I've been recommend to these forums by a friend.

I've been separated nearly 3yrs and it's not pretty!

Recently my husband took a 50% pay cut and my son went to live with him. He stopped the maintenance for my other two children (although one has just turned 18). He did this without any warning and will not reply to my questions of why.

I've seen my solicitor and she says that because we have recently exchanged form Es he will have seen that we now earn approx the same and as he now has son he will have assumed that the two sets of maintenance cancel each other out. I accepted this at face value but it means with everything taken into consideration (tax benefits etc) I'm about £600 a month worse off. In reality that means doing one of my two part time jobs for nothing.

Yesterday I looked again at the info on the form Es and realised that my husband is in fact earning £300 a month more than me. He does have a partner but is currently refusing to take her earnings into consideration (hiding behind temporary contracts etc when in fact this is not the case). Should he at least be paying 20% of the £300 that he earns over and above my earnings or is that not how it works?

I'm also getting increasingly concerned that I seem to be getting better advice from my friend who although not divorced yet soon will be. She is just passing on things she has learnt and when I mention them to my solicitor she usually rolls with them but surely it's not up to me to tell her these things she should be telling me. I like this lady but feel like I am getting less advice than my husband who has so far played every trick in the book.

Has anyone ever changed solicitor mid process and if so how did you go about it?

Can you go down the CSA route? Dont know much about this so not sure what to suggest.

Good luck

Saff x

Surely if you are not happy with your solicitor then you just change them for another - there are plenty of them around. It is inconvenient of course but you need to remember that they are working for you; a fact of which they will not remind you.

Are you legally aided or paying yourself? It doesnt make a difference but there may be less around who take legal aid work so you may need to look around a little more.