what do people do if they want to split up but can't afford to?

[eyeballsindebt]

Genuine question, nowhere near specifically thinking about this yet, but just weighing up options at the moment.

To give an idea of our finances, dh takes home £3100 a month, I take home £750. we have no childcare costs. Our mortgage is £2100 a month and utility bills about £400 a month. Food and kids stuff another £500. Car around £400 a month. Plus odd bits of clothes, bottles of wine, holidays, cinema trips etc etc and we have nowt left at the end of each month. So how on earth would we manage unless we stayed togather? Rental for even a poky 1 bed flat round here is £800 a month. what do people do???

Unless both partners are wealthy, then divorce does mean a degree of financial hardship, downsizing if you will.

FWIW it does not sound to me like you are rolling in it at all - just to avoid any more potential splurting - joint income of around 4k a month equates to joint income of less than £100k a year which really is barely enough to buy a house in London.

You haven't posted about the state of your marriage. Perhaps that is the first priority?

people split up if they have to and manage

invariably you all feel poorer

but that is life

wow £700k for a 3 bed house, now thats expensive, in my hometown there is a 7 bed house on acres of land for that much.

sorry op I know this isnt helpful but it's madness how much it costs to live in London, we are in Lincolnshire.

In the event of a split, it really doesn't matter how much you have, you have to make it work xx

Thank you those of you that realise that my house price estimates are realistic in this part of the world... and yes we are mortgaged to the hilt and living slightly beyond our means. This was our dream home when we bought a year ago, and also meant we would have no problem getting oldest dc into decent secondary school. However....

Yes marriage is obviously somethign I need to look at, and I don't particularly want to go into the details of what's going on here. But it seems as if I have two choices - stay together, or at least under the same roof for another 3 years, or split up now and make mortgage interest only (hadn;t thought about that so thanks), then dh could afford to rent somewhere. (My salary is part time yes by the way). With Mesher order (assume that's where you agree to sell once all dcs have left home?) for the future.

Moving out of the area is not an option by the way; minimising disruption and ensuring decent schooling for dcs is the priority (NOT maintaining my standard of living). And £40k to move is what it costs in estate agents fees and stamp duty.

Those of you about to seriously mortgage yourselves as much as you can be warned....