Op, don’t sign anything. But you do not have to go to a solicitor immediately. You’ll get 30 mins free, then they’ll charge you £200+ per hour (ie. £3.50 for every minute) you talk to them, ask question, or they even think about your case
in first instance, head over to divorce board. At the top MN has now put link to ADVISE NOW guides. This is a charity run by legal qualified Staff who aim to help people navigate the law themselves for routine stuff like divorces. Their guides are £20 a shot but that is cheap compared to £3.5 per hour
These guides (you’ll need 2 at leastfor divorce process and diy financial settlement) take you through whole process and explain it. They tell you what you can do yourself, what you might want a solicitor for and what you really must have solicitor for. They have a list of signed up solicitors that will do just the tasks you need once you know what those are, if you want to go that route. Or you can find your friends an solicitor and be able to pay them just for specific instructions (tasks) you give them.
MN poster always respond with “go to a solicitor “ or find a “good” solicitor immediately. But you can actually get far more information about your rights, expected fair settlement, how to acheive that, within an hours reading , from these guides and other online resources. That gets you to first point . Then you can find the solicitor to do what you specifically.
poster on here talk about spending eye watering amounts of money on a divorce- £13k, £30k and taking a year of arguments. It does not have to be that way. There are many people like me (including posters here) that have divorced for £1500 or less for total joint bills.
one key thing is to put animosity aside, and then to try to work amicably
BUT to do that you need to get to right headspace.
Right now this is a shock…you will be going through a similar mental/emotional process as grieving. It may also help you to look up on line about the grief pathway, and help you understand why you feel the way you do over the next, days, weeks and months.
he has had a head start on you before coming to decision to ask for divorce /leaving. You are not there yet.
You need to tell him that you won’t do anything yet until you’ve got your head into right place to think about how to go forwards. Ask for a week at minimum before you sit and discuss more. Sign nothing. Agree to nothing. You probably need to take some t8me off work if you do work. . do your own research on what the prices and outcomes will be in meantime. Obviously it will help to talk to someone-but you say you don’t have anyone to trust, but fgs don’t lull yourself into thinking this could be a solicitor - you’ll pay through the nose for that. If needs be find a counsellor privately that can help you process your emotions at a great deal cheaper price than a solicitor.
part of accepting divorce is to be able to visualise what your life post divorce will be - where you’ll live, how you’ll finance yourself, how child care will be managed if applicable, etc. that begins to take the element of unknown away which causes fear and anxiety. The more you figure out your future life the more you can start taking actionable get there and get in control of those things. That reduces anxiety more and in time acceptance of your changed circumstances. He has already done that- had to , to be able to get to point when he asked for split…it’ll take time and some knowledge to get yourself to same place.
head over to divorce board and read some responses there.