I am usually a lurker on here but I need some advice. I hope you have a cuppa and some biscuits this could be long, I love a milk chocolate hobnob myself dunked in hot tea.
I met my stbxh in October oct 2016. He moved into my house in April 2018 and we got engaged (yes I know I am an idiot). I found out I was pregnant 2 days before our wedding in November. He got very drunk at our wedding and passed out in the bedroom after I helped him back there. I knew he drank more than me but I completely missed the red flags of alcohol abuse. Our child was born the following year and his drinking got worse, he would drink and pass out, he very rarely woke for the baby. Being the main earner I went back to work after 6 months and as agreed to start with he handled the drop offs and pick ups, he seemed to have cut down his drinking and although he complained about the time and effort of doing the drops and pickups things were going okay. 6 months later he stopped getting up I was managing drops offs and pick ups with the help of my mum and commuting with a high pressure job. This continued and he would often work from home on a Monday as he was still suffering from the weekends drinking. On the weekends he would drink more and more and started hiding alcohol. Last August he started drinking in the mornings at weekends and he would drink/pass out, repeat. I don't want to be too outing but there were incidents where he threatened to hit me and by lockdown he was paranoid and telling me the government were listening. We had one truly awful incident where he went for me that made me too scared to sleep since (yes I should have left but he threatened me with so much if I tried) may this year I left as he scared me and went to love with my mum. He sent divorce papers the next day citing my unreasonable behaviour but then told me to ignore them. He was hospitalised due to alcohol and made no effort to get sober or get professional counselling.
Although the mortgage and house were in my name and I had our son he refused to moved out until August (thank god for family). We still had a joint account and noticed he hadn't paid his salary in plus some extra came out and it came out he had gambled it all.
I immediately moved all the bills to an account I set up I hadn't used and split our savings 50/50. I have been paying all the bills alone since then. We had since our wedding a joint account and he had his own personal account but everything went into the joint account and savings.
I could still see the joint account and he seemed to move dribs and drabs out of his portion of the savings constantly which I suspect was gambling.
In October he was arrested and I got a dvpo for a month followed by a non mol. I then heard from his solicitor and they tried to change it to an undertaking which I refused. The consent order has finally been approved by the courts. He also asked for access to our son so has supervised access with a breathalyser.
There is so much more but firstly I don't want to put everything here and secondly I need to get to the point. I need to start the divorce process. Is suspect he will go after everything he can. At the moment he pays his ex an amount of money so I suggested he pay the same for our son but because the loan for my car (its a general bank loan) is in his name i pay him the difference between the child support and the loan).
I pit the deposit down on the house and did it up before I met him. He paid rent until we married. An initial call with a solicitor classes this as a short marriage. Does anyone have any tips, links or experience for divorcing being the main earner and main child care, what should i expect?
I am dreading the divorce process but know it needs to be done
Extra biscuits if you made it to the end.