Help needed in a seperation

[SimonHoward]

Where to start?

The begining I suppose. And with the facts.

After almost 6.5 years together, and 5 of them being married, my wife and I are in the early/middle stages of seperating. She decided earlier this year to finally tell me why the physical side of our relationship had always been terrible after the first few months, and that was because she was a lesbian and didn't like men but had been too scared of what people would say if she admitted it.

So the situation is this, I have a job that I cannot keep up if my wife moves out as I cannot pay the bills and pay for childcare and I will not let her take our daughter with her as she is going to end up renting a room and that is it due to her unwillingness to do what needs to be done to support herself and also a complete lack of money sense or the abilty to control her spending.

I can't even afford to pay all the bills on my salary alone so I will probably have to sell my house and move myself and my daughter back in with my mother (who knows how long for).

The main thing I would like advice on if anyone has any is what legally can I do with the equity from the sale of the house as even before DD arrived the money my wife contributed usually only just covered the food and the outstanding debts she had built up before meeting me that I paid off for her, and since DD's arrival what she contributes does not even cover the food bill each month.

As she is the one that after all this time has suddenly sprung these changes on me is there any way I can hold onto more than 50% of the equity as I want to try to save the money and use it towards the deposit for a new place of my own so DD and I have our own house/flat.

Thanks for any advice in advance.

Sir Bob wrote an article in the Times on Sat 7th called 'The love that dare not speak its name' about the rights of fathers when parents split up.

...or rather, he is writing about the lack of rights for fathers.

Remember there are some mothers with what seems like a lack of rights out there to!! There lack of rights are usually brought about by lying, violent husbands. Would be nice if for once people forgot the issue of gender in divorce/seperation/residence cases and looked at them all through merit.

Agree 100% Boe. Just thought Sir Bob had some interesting things to say (as usual).

Boe I agree 100%.

Well I managed to get the new job. I hand my notice in today and start at the new one in 11 days time.

Congratulations, Simon. I hope everything begins to turn around for you. Will you be earning enough to keep your house, should the court allow it?

Agree Sir Bob has some interesting things to say - although I would have far more interesting thigs to say if my x2b behaved the way his xwife did and one of them would be you are not having the children at your house and all contact must be supervised.

I also feel that some truely terrible men do take on the 'my wife is a cow, I am such a complete victim mantle' and then attach themselves to group like this to try and illicit sympathy.

Anyway - good news Simon on the new job - as I have said before emotions go in fits and troughs - you feel crap one minute and fine the next and all of a sudden tiredness hits you smack in the face and you think all this is never going to be over. It will be over and you just have to keep focusing on the future when, hopefully, you will find the woman of your dreams and she will be there for you forever. I do hope that you find someone and all this nightmare is over soon.

I went to court yesterday and feel a bit better after meeting my barrister and her actually seeing my x2b for what he is. I feel good tday if not a little drained by the whole experience. Will post later on a new thread as to what happened.

Thanks to all that have helped me whilst I have been going through all of this and I hope my experiences can help others to manage stuff like this in some little way.

Congratulations SH on the new job. Hope this means things are turning around for you.
Boe, glad you are feeling OK after your court hearing. Let us know how it went. Thinking of you and Harriet.

Janstar

Unfortunately I won't be earning enough to keep it. I'd need to be on about £21,000+ to keep it and jobs here just aren't paying that right now.

Boe

I think I already have found the woman of my dreams in the form of my g/f but till she sorts herself out at home and lets me know how she wants to go I'm in limbo a bit.

Well done SH. At least there's one part of your life to be positive about. Hope your gf gives your situation a second chance.

Also pleased to hear that Boe's court hearing went OK. Hang on in there both of you.

well done on the new job Simonhoward. Hope this is the start of better things for you.

Im sorry simon not read all the thread, but it stinks and i wish you the best of luck

RANT AND MOAN ALERT

Well we had the visit from a social security person today to find out how seperated the wife and I really are.

From what he said and from what I could make out from my wifes face she is not happy.

Seem she thought it would all be a walk in the park getting Income Support and the mortgage interest paid and unless she is very lucky as it stands now I doubt she will get a penny as she doesn't qualify under any of the criteria for it and so the details of our seperation and situation has been sent for a judgemant to determine if she is able to claim anything. This is likely to take months before a decision is made and we hear back from them.

If she isn't able to claim it she was told she would have to claim Job Seekers Allowance and be available to work. Her face was a pretty sight then, she did not look impressed with that as it would mean she had quit work and gone through it all for nothing.

She also was decidedly unimpressed when she was told as I was applying for joint custody it would make things more difficult for her to claim anything.

A question for you ladies (and any gents out there) have any off you had to wait the 2-5 years to go for a divorce because of seperation? And if so what problems did it throw up?

I'm asking as it looks like that may be the only way to go as I refuse to sue my wife for divorce and she cannot claim unreasonable behaviour or adultery. When she worked that one out she was seriously unimpressed about that too.

All in all the last 24 hours have not been as much fun for her as she thought they would be.

Oh and I also found out that somehow her letting me have shared custody of our daughter and the fact she decided to come out as a Lesbian is what she considers enough of a sacrifice for all the changes she wants in her life which is yet another reason why she wants me to pay for everything else.

And she had never even thought about how much money it might cost me in a divorce/custody case as she assumed I'd just agree to anything she put forward and just sign my life away.

If anyone pays a visit to cloud cuckoo land please can they wave to my wife who seems to be living there right now.

Oh, Simon. I can't help laughing at your sarcy remarks. I had a mental picture of your dw looking like a bulldog chewing a wasp .

You are right, she needs to wake up to the fact that the money has to come from somewhere and begin to negotiate with you in a reasonable way.

Message withdrawn

Twinkie

I have to admit I have thought about starting off proceedings myself but I'm still waiting to find out exactly what it is she is trying to do since I shot down her plan for me to admit adultery and just hand over the house and full custody of our daughter to her.

As soon as I know though I will be getting things done as fast as I can. And in all things I will be amicable, reasonable and not at all malicious. Don't know about the stable relationship bit though. Currently my g/f is still sorting her life out and it may take a while (months or more) so that may not be of any help.

As for the unreasonable behaviour, I have considered using her being a lesbian and denial of conjugal rights as unreasonable behaviour if I ever have to sue her for divorce. Just don't know if that would go down well.

I have told my ex2b that the only way I'm leaving the house is with a court order or if it is sold and she did not look happy with that (seems to be a common thing right now with her).

GO SIMON
GO SIMON
GO SIMON

M2T singing "Rikki Lake audience" style<

I'm glad you're not letting her walk all over you. She's done that for long enough!

If you want to get the divorce moving SH you can do so now. It really doesn't matter what the grounds are for unreasonable behaviour. If I were you I'd just go ahead with the sexuality thing. It certainly is unreasonable to expect a man to go on being married to a gay woman! She could also sue for divorce on the grounds of your unreasonable behaviour - you work late, you are grumpy, you snore, you watch too much tv la la la - as I say, they don't have to be serious grounds at all. She could also sue on the grounds of your adultery with your girlfriend, regardless of what she's been doing. (Hope she doesn't read Mumsnet!) BTW Her sexuality may well go against her in court when it comes to your dd - it's not very PC to say so, but most judges aren't very PC.

Major Rant and Moan Alert

Well I finally managed to get some info on what the wife is actually doing and it seems she has been less than totally truthful with the solicitor she is using.

Me loosing my well paid job and us having to sell the house because of it has turned into me not paying the mortgage and the house will be repossesed. No mention of me arranging manual payments with the mortgage company or the fact her giving up work has made things even worse.

Her wanting a same sex relationship has now become a consequence of the breakup not the cause of it. And also the fact that we had an open relationship so she could explore her sexuality has not been mentioned at all. On top of which once again there is no mention of her condoning my relationship with my g/f as she was planning on having extramarital relationships as well.

Me refusing to give her any money is sited as unreasonable behaviour as is my attitude towards her new sexuality. Shame I have helped her in every way to pursue her new choices and she still gets £110+ a month from family allowance and tax credits that is totally hers and she only has to pay for her food and mobile phone bill. No mention of that money at all.

Seems her going to work for 3-4 hours an evening and leaving our daughter with me is some how possibly giving me residency rights, and in my own home too.

OOOHHHHHHH I'm furious. She has totally misrepresented how things have happened and what caused them.

I will now be seeking legal advice and am really considering being as blunt and as brutal as I can but I will remain calm as getting stressed does nothing good.

Hello, only came across this thread a few days ago as I've been offline for a bit, so first my smpathies on falling for such a cretin. I left my husband just a year ago and we have our first court appointment to settle the financial matters on the 7th October. Our nisi had come thru while we were still together but the court wouldn't grant an absolute if we were living under the same roof. He refused to move out and as the house was in joint names I couldn't make him, so I found a nice rented house for me and the children and left. I still had to pay my half towards the mortgage and all my rent, his maintneace payments covered my rent, but I was still in situation where my incomings were less than my outgoings (and I am not talking a wild lifestyle here!!). He has dragged this on for as long as he possibly could and ther has been nothing that I can do about it. In the last 12 months I have had to live in three different rented houses and he has been sitting pretty in a four bedrommed detatched paying half the bloody mortgage! the relevence of this to your story is the financial aspect. We are goign to court to decide who gets what, and its a very complicated process but I shall do my best to summarise it. There are three lists, his assets, my debts and our joint assets. His assets are his savings, (which have miraculously dropped during the last 12 months by 5k, when he has 1k lest per month after paying me and his half of the mortgage!), my debts are the total of all my credit card bills and loans less my asset (car worth 1k), and out joint assets are the house and a few policies. I'm leaving the pensions out of this as we both have works pensions which complicate it even further and I'm presuming from your previous posts that neither you or your wife would have these. I am looking for a 60/40 split, so everything would be totalled and my debts deducted and I would get in the region of 60% of the total. So, yes, if you go to court over financial matters your wifes debts could be a big factor. What my ex has done is draw lots of £100 cash out of his accounts, no one can say where they are, we cant prove that his Mother has them and they will not enter into this equation at all. We think that he has in the region of 15k spirited away. So, use over draft faciliites and credit cards with 0% interest as best you can. If you get any money at all deduct it as cash and give it to someone who you trust and the most obvious thing is get yourself a very good lawyer, not read anything thats been posted in the last two day s so you may have, your first interview willbe free, so shop around and find someone who you think will be best for your situation. Good Luck!

Simon Howard hugs coming your way (dont tell dh)
If I was in your position I would tell the truth, stuff what it looks like for her, just tell the solicitor she was having lesbian relations.
I am sorry if this is so blunt but I have seen good men thrown out with nothing except for their clothes because a woman is carrying on with other people to explore their sexuality and it is unfair.
You sound like a good man and a caring father.Hope everything goes well for you.

Simon, of course you need legal representation if your wife has it! Otherwise you will not get your say. Unless you have legal knowledge, you need a solicitor who knows the system so that you don't lose out simply because you don't know how everything works.

In many ways it should be less of a battle with your wife than not having representation. A good representative will negotiate with hers and hopefully help you find a compromise without wasting lots of court time and clocking up huge bills.

Janstar

I was hoping she would see sense about what she is doing and try to sort things out amicably but it doesn't look like that is going to happen.

The solicitors are shut today so first thing Monday before I start my new job I'll be calling them about this.

We found with our court case that where my ex would not have reached an agreement with us without representation, his solicitor was able to talk sense into him and advise him about what was reasonable and what was not and he dropped many of his demands. This is what I mean - the solicitors do the arguing instead of you and your wife - so being represented might not herald a battle but actually help you avoid one.