Hiya I am hoping you can help,
I left my ex partner in Sept 2022 after 6 years of emotional and sometimes physical abuse, she essentially forced me out of our joint home and took away all my possesions away from me and stopped me gaining access back to the home. I was made homeless and had to live with my parents.
I filled for divroce in March 2023 and little progress has been made, last week we exchanged FORM E's and she has lied on every single page. All the items I bought her during our realtionship she claims she does not have, including expensive bags, watches, jewellery (total value of items I estimate around £40,00). What's even worse is she claims I have them!! She also has her in posession around £20,000 of our joint house hold items which she also failed to declare.
She is financially well off , earns a salary of £50,000 has a second property. Financially I am a little bit better than her...however this divorce has pretty much taken up all of my money. To date I've spent around £12,000 on pointless letters / reviews of Form E's trying my best to hurry things up which have had little effect. She does not appear to be in any rush at all and is happy for things to move at a snails pace...she is living with her father and they have a 4 bedroom house so she has plenty of space...I am living with 6 members of my family in a 4 bedroom house so its a nightmare!
I am at the point where I am now feeling very low and have been prescribed anti-depressants as I really can't cope with the time this divorce is taking.
We sold our family house two months ago and she is refusing to give me a penny from it...claiming all the money belongs to her...I paid 60% of the deposit and also paid all the bills. The money is now stuck with her solicitor and they wont release it until we can agree something....
I am feeling so stuck as I am fed up to death living with my parents...they have kindly agreed to give me money for a deposit for another house but I am being told I can't buy anything until my divorce is final (which looks like it could take years?!?) I've explored renting but can't find anything suitable in terms of price / location.
What can I do? I feel so low that every day I am just wasting my life esentially stuck and unable to get away from this abusive partner!!
I really just want to move on with my life but can't believe how slow the divorce is going when we don't have any children and all we need to discuss is the financial side which both her's and my solicitor agree is 'simple' yet she won't act on anything!
I've asked about putting forward a court order but again told this will take anywhere between 6-9 months...