Hi,
i am very new to this site, so pls bear with me and my long post.. I need some advice on Ancillary relief. Have been married 10 years - still living under same roof but practically only as housemates. Although my husband is hot and cold on the decision to get divorced. He holds me responsible entirely for the breakdown of marriage and blames me for the fall through of a house purchase we were jointly buying many years ago but could not proceed due to rising tensions between us. Now, in every argument, he says I am responsible for the loss of huge loss of money (appreciation of the house we failed to buy) for which i should compensate him; and that i have brought dishoniur on him by criticising him in public.
I have made up my mind that i cannot be on this emotional roller-coaster and be the "ideal" wife he wants, so have prepared petition papers. I do not want any share in matrimonial home ( in his sole name) or his assets and have therefore crossed out the AR part of the prayer in the petition. IS that ok ? Due to his mentality that i should compensate him for the loss, i am scared he may claim all my savings ( which are less than the value of the house and his savings)- if he claims AR, will i lose the right to claim AR as I had originally crossed it out in my petition ? I am pondering on this and have not submitted the petition as yet for this reason. I am trying to do a DIY divorce..
Will be ever grateful for advice !!

First of all 'welcome'
My advice would be not to cross out anything just yet! Take your time get some advice (30 mins free legal advice) and then proceed. You sound as though you are taking all the responsibility for the breakdown and that's rarely the situation - its not that black and white. There are many more folk on here that can give you good advice too - watch this space!

DON'T submit the petition with the claim for AR dismissed until you have got some legal advice! You can usually find a solicitor willing to give an initial appointment free, which I think you would find very valuable.

You sound to be under a considerable amount of strain and distress and these are not the best conditions to think straight, so please get some advice.

I think I can be quite unequivocal in my advice to you, madam, do not - I repeat NOT - cross out your claim to ancillary relief. For goodness sake, don't burn your boats, cross the Rubicon, whatever ­expression­ you like to use. Don't petition until you have sorted this out.

The sort of arguments your husband is using would almost certainly be dismissed out of hand by a judge. Conduct very rarely matters these days.

But you see, the problem that I have is that we know sweet FA about your finances, or his. The general practice in ancillary relief cases, certainly for wives, is to claim just about everything - not because they expect to get everything ( they won't ) but because any claim they decide not to pursue can be quietly dropped. But a claim for just about everything can easily be misinterpreted by husbands as meaning their wife wants everything up to and including the shirt on his back, and the stage is set for a confrontation.

What a solicitor would need to know is something like this :
1. Your ages
2. Length of marriage
3. Who owns the marital home ( joint or sole name ) its approximate value and whether there is a mortgage and if so for how much
4. Your respective employments and incomes
5. Whether there any dependent children
6. What other assets you have, eg savings, insurances, and pensions.
7. Whether any member of the family
has a disability
8. Your standard of living
9. Who, bearing in mind your contribution as a housewife can have a value equal to his as the breadwinner.

That's quite a mouthful, I know. With this information, you can probably get a broad brush idea of the kind of outcome you might expect.

Mike

Dear all,

sooooo many thanks to all of you who replied so promptly to my post - this has helped me firm up my mind to get legal advice before submitting any petition... i guess consent order will be the best way forward (??)
thank you all again !!

Test16. Poor you. All that pressure.
You can't compensate him for something that never happened,
You never actually bought the property so you will never actually lose or gain from it - It was never yours!
Take all the advice available on here. People are amazing helping each other through.
I thought I was done and dusted in how I wanted my divorce to progress.
Being on here has made me stop and think a bit more clearly. Good luck