Please help - advice about property/childcare from split instigated by me

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Would appreciate any advice regarding a separation.

I have been married to dh for 4 years, and we have lived together and jointly owned our home for 15 years. We have one dc together aged 9.

We are having problems and I envisage a separation (that would be instigated by me) in the near future. His behaviour is absolutely not unreasonable - the split would come about due to issues of growing apart etc.

Because I am the instigator, I think I would have to offer to move out and rent somewhere temporarily (we would share custody of dc). Obviously I wouldn't want to do this, but I just cannot ask him to leave when he hasn't actually 'done' anything and he is highly unlikely to want me to leave. We have alot of equity in the house, which, when split (assuming that the house is sold in the near future) would be enough to put down as deposits for both of us to buy a new house. Neither of us could afford to stay in the house long term or buy the other out. We both work and earn similiar amounts (about 25K) each, but, the mortgage is quite high (as we were intending to pay it off in the next few years) so it would have to be lowered (perhaps by increasing the mortgage term or switching to interest only possibly in the short term before the house is sold?).

I'm concerned about a number of factors - does it affect the way things are looked at/divided up if I were to leave the home? I would hope that dh would be reasonable, but, could he refuse to sell the house at a later date? I would really prefer not to have to leave, but, as I've already said, being the person who is instigating this, I just cannot expect him to leave. Its also nnot that I'd expect him to keep paying the mortgage either - if he agreed to leave, then I would be happy to do so - but, obviously one of us needs to pay rent for another property. I know I need to see a solicitor, but this is so absolutely scary to me and I haven't had to consider anything so major in terms of a relationship ever. I just cannot see how, once we've 100 percent decided to split, stay living under the same roof as selling the house could take months aand months. Any advice appreciated.

thanks mrs pickles.

Do you mean 'leverage' in that he could for example, dictate when the house went on the market?

I also wonder whether it would affect dc legally. I would absolutely not be leaving dc as we would share, but might it be deemed as so?

thank you mrspickles

Would we therefore be able to formally draw up some kind of agreement until the house is sold?

I agree, if you can bear it, you should stay and sort things out. You never know how people are going to react. He wouldn't be able to prevent a sale of the house but he could drag his feet. How do you think he would react?

Could you reach agreement between yourselves? Is mediation an option? Hopefully as you have enough equity for deposits for both of you, it won't get desparate.

I don't think he would drag his feet, but, I also know that people act in very unpredictable way when they are badly hurting.

I do think however, that he would agree to making some form of formal agreement and didn't realise this could be done which would help.

I will be as reasonable and fair as I can be, but there are obviously financial constraints. For example, if he needed a few months to get his head together before putting the house on the market, I could live with that, but, there would have to be some kind of prior agreement on what would happen and when.

That sounds very sensible, but remember that the timing of a sale might not be under your control and you are right to be wary of how people act when they are hurting. Does he have any idea of what is on your mind? If this comes as a big shock I would imagine he will need a few months at least to process it as well as coming to terms with moving. It is a big deal.

But if you think he would be able to reach an agreement with you, that is v positive. The courts can only be a last desparate resort for sorting out these kind of disputes as it will be expensive and very emotionally draining to undergo court proceedings.

good luck.

Thanks spero

He does have a very good idea of what is on my mind, although doesn't want to split. I actually believe he would act with very good intentions but, as I've said, know that people do unpredicable things when they are hurting.

I believe that he would want to sell the house asap, but, the nightmare would be living under the same roof until this happened. This is why I've discussed one of us renting. Its still a nightmare - I can get my head around finding a property, etc, but would obviously need to furnish it, put down a deposit etc - we haven't got a great deal of savings because we've put so much money into our house, and this obviously wouldn't be released until the house is sold. Everything is in joint names, apart from a credit card I have in my own name, so at the moment, it seems an incredible mountain to climb :(