All's fair in love & war

[Chinupandtitsout]

I’m really hoping someone can hold me together my hand here.

I’ll try to keep this brief. Married for 12 years. Same-sex marriage. Civil Partnership in the UK as the country we live in didn’t (at that time) have same-sex marriage. We converted the Civil Partnership to a marriage in this country about 5 years ago. There are no children. We bought a house together 10 years ago and have done up the (falling to pieces) property into a beautiful home.
She walked out on the marriage last July without looking back. I was completely blind-sided and devastated. I absolutely loved her and thought we had a great marriage, but apparently, she didn’t, and there have been no backward glances from her at all. I bitterly regret not realising she was unhappy as I would have done anything to try and fix this.
This post isn’t about the heartbreak, although I am still completely bereft. I need to accept that this marriage is over. I’m finding the therapy I started a few months ago very helpful.
She asked for a “friendly” divorce at the beginning of this month. I always wanted to fight for our marriage; I never wanted to divorce – I gave her the space she said she wanted, which has been really hard, but I’m trying to respect her decision, so I won’t stand in her way regarding the divorce.
However…
In this country, assets are split 50/50 unless an agreement can be made. Of our joint income, it’s a 73/27 divide with me being the higher earner. I paid for her degree, and just after she left she took money out of our account for a post-graduate degree and other bits & pieces. She found an apartment to rent and took money out for the deposit and first 2 months rent. She left me paying the whole mortgage, bills, insurances, cats, everything for the last 7 months. I’m in a lucky position that I can (for the moment) afford it.
For the financial settlement she told me she will go for 50/50 of the house equity plus 50% of the savings. Although we still have a mortgage (which could have been paid off in 4 years), I will need to get a loan of at least €100,000 to buy her out, if I want to keep my home.
I feel like she not only broke me emotionally, but I have been financially taken advantage of in a massive way as I brought in most of the money to our marriage. And there’s absolutely nothing I can do.
Just because it’s a 50/50 law here, am I justified in thinking this isn't on?

I get how hard this is. (Xh behaved appallingly and then filed against me for some fabricated examples of unreasonable behaviour). It's not what you want, everything about it sucks.

However, if you can't change it because it's the law where you are, the sooner you can get through it and move on, the better. It sounds as though you have great earning potential and your ex far less so. It's understandable, even though objectively unfair, that they are going for the maximum possible to try and protect their financial future.

Hopefully the therapy will help you process all this. I'm really sorry. It's an utterly awful thing to go through, especially when you haven't initiated it.

I’d suggest that if nothing else - the money she took out for the rent and life after marriage is deducted from any final amount.

I would also seek legal advice on whether you can push for a fairer split of the assets based on the differing input you’ve both had.

Depending on legal advice I’d go for a 70/30 split but expect to negotiate down to a 60/65 - 40/35 split.

I am not clear where “here” is and seeing as you are asking for what amounts to legal advice, it is probably worth clarifying that.

In England, your respective earnings over the marriage would not be a particularly relevant factor. Twelve years would not be considered a short marriage and therefore 50:50 upon split would be the starting point in a marriage with no joint children. Hopefully you can agree something more favourable that that but I would think any movement would be a bonus.

That's what marriage is - two become one. And if you split, then it's 50/50 of everything that has been built since. I think it's very tough where there is a big difference in financial contributions and there are no children involved, so no shared future investment. It's one obvious reason not to get married.

@whirlygirl I'm sorry that your XH acted that way. I hope you've come through it relatively unscathed.
@TheCatterall @Aprilx Yes, I will try to see if I can negotiate. There may be a possibility that I can file from the UK where there might be a chance of a fairer distribution of assets - the lawyer looking into that possibility now.
@Seadad It's one obvious reason not to get married. The irony is, apart from the wanting to spend the rest of my life with her, I wanted to make sure that if anything happened to me, she would be financially OK.

I would have thought after nearly 8 months I'd be coping a lot better than I am. I'm still reeling. My mind still can't make sense of it all. Everyone tells me time will help me heal, but it still just hurts so much.

I'm told we never divorce the person we married, and it seems so true. Going from happy-happy-bliss-bliss to this is too hard to comprehend. However, this is from my side. I wish she had told me.

Thanks for your responses. I just need someone to have my back at the moment.

I do feel for you @Chinupandtitsout - it must feel like your ground is collapsing from under you right now, and the emotional pain coupled with the financial reality must weigh heavily. But you will get through and recover in time. Youu have so much time to build back what you've lost. At least without children you can free yourself of this relationship and start afresh.
I always remember the wise words of many times married Rod Stewart - "I'm not going to get married again - I'll just find a woman I don't like and buy her a house". I think he's married again now 😉