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Original poster

Will I manage on this?

137 replies

Gatheryourtarten · 09/11/2020 18:43

I have 3 primary dc and I’m considering leaving dh, he has a very well paid job (£160k plus) and I have a much lower paying part time job that fits more or less with the children. Prior to having the children I had a career but I stopped working for a few years.
I earn approx £700 a month. It is term time only too.
I think - based on dh having them every other weekend and one night in the week - he’d have to pay around £1k?
I’d get UC too.

I think all in it would be about £2,600? Plus child benefit which I don’t currently receive.
I have no savings, not much pension. I would get a share of the house. Dh has a large pension and about £60k in savings, maybe more.
I want as little as possible from him because that will be the least inflammatory way of splitting. He won’t want to give me anything.
Ideally I’d like to either not have a mortgage or only a small one.
Is this manageable or will I need more work? It’s hard right now to find anything more and youngest dc is only 3.

OP posts:
OhioOhioOhio · 09/11/2020 22:00

The time for being magnanimous is NOT NOW. You get spousal maintenance and anything else you can get your hands on.

Saggyoldsofa · 09/11/2020 22:02

Hear hear, Ohio...

AlreadyGone44 · 09/11/2020 22:02

He definitely won't thank you, even if you walked away with 10% instead of the 50% you deserve. He won't think you treated him fairly by taking less, he'll think that he's entitled to what he got and more. Entitled men never think you should get a cent of 'their' hard earned money. Never mind the fortunate child care would have cost or all the housework he would need to have done if you'd both been working. He only got to earn so much because you sacrificed your financial security and your pension to enable him to work like that. And ultimately the asset split isn't about you or him, it's about giving your children two secure homes. If you like your house I'd be aiming to keep that as a clean break and maybe £20,000 in cash, half for your lawyer and half for contingency money so you have a safety net. You can afford 2 secure homes for your children, lots of people can't. So aim for that, your kids deserve to feel financially secure, take it from someone who grew up without that.

gertrudemortimer · 09/11/2020 22:04

Are you sure you'd get UC? You'd have money from the house if you sold it. They take savings, capital and investments into account when looking at benefit entitlements and it's capped at 6k and 16k I believe for the different types of benefit. Assuming they're joint savings as your married. There are plenty of benefit calculators on the gov website that will tell you what you will get when you put all your info in.

IWantT0BreakFree · 09/11/2020 22:06

Think about your kids. And think about the future.

Here's how it played out for someone close to me:
This person's mum and their cheating father split up. He (through being deceptive, evasive and a bully) left the marriage with almost all the money and assets. The mum did not put up a fight, just let him walk with everything.
Fast forward a few decades, the father (who did not contribute beyond the legal bare minimum financially, and frequently missed contact for work reasons) has now got a new family who have benefitted from the spoils of his first marriage and the wealth that grew from them. His new kids went to the best schools, had the right connections, have glittering futures ahead of them.
The mum has struggled to raise 3 kids on a very modest income and although they are excellent people, they have very ordinary lives, having gone to middle-of-the-road schools and not exactly having opportunities thrust in their laps along the way. They are doing alright but they certainly haven't benefitted from the wealth that their mother contributed towards accumulating by meeting all parenting obligations (before and after the divorce) which directly facilitated the father's ability to continually grow what should have been shared cash and assets.

It sounds to me like you're being financially abused and you don't know which way is up. Your attitude towards family finances and obligations within a marriage are very skewed.

You owe it to your children to protect their future and ensure that, even if you don't want the money that is owed to you, they are able to benefit from it. Don't assume that he will do right by the kids. Some men really are happy to live in a mansion with their new girlfriend, knowing that their kids are struggling in a tiny flat with their mum just a few miles away. Some men only seem to love their kids for as long as they love the kids' mother.

IWantT0BreakFree · 09/11/2020 22:08

Also, as others have said, I don't think you'd get UC whilst in possession of a £175k+ asset.

Gemma2019 · 09/11/2020 22:11

Get everything you are entitled to after a long marriage and three kids. Please make sure you get the best up front offer possible, rather than a lower amount now and promises of high levels of child support, as you would be stuffed if he lost his job or remarried and had more kids.

I would be looking to get the whole house signed over to you for starters, and then look at the other stuff.

Original poster
Gatheryourtarten · 09/11/2020 22:13

If I used my money to buy a house - do UC not help in that instance?
So if my savings are below 16k do they not help because the house is an asset? I’d be expected to sell the house?

OP posts:
TheNortherner · 09/11/2020 22:16

@Gatheryourtarten I dont think it would affect any other benefits other than housing...but don't be left with a mortgage coz they won't help with that either.

icanbreathagain · 09/11/2020 22:21

Get legal advice. You are entitled to so much more as you facilitated your husbands life style/ability to build his career. You should get mom 60% of equity in house, spousal maintenance and half of pensions and savings. The pension was for you both for the future, nothing has changed!

gertrudemortimer · 09/11/2020 22:23

@Gatheryourtarten you wouldn't get any housing benefit. You really need to do a calculator once you work out what your savings are. It's all online. Any savings between 6-16k will reduce UC, any savings over 16k will stop you receiving ANY type of UC benefit.

Original poster
Gatheryourtarten · 09/11/2020 22:26

That’s fair enough in terms of UC.
Maybe I need to look for more hours then.
I did a brief calculation based on me having nothing much in savings and it said about £1k a month but I didn’t realise it would take the value of my house into it as well.

OP posts:
Original poster
Gatheryourtarten · 09/11/2020 22:27

I did it based on not paying rent or mortgage and not having any savings. Basically if I left right now - what would I have. Nothing at all.
But at some point I’d hope to have a house even if I still don’t have any savings.

OP posts:
gertrudemortimer · 09/11/2020 22:33

@Gatheryourtarten it might not of done, did you read a breakdown at the end of the calculator? They usually say how much you get for each section. Did you put that you were a home owner owned outright (as you said you will be when you get a house of your own and start your claim) and did you enter your savings?

Original poster
Gatheryourtarten · 09/11/2020 22:34

I currently don’t have any savings in my own name or joint name. It’s all dh’s money so I did the calculator based on not having any of it all.

OP posts:
Mmn654123 · 09/11/2020 22:35

Stop thinking in terms of your husband ‘giving’ you money. He isn’t.

You currently own half the house, half his pension, half of all investments. One day you will retire and you will need a pension too.

So starting point is half of ALL assets.

Then think about his contribution to you raising the children for the next however many years.

Get legal advice. Don’t be a bloody martyr. Your children will benefit far more if the money is in your pocket than they will if it’s in their dads pocket. He could remarry and have more kids and totally disinherit yours! Now is your time to protect their financial futures. Don’t give it away thinking it will keep the peace. It won’t anyway.

Mmn654123 · 09/11/2020 22:36

@Gatheryourtarten

I currently don’t have any savings in my own name or joint name. It’s all dh’s money so I did the calculator based on not having any of it all.
It’s not his. You’re married. Half is already yours!
gertrudemortimer · 09/11/2020 22:38

@Gatheryourtarten I'm confused, if you're married then aren't the savings already joint? And the house is also at least 50% yours? You need to make sure you declare everything with benefits or it could come back to bite you I.e benefit fraud! Don't put yourself in that position so you please your ex (laughing at myself saying this who has spent months trying to please an ex who earns 5x what I do!)

Original poster
Gatheryourtarten · 09/11/2020 22:40

It’s his in terms of I have no access to it and he’s earned it. I don’t really feel I can lay any claim to it.
I need to look at UC again. What will be hard is if he gets the children 50/50 and is living somewhere nice and can take them anywhere and buy them anything and I can barely afford to feed them.
However he won’t want to split up so maybe that’s the price I pay for splitting up the family. Maybe the right thing to do is to just stay and accept it’s too late to do anything other than that.

OP posts:
Original poster
Gatheryourtarten · 09/11/2020 22:42

I don’t think the savings are mine at all because they are in his sole name.
They may as well belong to a stranger tbh, that’s how little I feel they are mine, because they aren’t mine. His job has always paid a lot more. He has been able to save. His family is very wealthy and he is given £10k at Christmas each year - I don’t feel it’s mine.

OP posts:
RantyAnty · 09/11/2020 22:42

Have you spoken to an attorney yet?

Quartz2208 · 09/11/2020 22:44

You have to see it at yours, the state certainly will when it comes to benefits.
As they should because your marital assets mean you don’t need state benefits. It is your money take your share

RhymesWithOrange · 09/11/2020 22:45

I agree with lots of other posters, why would you access benefits when your ex has enough to support you until you get back on your feet?

SBTLove · 09/11/2020 22:45

£2600 pm is hardly hand to mouth living.

Saggyoldsofa · 09/11/2020 22:46

You sound so brow beaten and battered down. Not physically, but this guy really has you in your place :( it is not too late. Not at all. You will get loads from.this settlement. And being poor but happy is a million times better than comfy but dead inside.