The next chapter

[Bluebeanbag]

Hi everyone, it feels fitting to start a new thread today to say the biggest thank you to you all. You have kept me going with such sound advice and cheerleading throughout this whole debacle.

I have just closed my own front door for the first time, after the removal men left, and sat on the stairs and had a big messy cry. I have imagined this moment so many times over the past year and it has finally happened. I love my teeny house to bits.

I'm sure there will be more rocks in the road to navigate and doubtless you will all be there to help me along the way. Thank you a million times over.

Dont automatically assume it's that. To claim PIP you have to be disabled in some way. Even some disabled people don't qualify for it as it's based on how much help you need day to day, and you have had to be affected by it for months.
https://www.gov.uk/pip/eligibility

If you don't have a leg to stand on, you would qualify for PIP. But a few years later they would check to see if it had grown again. (Sorry, always been a bit cross about sick people being repeatedly hounded by the DWP.)

He may be claiming what (used to be/is) called Contributory Sick Pay, which I think lasts a year. He can claim Universal Credit on top of that, but with that much capital he'd be entited to a Big Fat Zero.

N.B. I AM AN OUT-OF-DATE CAB ADVISER. NOW RETIRED, BUT ONCE A CAB ADVISER, ALWAYS A CAB ADVISER. CHECK WITH YOUR SOL OR THE ACTUAL CAB.

It'll be UC.
PIP is really hard to get and the application process takes ages.
It took me almost a year (and a tribunal) to be awarded PIP.

And if he's claiming PIP for mental health conditions it generally takes longer.

I'm so grateful for you all. I feel very much bolstered by your advice. I have arranged an appointment with my solicitor for Monday so hopefully she will be able to advise.

I know he was diagnosed with arthritis of his spine around 3 years ago so maybe it has something to do with that.

Also PIP is not means tested, and you can have a job and claim it. It is supposed to cover the extra expense associated with disability, regardless of your financial circumstances. It's a benefit that is trying to be fair, IYSWIM, but the gvt keeps squeezing people out by making the criteria harder and harder to fulfil, and making them go through the stressful experience of appeal and tribunal, all for the sake of ever more stringent targets imposed from above by ignorant politicians.

As you can see, I'm a bit cross about this, I've had to keep up with many changes as the screw was slowly turned on the sick and vulnerable, during the past 3 decades. Only difference - Personal Independence Payment is worse than Disability Living Allowance, otherwise they are very similar...

Arthritis of the spine could certainly cause sufficient disability to claim PIP. It depends how severe it is, and crucially, how it affects his day to day living.

TO THE BEST OF MY CURRENT KNOWLEDGE

So I've had some advice from my solicitor. She said that I won't be able to get any maintenance payments from him since he is not working and maintenance is based on income and not capital. However, we are still in the process of finalising the financial order before it goes to the judge. ExH had originally provided an estimate for his pension but has since traced the correct figure which is more than double his estimate. We had previously agreed not to include pensions in the settlement but my solicitor has said we could go back to them and say that since his figure is more than double, we would like to renegotiate.

I don't know what to do. These are my thoughts so far:

I had to agree to such unfair terms because I just needed to get out of our cohabiting situation, but at the same time, going back on what I agreed feels wrong. Am I really the money grabbing bitch he always accused me of being?

If I do fight him for more money, he is clearly not going to take it lying down and I will end up having to pay more legal fees (who knows how much more?) Will it even be worth it?

I do feel more able to fight him now that he is at a distance. Friends irl are telling me to go for it because I won't get another chance.

I can manage day to day to support my kids on what I earn at the moment but I will have to remortgage in March and my repayments are likely to be a third higher than they are now. There are things wrong with my house which are not desperate at the moment, but could soon become that way and as it stands I have no money to fix anything.

Just to follow up on your point about PIP @TheSilveryPussycat he was working as a labourer on a construction site until a few months ago. When I was living with him, he was able to undertake physical jobs such as DIY, chopping up wood, lifting and carrying heavy things. I saw him at a funeral a couple of weeks ago and he doesn't outwardly appear any different - is walking and standing normally. My general feeling is that he is using the diagnosis to his advantage. That's not to say that it won't be degenerative in the future and that he shouldn't be avoiding heavy manual labour, but he could certainly do a job which didn't involve heavy lifting such as a desk job, or taxi driving or something like that.

Don't think of it along the lines of you 'grabbing money' this will benefit your dc and make up for him not providing any CMS. I've often found when dealing with people like him is that 'nothing is good enough', you could give him the moon on a stick, and he'd still want more. Because it's not about money, it's about control. As you said, he simply wants to make you pay for what you did.

So with that in minds you might as well improve your dd's financial future. You may get pension credits for later in life, which will make your current life better or you may get a lump sum which you can choose to stabilise your financial future, which in turn does the same for your dc, or put it way for driving lessons, a car, nines for when your dc are older.

@Bluebeanbag whatever you do, DO NOT let his description of you as a ‘money grabbing bitch’ hold you back from a fair settlement. You accepted a very unfair settlement from him to escape - don’t feel bound by that now. He’s trying to screw you and the dc - you ‘manage day to day now’ so follow your solicitor’s advice and try for more. Honouring what you said as a prisoner doesn’t count now - he has no decency towards you and the dc and he deserves none.

You go make and renegotiate.

How convenient that he massively underestimated his pension. Now you aren't receiving maintenance you need a better settlement to raise the DC.

It's not like he's doing 50:50 even though he's not working!

OP, what he thinks of you is neither here nor there.

You should give some thought as to why you feel so defined by your abusive husbands self serving definition of you?

Bottom line, which is harsh, I think it will be really sad if you put him ahead of your childrens needs.

Money for the morgage and repairs are for your children ultimately.

That you would place more importance on this awful mans opinion of you than your childrens housing needs is so wrong.

Because by not going after his pension, that is exactly what you are doing.

By not following your solicitors advice and going after his pension, is allowing his lies on the matter to be more important than what your children need.

You will realise this in the near future and you will be one of those women who will bitterly regret not doing the right thing by her children.

Because it is 100% the right thing to put your childrens housing needs first.

I would be proud to be called a "grabby bitch" for securing my childrens home by not allowing a liar like your Ex screw me with his pension lies.

Listen to your solicitor and decide do you want to add to the years of regret you wasted with this ugly abusive loser, who will happily put himself ahead of his children by ripping you all off.

Or, will you be brave and get every penny you and your children need to secure their home?

His opinion of you is none of your business and should not be your concern.

Listen to the solicitor who is costing you money.

I agree with everyone, Beanbag.
It doesn't matter what he calls you.
Your children's future is the thing you're aiming for.

He's already cheated them by pretending he has insufficient funds with which to support them.

You're getting nothing from him now. Please make sure you get your rightful share of his pension.
He's a weasel.

BTW is he really getting PIP? Are you sure it isn't Universal Credit?

It's really hard to get PIP.

BTW many people get PIP and work. It isn't only for people who are out of work at all, and it's difficult to get it.

PIP is awarded on how your disability affects your daily living activities, not on your diagnosis.

If other people say anything just remind them that he has £x in the bank and is refusing to work so that he doesn't pay maintenance. Such a great Dad, not.

Another one saying to re-negotiate over pensions.
(When I divorced Ex, we both had the teeny tinyist pension pots, so pensions didn't need addressing.

Talk to your solicitor about whether you can spread the cost of further proceedings. In my own case, we actually managed to get Ex to stump up £500 towards my sol fees. He didn't appoint one, and sol and me had to write a couple of letters to him, telling him the procedure. This was after it became clear he didn't understand that he was supposed to submit figures we'd asked for to the Court, as well as to us - he'd only submitted them to us!

It sounds like his modus operandi is intimidation. But you are the boss of you now! My Ex can call me anything he likes - I don't care. I certainly call him various names, but thankfully I have few reasons to see him again, so I don't do it to his face...

He's still in your head controlling your actions to the detriment of your children. Who cares what he says or thinks, you and the children know him better than anyone and know he is a mean and nasty man.

Take your solicitors advice, you really do only get one shot at this. You don't want to be using food banks and having a leaking roof in the next couple of years just because he called you a money grabbing bitch.

Hoist those big girl pants one more time

@billy1966 I needed to hear it put like that. It is very true. You are all quite right.

I was in such a spiral of doom last night. Work, the house, the kids, fighting him, it's all massively overwhelming but I see that I need to do this for the DC. I do need to somehow detach myself from the years of conditioning, not only from him but my parents (I read something saying that they laid the tracks and he just drove the train through). Such a fitting analogy.

I do have a question though. It's more for you to think about rather than answer me. Only asking because you are thinking of adjusting the FO and it might be relevant to negotiations.

You've mentioned he has a mortgage free home and 100k savings. Is this because his home was 100k to buy therefore he had 200k from joint assets but you bought a 200k+ house so therefore no savings?

Or do you both have similar priced houses but he has no mortgage PLUS savings vs your mortgage MINUS savings? Because that is wrong.

@Bluebeanbag one of my (adult) DC told me only yesterday about something my ex-h said about me.

He said it to everyone who would listen.

It wasn't true. And nothing he said then, or says in the future, will be true, either.

These men like to have the last word, and darken our names, even as they abuse us and our memories.

Don't let your ex-h's views on you colour what you think and do.

@Pixiedust1234 yes, it is the latter. His house cost £35k less than mine (because he moved to a cheaper area) and he has been able to use the collateral from our joint house sale to buy outright and then has approx £100k left over. This was the uneven split which I was forced to agree to so that he wouldn't delay the sale of the house. Living together was so awful that I couldn't face the prospect of any delays at the time. All the more reason to fight for more money now.

There is the possibility that a judge won't sign off that FO then, especially since the children live with you. Keep a record/screenshot of his house sale etc as proof.

Definitely go for renegotiation but also ask your solicitor the next time you speak about how judges decide on what they refuse to sign-off. I've read a few threads here where judges have sent both sides away to rethink their FO.

@Bluebeanbag you wrote
I was in such a spiral of doom last night. Work, the house, the kids, fighting him, it's all massively overwhelming

I had a few of these while negotiating my own settlement, although they usually only lasted a night. Occasionally I would fire off an email to my solicitor in the early morning, with something that was worrying me. I'm not even sure she replied (because she was thinking of me, and her billable time, which I'd be paying for), but usually when a new day dawned I would feel my courage returning.

I called these dark nights of the soul. They are not uncommon, hence there being a name for them, and there is not much to be done about them except to accept them as best you can, and know that things will get better again, even though it may not feel like it.

@Pixiedust1234 my solicitor did say that we could leave the FO as it is and hope that we get a judge who sends us away to rethink but she said it's a risk because some will just pass it through whether it's fair or not.

Oof that's tough. Good luck in whatever you decide