Settlement Advice please

Hi everyone,
Looks like I'm going to be going through a divorce. I'd love some help on where to set my expectations as I'm pretty green to this all. My wife has asked to sit down and discuss our finance and we would like to go down this route amicably if possible. I'll list some facts below:
- Region: UK, England
- I am the Male 43
- Wife 42
- Married 15 years
- 2 children 9 years and 13 years
- No mortgage, house paid
- House value: 500-550K
- Contents 50K?
- No third parties involved, just grown apart over the years.

My Assets total circa 590K made up of:
- I have a stocks and shares ISA of around 260K
- I have a stock trading account worth around 35K
- I have pensions worth around 271K
- I have 2 cars worth approximately 20K (One of them was pre-maritial and is worth 15K)
- I work full time my salary is 68K / annum

I'm not 100% on my wife's position yet as we haven't had the sit down, but:

Assume wife's assets are total of 80K made up of:
- Assume my wife has savings of 30K
- Her car 10K
- Pension 40 K
- My wife works part time, self employed
- She earns something like 20-25K per annum

The 2 children are very close to mum so i expect she will be the main parent and will remain in the family home. I would like to have them minimum 2 days/nights a week, although I know the elder one particularly wont want that and the younger one will just follow the older one. It's tough, but I'm guessing i won't get much say on this?

How terrible is it looking for me? I have always tried to save and do the best with the finances. I pay for pretty much everything in the house, so bills, food etc. I cover completely.

- Should I tell her everything? Or should i seek professional advice first?
- What kind of % split can i reasonably expect?
- As quite a bit of my assets are in stocks and pensions, how does it work with the point at which i provide these numbers? Markets are quite volatile at the moment, so if they go up or down what happens in the meantime?
- This is a major kick in the nuts for me. Am I completey stuffed for the future
- Any other advice?

Thank you for your time in reading this all.

IPriority will be housing everyone.
You state current house value but is there a mortgage?
How big is house? You’ll each want a three bed house. How much do they cost by you?
You need to know what assets she has before you can work out how to do it but the starting point will be 50/50 of the total pot.You’re both going to have to make full disclosure of assets at some point but if she doesn’t know what you have wait until she isn’t ready to exchange figures rather than just revealing yours in your discussion.
What are her plans to find full time work and maximise her income?
As she has asked for the discussion I’d just listen to what she has to say first.

Thanks for your reply. The house has no mortgage. It’s a 4 bedroom detached home. I would love to have a 3 bed so my girls can stay with me in the future so hopefully she is receptive to this.

Thanks re strategy. I’ll let her speak first and find out exactly what she wants. 50 50 would be the best outcome, but Ive an inkling she may come at me for more with my pensions and savings. She has not intimated going into full time work to cover the running costs of the current house going forwards. Given her current position I struggle to see how she could afford it? But maybe she knows better. As long as she’s not expecting to kick me out of my own home and continue to pay for her!!

If current home is bigger than needed and too expensive to run on her income then it should be sold and smaller properties bought.

How much would a three bed cost?

She will be expected to maximise her income.

Thanks for your reply. A 3 bed in the same area (for schools etc) would cost approx 400 thousand, so would be more affordable but she wants to stay in the current house. She works 3.5 days a week presently and hasn’t mentioned going full time to afford to stay where we currently are. But not had that conversation directly yet.

She probably wants everything to stay exactly as it is apart from you being there.
She gets to work part time, live in a big house with plenty of financial support etc, probably wants you to live somewhere small and cheap.
Unfortunately when people split up things have to change as the same amount of money has to go much further.