in school and I stayed part time for 10 years until I started my own business where I try to fit full time hours around family life. He does the vast majority of cooking and shopping since Covid but finds a lot of time to spend on hobbies. I don’t! He doesn’t attend parents evenings and I just realised hasn’t ever visited the kids’ current school. I deal with all their things and the house generally aside from cooking. Our kids have SEN so that’s a massive job with all the meetings, appointments and forms etc which all falls to me. I pay everything 50-50 but my career was ruined by going part time/short days - which effectively was free childcare for him (although I did want to spend time with the kids after school obvs!) which he’s never really understood or accepted. I’ve come to think that I’m the one who organises things for us all and he’s like a really angry “back seat driver” who wants to be in charge but doesnt actually get on with it!?
He says he wants his share of the house so he can be completely “free of me” - I think he means free of the hurt of rejection because I do wonder how he’s going to look after himself sometimes. He says this in front of the kids (usually while crying and dysregulated) so I’m at the stage where I think paying him off and/or selling the house will be better for me & the welfare of the kids. His outbursts are often as theyre trying to go to sleep or get out for school which is really bad for school refusing anxious types. Cutting all financial ties sounds good esp as my business is doing quite well… but I don’t have half the money knocking around….
However if he’s truly casting off all childcare surely he can’t expect 50/50 on the house?
We have agreed we are broadly equal apart from the house so that would be the only asset to split.
One of the DC says they’d visit DH for the day once a week but wouldnt stay over to avoid being his “emotional punching bag” and the other one might be similar/slightly more contact. So he won’t have any caring duties at all.
So I’d like to make a plan I think works and then get things moving.
Any advice for me?
Where can I find out the method for calculating typical settlements please?
Any suggestions for an advisor/coach as I’ll need advice on financial and emotional/practical matters
Apologies for the long post - I didn’t want to drip feed