It begins

Hi,

I have been with my wife since 2012, married since March 2014, we have decided to part ways. She finds me unreasonable and uncaring, in the same manner I have found her to be unsupportive and difficult.

We have had severe financial problems as she has not been keen to work when she had been able to and at other times has not been able to work due to her epilepsy. We have survived year on year through payday loans and it has been a real struggle. She has had 1 fit in the time we have been together and was given her entitlement to drive in our first year of the relationship. Her 1 fit was 4 months ago and she will probably be able to work in the next few months however this is not garaunteed.

She has moved into a separate room and has not stayed in our room since last year, I have tried to deal with this amicably and see the sadness in our situation however she has a great deal of anger towards me, we have tried counselling for the past 4 months to no avail.

She has stated that she cannot claim any of the previous disability benefits other than her DLA while we are still married and this is stopping her from moving out. I have continued to support us financially including the use of my car which she takes as soon as I am home from work to stay elsewhere each night.

The situation is becoming untenable due to her anger and she believes that I have a duty of care to support her at this time, I have not tried to make the situation difficult but need to know where I stand in terms of supporting her and the best way to proceed with our divorce?

Her name is on the tenancy for our rented property which has until October, we have no assets other than my car which I got before we met.

I would like to know if I would be best to draw up an agreement with her about this duty of care before proceeding with the divorce and how? This would obviously depend on whether or not I actually do have a duty of care to her. Before we met her disability allowance was around £2000 and she lived on her own in a flat.

Any help is appreciated

You are not her carer. She doesn''t appear to need a carer. She does need financial maintenance, but it sounds as though she might be able to find work or claim benefits once you are divorced.

Her anger is probably based on anxiety about not having a financial cushion to fall back on, or finding a job. But that''s not your problem, it''s hers.

I don''t know enough about your financial situation but it sounds as though there''s very little in the way of marital assets to be divided between you.

Once you are divorced (or indeed when your tenancy expires) you will both need to be housed and have enough money to live on.

Thanks for the response Nell,

What am I responsible for in terms of financial maintenance? Is it a percentage of my earnings or should I offer to sit down and work out a budget? Her current DLA payments are 290 a month and this works out to about 15% of my current monthly financial earnings after tax.

She appears to be building up a history, sending me text messages of how I did not financially support her last month. They are frivolous and I had to sell some of my own personal items just to make it through the month, I have chose not to dignify the texts with a factual response. Should I respond in case these texts are brought up at a later date and my lack of response works in her favour?

I think yours would be deemed a fairly short marriage, in which each party takes out what they brought to the marriage.

You can probably find a local solicitor who offers a free half-hour''s advice.

Hi,

My wife and I are now separated (not officially documented) and she has moved out having taken all of our appliances without permission and blocked my number.

Previous to this she had agreed to proceed with a divorce but has now vanished. I''m assuming that this is in her benefit and she will reappear at some point in the future when I am in better financial standing. Is it correct that my finances at the time of the divorce will come into effect and not my finances at the time of our seperation?

What would be my best option to proceed with a divorce with an unwilling/unresponsive partner? Would I need her actual address or would I just be able to have an officer of the court serve her with divorce papers?