Hi need advice!

I have been married for 10 years and have 2 girls of 11 and 16, i have been with my wife for 24 years and now she wants us to seperate.

My wife asked us to seperate 6 months ago but i refused to leave and have been trying my hardest to make it work but what ever i say or do is always the wrong thing as far as she is concerned.

i take home 1500 pounds a month and my wife 1000
we have a mortgage of 90,000 and the house is worth 140.000
we have 2 loans one in my name of 4000 pounds and one in her name of 8000 pounds.

I have a pension of 20 years and she has none.

My wife wants me to leave but keep my name on the mortgage and she will pay it, she wants me to pay the 2 loans and child support of 300 pounds a month.

What should i do?

Hi Shaun. I wouldnt leave the house. I would also go and see a solicitor as yr case is far from simple. You will probably have to pay CM for the 11 year old. If she wants to seperate why cant she leave? C

Hi,
I think she should be the one to leave, she is the one wanting to leave the marrage so she should leave the marrital home..
has she told you why she wants to separate?
Maybe you could suggest going to relate together to try and sort it out.
Hope it works out for you
pompom
xx

Hi thanks for the reply
My wife will not try relate or anything else, she says its to late for all that and will not even go out for a meal ect..

My wife wants the house as she intends to have our 2 daughters and says she like me has nowhere else to go, staying in the same house together is just making things alot worse and i can understand why she wants us to live apart.

I do not think my wife will cope with the mortgage so i have grave doubts in leaving, she wants me to keep my name on the mortgage as she thinks the mortgage company will not let me take it off and give the mortgage to her.

If i do leave as she says im worried that the mortgage will not be paid and even if it is it means i can not get a mortgage for myself if i required one at a later date.

My wife wont leave the house and she will not agree to selling it, so im lost as what to do!

any suggestion much appretiated

Shaun

Well, I've seen it all now. I didn't think I'd see ladies expressing the view that if she wants to separate, she should be the one to go ! I'm afraid it doesn't work quite like that.

The Court will have as its first priority the childrens' need for a home - and that means, indirectly, the need of the primary carer.

In some cases the resources of the parties are such that there is no difficulty ; there may be enough for the parties to sell the house, divide the proceeds, and start again ; but I suspect yours is not one.

Your wife is right about the £300 per month child support. That brings her income to £1300 p.m. and reduces yours to £1200 but against that, she has three mouths to feed and you only one. Liability for the loans rather depends on what they were for.

The Court has to make sure both of you have somewhere to live. One of the questions I would ask is whether your
wife can meet the mortgage repayments on £1300 p.m.
with some loan repayments thrown in. However she may well be entitled to tax credits, child benefit, which would augment her income and widen the gap between her income and yours.

There is a decent possibility that a Court would order a sale, with the sale postponed until the youngest child is 18, and then the proceeds are divided and I'm afraid she's likely to get the lion's share, between 66-75%.

I often advise men in a situation like yours to stay put and try and be as nice as pie to your family ( you should be anyway, of course, but you don't want to give her any ammunition she might use to have you excluded. )
The reason why I say this is that the Court needs to consider where you are both going to live. If you leave
of your own volition then you solve the Court's problem for them and leave the field clear for them to make an order on the MH which, from your point of view is disadvantageous. But if you are at loggerheads all the time and always bickering and arguing it might be better to accept that it's over.

There is one other thing. Your wife has not, apparently, claimed spousal maintenance, nor has she claimed a share in your pension. If you can keep your income and pension intact ( except for child support ) I don't think that's too bad a deal. I'd be interested to know what
Moderator DBNO thinks.

Good luck
Mike