What are my chances of residency?

I have been married for 8 years and now my wife is going for a divorce as she doesn't 'love' me anymore. From what she has been saying the past few weeks she is going to use 'unreasonable behaviour' as her reason; despite the fact that I am the abused and it is her behaviour that is unreasonable. I have been recording her rants and demands for about 2 years now as she has threatened divorce many times; one of her common pressure tactics.

My question is, as she works part time (13 hours per week) and I haven't worked for 9 months but have a pension as income (no benefit claims - yet!) will I be classed as the main carer as I do almost everything for the two children.
She only does what she wants and then it is very little. For example over a 7 week period she has only cooked 3 main meals, the other 46 were done by me.

There is a lot more to this than I have written here but she is expecting to take the house and children from me (that's in her order not mine). The children will be better looked after if I am involved as much as possible and if her sister and mother are kept out of it!

I bought the house in 1990 and paid the mortgage off last year from savings. My wife has only been contributing money in to the household since she first started work at the end of this April, before that she received part of my wages to pay for her car, mobile, clothes, nights out,etc.

What are her chances of getting the children and the house as their mother but not currently their main carer?

I do realise as a father the chances of 100% residency are slim, but that is not my goal for the children. They need their father as much as they need their mother and I would hope that a 50/50 residency would be amenable to the wife. However, she has told me that I WILL get a 'custody battle' so I firmly believe that she will not be reasonable at all; she never has been so why start now.

Any views appreciated. Thank you.

If you are the primary carer at the moment there is no reason why you should not have 50:50 care.

Amanda

Thank you Amanda for your post.

Will the fact that CB and CTC is paid to my wife, as it has always been, have any impact?