“They haven't split, they're still married and he's committing adultery. Which is grounds for divorce. So yes, big wow.” Morally I agree, legally it’s not that simple unfortunately.
They have split in the eyes of the law even though they’re not yet divorced.
I went through all this bollocks with ex and my divorce, I wanted to divorce on grounds of adultery (as that was the reason as far as I was concerned) it was most disheartening to be told that you basically have to have photos of them in the act! Before a court/judge will seriously consider, even my ex getting her pregnant wasn’t sufficient proof as both my lawyers said that he could easily claim child not his and few courts/judges would order an expensive dna test to prove otherwise.
I was told the best I could do was divorce on “unreasonable behaviour” and include in the narrative section the reasons I believed he was unfaithful as part of those grounds, I was also encouraged to include other bad behaviour of his in order to get the divorce through. It matters nothing to anyone but the divorcing parties really but I included ow name in that narrative which they were both livid about but it was worded in such a way that he couldn’t insist I remove it. There are ways around things to a degree.
He tried to sort of “counter sue” citing unreasonable behaviour of mine but what he was citing was utter nonsense that I was easily able to disprove.
The interesting part came when he sat on the financial disclosure for MONTHS purely to delay the divorce as she was pushing for them to marry before baby born, he was telling her it was ME delaying but as soon as I became aware of this his insistence on her being present when I handed dd over for contact backfired when the next time after that realisation I handed her an envelope containing copies of all the back and forward correspondence between me, my lawyer, him and his lawyer which proved it was HIM delaying and she was then furious with him!
Re credit card it’s difficult, on the one hand I think it could be really useful to play ignorant and perhaps gain more information, but I’m also concerned he could run up debt that op is then at least partly liable for which she doesn’t need either. Tough one. Op best placed to decide that one I think.
The advice to collate all info before seeing lawyer is good, I was fortunate enough to divorce when legal aid was still available if you had a low income (it’s a disgrace this has been withdrawn imo) but I wasted time which would have run up the bill both with not knowing what info the lawyer would need and also by stupidly treating her as a therapist to a degree.
Hindsight is an exact science and I suspect many of us posting advice are advising not only based on what we did but what we’ve been through and from a perspective of not making the mistakes we did, it’s one of those experiences that you don’t really know how it works till you’re going through it and don’t truly comprehend all the nuances till you’re out the other side.
“There are a lot of us vipers who have been through this, and all the advice you are given, even though it sounds very tough, has been learned the hard way.” Exactly!