Hello, and thanks for reading this.
H and I are divorcing at my insistence as I've been living a lie for too many years now and can't face being alone with him in retirement which I'm seeing on the distant horizon. Living with someone who alternates between silent treatment and overly critical verbal out bursts is awful.
Pandemic was cruel to him in as much as he lost his job although employers strung it out for aaaages. Death by several cuts. Pandemic was also equally hard for others in the family (in ways too outing to mention) but they have picked up the pieces and moved on.
H initially procrastinated over approaches from professional connections and recruiters so they lost interest and now all he does is slob about (and I really do mean slob) all day. He was the higher earner in the family but won't even take a part-time minimum wage job to stop us dipping in to savings every month.
H let me run around and get property valuations but now says he contests those and wants formal (expensive) valuers to produce a full report instead of estate agents opinions and as I liaised with the estate agents, their valuations must clearly be biased to my own benefit. (We have our old flats which are both rented out to cover mortgage payments and a family home). I sorted out pension reports but now he insists on an actuary type report for all of them which will apparently cost £'000's and take months.
He wanted us to use a collaborative approach, which dictated choice of solicitors, but then refused to get involved in any mediation appointment that I set up and wouldn't organise an alternative mediation provider.
I copied him in on the schedule of monthly expenditure that I put together based on all the joint account monthly outgoings and he says he'll contest that as I'm clearly trying to exaggerate (he won't factor in the increased power supplier or council tax costs we've just been notified of). He won't put a summary together himself though. He also says our dd who is living at home should be contributing more to the family finances from her part time job. He won't look for any work himself though.
He states that as he is not employed/unable to work**, he'll need a larger share of the assets to ensure he is suitably housed without a mortgage to pay and that I'll need to pay him CM for the younger teenagers being with him some of the time even though he is currently unemployed through choice !
**He's presenting himself as having depression/anxiety but won't go to a GP or therapist. I realised half way through our marriage that he is either winning in life or he's a victim, nothing is ever his fault and I'm all out of sympathy for someone who won't accept help towards fixing their issues.
Is he allowed to drag things our so much that it ramps up the legal fees for both of us ? Is there no redress to common sense and penalty in some form for deliberately doing so ?
Having discussed some of this with my solicitor in the initial stage of the divorce proceedings, I received vague assurances (which were followed by a sizeable bill for the discussion) that he wouldn't be able to get away with some of the stuff he's doing but he just is doing, and apparently his solicitor advises him that he can.
I think some of the above makes me sound harsh but unless you've walked in my shoes for many years, please don't judge too quickly.