My husband and I have recently discussed separation and divorce. Husband has abusive behaviours which come out every now and then and he does not take accountability. We have previously done couples counselling but it did not help. We both did individual counselling which he gave up on and I continued. I have been working on myself for 2 years and have been putting up boundaries, and told him i cannot be intimate with him if I dont feel loved and respected. He recently had an outburst while driving and i told him he needs to go back to therapy for his anger issues and dont want him driving the kids until then. These circumstances have caused him to be unhappy and also want to separate, so we are both on the same page now to move forward..
Our situation is we both work.. on similar wages.. i work from home mon-fri on 38K doing 34 hours a week, very flexible, and am able to drop off and pick up the kids from school. Potential for me to up my hours to be on mid 40K salary but would rather not.
He works FT with a 30 min commute, makes 37k.
joint mortgage, house worth probably 340k, remaining mortgage 246K
Children are young, (4 and 6) and undiagnosed level 1 autistic/adhd. Going through the process at school. Change will be very difficult on them and I want to maintain stability as much as possible.
He recently found out he is getting a big inheritance which when he got it would set him up with his own house (roughly 250K). I have no interest in this and happy for.him to keep it all to set himself up.
I just want stability for me and my kids, and to be with them as much as possible. He wants 50:50 custody and i honestly worry about whether he will neglect them on his days. But i also dont want to stop him from seeing them and them having a good relationship. So i imagine this situation would happen.
What are the options in this situation? Would I be able to stay in the house with a mersher order?