Help- how do I divorce my husband

[Sleeplessem]

I want to divorce my husband, but not quite yet.

Reason for delaying is I’ve just had our second child so I’m on mat leave and will be getting smp and can’t afford to live solo with 2 kids on that, so when I go back to work I want to divorce him.

If anyone knows some of my other threads, you’ll know why. But it’s not just him, it’s his family too. I could really use some advice on a few things. It’s quite long, so I appreciate you reading in advance 🙂🙂

When I wanted to work on our marriage i told him he needs anger management or it’s divorce. He basically told me that he’d make sure I lost the kids if I file for divorce. I suffered from bad anxiety and pnd during after my first pregnancy he was horribly unsupportive and used to shout at me and reduce me to tears, obviously making it worse. He’s said he’d use this against me as I have a history of mental illness. Can he do this? I’m under the peri natal mental health team to be proactive and get support and I referred myself In both pregnancies (truthfully support has been atrocious in both, but I’m in a better place this time around) would this be used against me?

Me, I’ve no Intention of using my children as a weapon. I think joint custody is the right thing for them. But I do have real concerns over his family. They are very very backwards in their attitudes. Forced marriage exists in their family and consanguineous marriages are still the norm. The family have v strong feelings against anything ‘English’. His mother used to watch our eldest but we had to put a stop to it as the level of care was abysmal, she’d ‘forget’ to fill her water, and change her nappy (leave her sitting in poo) whilst she’d be on the phone chatting to her friends with my daughter saying ‘I poo, I poo’ aka asking for her nappy to be changed. Dh knew about this for a while and kept it from me. I found out how atrocious she was an condensed my hours at work to make sure she didn’t have to watch her again. So I’m concerned if we split, my kids will be subjected to that woman again. Can I stop this from happening?

Living arrangements and assets. We own our house, new build used htb. I can’t afford the mortgage alone. Would we have to sell? I put all the deposit down 17k and dh just paid the fees which was like 2k. How would this work? Would it just be 50/50 regardless of how much I put down. I earn less than him so pay £100 less towards the bills than him.

I have no family or support network, would I need to move out when I file? I don’t think I could pay mortgage and rent.

How much does a divorce cost? How much should I set aside?

When I go back to work, what are my first steps?

Would he have to contribute towards childcare for them? I’ve heard of lots of men despite earning well paying the bare minimum for their children. How does child maintenance work?

Hit send too soon.

Thank you for reading

Get legal advice.
Looks to me as if you've lost half of your 17K.
I don't think you'll be able to stop him leaving your children with his mother.
Definitely get a solicitor as soon as you can.
My solicitor and barrister told me that 'all' husbands threaten to take the children, but we can ignore that because they don't really want them!
Just a thought - are you married in law? In the registry office, or church, if in the UK?

I’m in the UK and yup we’re legally married, we had an Islamic and then a civil ceremony with a registrar

I can’t really afford to get a solicitor or legal advice right now due to not working. How much does that typically tend to cost?

I think that he really would try and take the children, not that he’d be able to cope with them alone. But I’m so concerned about his wider families Input, to the extent that I’d stay with him til they were 18 just so I can minimise the impact. The damage they could cause is worse than mum and dad in an unhappy marriage xxxx

No idea of the cost but you pay at the end of the proceedings, when you have your settlement.

In the Islamic context, you might be at greater risk of him actually taking the children, particularly if he has extended family support. Does your midwife or Health Visitor (do they still have those?) know about your situation? They might have suggestions. What about your natal family? Is there anyone who could give you support?

So as we live in the UK and are legally married, the Islamic context doesn’t apply, so that doesn’t concern me as we’d still need to go through the UK courts and it’s the law of the land that trumps Islamic law (even theologically speaking)

HV and midwives don’t know as I don’t want to raise any red flags that might cause me an issue as I can’t realistically leave him until this time next year.

I’ve got no family at all. Mother and brother were abusive so I’ve had to go NC with them. Father is dead. No one to support basically

Do his family live here or in another country? If they live overseas then you must see a solicitor immediately in case he tries to take them. You need to file a prohibited steps order.

They’re pretty much all in the UK unfortunately for our marriage

Keep posting here. I don't know much but other people do. If you're definitely staying with him another year, you have time to prepare, unless he makes any sudden moves.

He won’t make any sudden moves or anything like that, he very much wants to stay married. Hes only got a UK passport and our kids don’t have passports at all, so he can’t try and take them away and it would be very very out of character for him to take them both alone. He’s not physically aggressive, it’s his anger issues and how he talks to me when he’s angry, he gets wound up over the smallest things, like me not understanding or ‘getting’ part of a joke he’s telling or a story he’s telling. Even though he wants to stay married, I can tell in those moments there’s no love there. He simply doesn’t like me very much so the relationship is over.

His family though, that’s a sticking point, if I can’t limit or ‘control’ (hate that word) their exposure to my kids if we’re divorced then I can’t divorce him

The mental health issues you describe won't stop you getting at least 50% custody. It will be seen as very positive that you see the professionals.

The house - 50/50 would be the worst case scenario.

Do you both have pensions and savings? Sometimes people don't touch their h's pension /savings in return for more house equity

You can't ban his mother babysitting when it's your h's time. You can apply for more contact if she does something but your h will still get some contact

People are asking about his extended family because they are wondering about the possibility of kidnap. You can have alerts setup just in case someone takes your child out of the country but that can come later when you are closer to triggering divorce

Do you know how much he earns? Is he employed or self employed? Be warned that if he's self employed then he'll be able to use accounting tricks to pay you as little as possible. There are online child maintenance calculators for what you might get in child maintenance. In 50/50 situations it's usually 0 but if he earns loads more there might be money payable.

Even if she is a safe guarding risk? I’m genuinely concerned that if left alone with my kids she’d neglect them, she force fed dd spicey food and created a huge food aversion when she was a baby, she’s now faltering growth which im convinced in no small part is due to MIL. Im also concerned she’d have someone circumcise ds as well. If I can’t regulate this, then we’ll have to stay married, the risk to the kids if this contact goes unregulated with her and the larger family is too much.

Yeah I know how much he earns (high 40s, just shy of 50). It’s mainly me with the cash savings and I’m the mug who put the deposit on the house.

MH wise, even if he was to ham it up and say I was a risk to them? And say he was worried about me abusing them? That’s what he said he’d do

He’s also been watching what I do online, put my email into this phone so he gets notifications of any MN threads and has been keeping tabs on me..: I feel really violated.

Stay close to people who see you interact with your children - HV, mother and baby groups etc. My neighbour was very supportive, keen to make sure everyone knew I was a great mum, when my ex was threatening to take my dd.

Do you have your own bank account with any wages/SMP and child benefits paid into it ?

Get yourself a Gmail account and use that.
Keep your current email account for the usual emails so he doesn’t get suspicious.
Use the Gmail for anything you don’t want him to see.

Do either of you have a personal pension ?

You need to speak to a family solicitor.
You can often get a first chat free, so get you information about house/bank accounts/pensions together, and write a list of questions where they won’t be found, to make the most of that free chat.

I’ll set up a new email so he can’t see what I’m doing, pisses me off that I even have to.

I have my own bank account that I get my wages and child benefit into and my own savings account. We both have pensions through work as part of salary sacrifice

Sorry you are having such a bad time. You could easily divorce on the grounds of behaviour, which you can apply for yourself and costs just under £600. You can ask for that to be paid by him ( I said I didn't want to claim costs, but the court awarded them). The bit that starts to get expensive is the financial award, I'm surprised how much mediation costs. It's about £200! An hour.
But at the end of the day, you can't live like that, so you'll have to find the money from somewhere. You talked a lot about his family, do you have any family to support you?

Nope I have no family to support me at all ☹️

Would you be entitled to UC ?
And hopefully you’ll get some maintenance. The solicitor can tell you about what you can expect to get.

@GoodnightGrandma

Would you be entitled to UC ? And hopefully you’ll get some maintenance. The solicitor can tell you about what you can expect to get.

Nope I wouldn’t be entitled to anything, I’ve had a check on line, just tax free childcare and child benefit. I’m in that position where you earn too much to get support yet not enough to live comfortably alone with kids.

I can’t see a solicitor yet either as H will clock on it’s also the cost right now

I’m really sorry OP but if you don’t feel you can ever trust your DH and his family with the dc then I don’t see how you can leave.
I would never advise anyone to stay in an abusive or unhappy marriage and I’m not sure you should BUT if you are saying that you can ONLY leave if you know you can limit and control your inlaws contact with your DC then you are stuck.
Unless there is a court order due to safeguarding or abuse what your H does with the children when he has them will be beyond your control

I just couldn’t risk justifying them being neglected by choosing my own personal happiness. DH will be pressured by his mother to let her watch them, and the level of care is atrocious. Several instances of having left dd in a soiled nappy to the extent it’s given her a rash, in the summer sitting in the lounge all doors closed temp 30+ degrees not opening a window and not bothering to fill DDs drink back up when she’s drank it all, causing a food aversion, dd fell and hit her head when she was learning to walk and MIL lied about what happened trying to stop her from getting medical attention, she doesn’t really interact with her and she is literally the only person that dd actually hates, she cries when she sees her and refuses to interact with her (she’s been in contact for over a a year so it’s not strange anxiety and she’s fine with everyone else) it was so bad and dd was so distressed I had to speak to my work to condense my hours to make sure she’s not around her anymore. Had to battle with DH on this as well as he wouldn’t acknowledge his mother actually neglecting her.
She’d want and actively push for my son to be circumcised too, as an infant. It s a practice I vehemently disagree with.
There is also the larger backdrop of significant anti ‘English’ sentiment, forced marriage, (illegal) consanguineous marriage (where parents are 1st cousins and then the kids ‘have to’ marry their 1st cousin also), they obviously dislike me so will bad mouth me to my children, my children are mixed but white passing so they’ll be made to feel different by that too, not to mention subject to really antiquated and backwards stereo types on correct gender specific behaviour. I can’t subject them to that for the sake of my own happiness, that’s far more damaging.

Sorry it's not what you want to hear but if you're genuinely in fear for your child's safety I would be waiting until they are probably 9/10 years old and can speak for themselves and decide what they want to do. At that age they don't need nappies changing or that much personal care.

You're on mat leave now so I know it's a long long time away. As long as you're safe that is.

But also gives you a good length of time to squirrel away money, start a freedom fund. Plan your escape. You never know, the time may come sooner than you think.

@Sleeplessem

Even if she is a safe guarding risk? I’m genuinely concerned that if left alone with my kids she’d neglect them, she force fed dd spicey food and created a huge food aversion when she was a baby, she’s now faltering growth which im convinced in no small part is due to MIL. Im also concerned she’d have someone circumcise ds as well. If I can’t regulate this, then we’ll have to stay married, the risk to the kids if this contact goes unregulated with her and the larger family is too much.

Yeah I know how much he earns (high 40s, just shy of 50). It’s mainly me with the cash savings and I’m the mug who put the deposit on the house.

MH wise, even if he was to ham it up and say I was a risk to them? And say he was worried about me abusing them? That’s what he said he’d do

He’s also been watching what I do online, put my email into this phone so he gets notifications of any MN threads and has been keeping tabs on me..: I feel really violated.

I think you can turn MN notifications off @Sleeplessem. I switched mine off when I set up my account and don't get notifications into my email account. I can't remember how I did it - maybe someone more technically savvy can help with that. Also when you browse the Internet I suggest you use the Private/Encrypted option so your history doesn't show up - or immediately clear your history down at the end of every session. 🌹