not sure what to do

I would welcome advice. My solicitor keeps pushing me to state what my forseeable needs are so she can design a strategy but I am having trouble as am still blindsided by the fact that my stbx left me for my friend at Christmas time leaving me so broke thatI had to sell my wedding ring to feed the animals and I. He is 42 and I am 52. We have been married 12 years, together 14
I don''t work at the moment tho am looking for a job. When we married I was a director of a ftse 100 and earned £80k and he was on £29k
Fast forward all these years later and a combination of my Dad having dementia and a car accident that yook me off the workforce for three years means he is now the highflier. Before he left he pretended he wanted us to ecomonise so we could save for a holiday and I managed to cut the monthly budget almost in half. He then rented a house with what I had saved, moved out and spousal maintenance was set to the amount I had got the budget down to which left me with £100 a month for food, no car or oil for heating.
I am divorcing him.
He has offered 50/50 on the house and 20 per cent of his pension- we turned this down at the FDR, the second court appearance is on 28th Sept. I desperately do not want to go back as he is so abusive verbally and I have been under the care of the local mental health team for attempted suicide at Christmas so my lawyer is trying to broker a deal but she says I am driving her mad because I won''t foresee my needs. I just don''t know how to.
We have 6 cats and 6 chickens. There is a £195k mortgage on the house which has £200k equity in it. STBX currently pays me £900 a month out of which I pay the mortgage, utilities and feed us all, We live very rurally so I have bought a real old banger of a car but am continually having to make up the deficit from my accident compensayion fund which his lawyer said to mine should only be used for mutual gain as it was part of the marital plot. Yet every month I have had to use at least £600 of it to meet basic needs such as petrol, fuel,dentists, and clothes for interview as I have lost three stone through stress.
Although he claimed to be broke when he left we since discovered he had had a £16k bonus in his account. It rally hurts to know he drove away leaving us to manage- or not but there it is.....
My lawyer is proposing we see if he will settle for my having 70 per cent equity of the house, keeping my accident compnesation whichis now £32k and putting the house on the market with him paying me £1200 a month to do all the admin, oversee the renovations etc etc as he now lives miles and miles away and just wants ''out'' (we are at the Nisi stage. The CETV of his pension has been put at £300k and he earns £70k plus two bonusses a year.
Is this a good deal?
I paid for the entire wedding, the move here, all the stamp duty and the honeymoon plus I also put in £35k deposit on the mortgage. He put in the same but of course did not pay for anything else. I sold my stokcs and shares and took voluntary redundancy so we could live here as otherwise I would have been driving a 200 mile round trip each day.

The other offer she is proposing is that the house go on the market and if it doesn''t sell in 18 months that we sell to one of the ''homes for cash '' companies and go 60.40 on the equity with a bigger share of his pension and him paying me £912 a month to manage on (!) which is less than a third of his take home salary and means I still have to do all the admin etc and try and get a job which fits round that.

I don''t know if either if these are ''good'' offers or whether anyone would exoect my lawyer to push for more for me? STBX and I do not talk- I would but he won''t and although I want it all finished -without a job I owuldn''t be able to get a tiny mortgage let alone takeon the one here which is what I''d like to do.
Can anyone give me some advice?
Thanks you
Kits

You have taken an important step in asking for others opinions on your case. You can now get a range of opinions about what you can reasonably expect and this will mean you have an informed opinion.

People more experienced than me in these matters will come along and assist but I wanted to say that it can be really hard making these life changing decisions whilst struggling with depression. So don''t give yourself a hard time about not knowing what to do as indecision can be part of depression as you no doubt know.

So well done on not going it alone.

thank you so much
I have stayed up all night trying to work this out as stbx has asked for EVERY receipt since he left at Christmas.
I feel as if I have been left with all the crap-dealing with this big house on next to no money and then being criticised that I don''t have a job when HE wanted the big house and HE wanted my big company car.
Now I have neither nor a husband or a job either.
I have absolutely NO IDEA of who I am so I just don''t KNOW how to work out forseeable needs.
When I didn''t forsee this.
I used to manage a £15m budget and 150 people- now of I make it through the day washed and dressed it is a ''good day''. Most days I just want to curl in a ball and sob and sob but animals need me, parents need me- while he has swanned off to a rented home but the kind of place he used to scoff at ie modern, young exec etc etc with his free car and free diesel and his senior status. And I have been turned into the kind of woman who has to write down each pair of tights she buys.
HE used to travel with ME and watch ME run huge events. How did I turn into this dessicated woman who was left for her friend. And all the time he won''t speak to me- just racks up the legal fees by only comm. through the lawyers. He said he fell in love with my status and energy and achievements- and now they are no more and I am all used up. He told me what a bloody hopeless wife I was and how he had never loved me and how I had let myself go when I oculdn''t have a child. He said I was useless. I fight against the term I really do- but I am beginning to believe he was right.

The way to state your foreseeable reasonable needs is to make a comprehensive list of everything you need to live on and it''s monthly cost. Don''t miss anything .
Council tax
Gas/ electric
Water
Mortgage
Food
Petrol
Car tax
Service mot
Car insurance
Household insurance
Household maintenance
Household Emergency cover
Telephone
Pet costs - food / insurance/ vacinations/ flea treatment
Clothes
Shoes
Dentist
Opticians
Passport renewal
Medicines
Window cleaning
Stationery/printer ink
Etc etc etc
wrack your brains try not to leave anything out. He may have forced you to budget, however you have been using compensation money to make up the short fall. You have a
need he is currently a high earner. Stick to the figures and facts . Your solicitor needs this information to argue your case for maintenance it''s
important to include absolutely everything you have no chance of getting what you don''t state you need . Best of luck.

Thank you so much. I have been keeping a log and all the receipts and have been reasonably sure I have got everything in even from having my roots done:) to vet bills. But what I think she is asking me is about what sort of value and type and location of home I want: I don''t want a socking great house like this- it was bought and intended for us to be a family although I know realise he wanted it as a status symbol and not for family reasons at all
But I have got 8 cats and 6 chickens, please don''t laugh- who I love dearly and although they and I don''t need a big house, we do need a big garden but such places just don''t seem to exist. She seems to think I will get about £250k to buy somewhere commensurate with my needs esp as I have elder parents who rely on me but Ben, beingten years younger has a lot of earning power ahead that I don''t and can easily get a mortgage. If I push for a higher per centage of his pension does anyone know if the bank would be likely to lend me aa mortgage against that pension pot amount? And how did other people work out where and how they wanted to lIve.
Sorry for being such a drone : I just can''t tnink straight and I will be there again in three hours time being berated by my solicitir for not having a clear action plan that she can fight for.
I kind of thought she would let me know what was best and then fight for me- or have I got that wrong?

Hi Kitsi, do you have a good friend, family who could help you compile this information, along with Wiki too? It sounds like you need some support - when you are struggling emotionally it is very hard to think straight. Please try not to be ''railroaded'' into anything.

Try and stay strong - we are all here to help

Survive

Take your time and don''t be rushed into anything.
It is 15 months on for me and I sound just like you.
A couple of weeks ago my husband asked for an inventory of the house hold goods furniture, utensils etc, that did it for me! I thought who is this man, how pathetic has he become. I didn''t send a list I told him to let me know what he thinks we''ve got and I''ll fill in what he can''t remember.
I live in a beautiful house we have just completely renovated, he has asked me to put it on the market numerous times since he left, I said I''m not ready emotionally to move.
Meanwhile he is struggling in a small house with ow and 19 year old, his choice to move into her home, so I think wel he can struggle a bit longer. I have started having friends and family around as I intend to enjoy my home for as long as Im in it. I don''t want to think what a waste we''ve put a lot of time and effort into it.
I am getting to the point now that I am seriously thinking of downsizing, it will be difficult for me as I have a beautiful home and garden and good neighbours. Yet my life hasn''t changed, I feel like I''m still waiting for him to come home, while he has a new life and he''s living it!
I think now I want to walk through my own front door, that he has no part of. I will never get over what he has done but I will learn to live with it.
I havent seen him for about 6 months, and I saw a recent photo of him, he looked tired and quite lost, I on the other hand look the best I''ve looked for years, I''ve lots of complements from men and woman, even people I don''t know, this has given me a big confidence boost, also I feel like my old self, I''d rather look and feel like this with my husband by my side but I know that''s not going to be.
I gave my sols a list of needs, I doubt I''ll get what I''ve asked for but to be fair I could manage on half of it, so I would settle for that. He earns over 100k a year I don''t work, but I''m thinking of working, just to meet new people, and ''to get a life'' as husband put it.
So don''t worry nothing can change overnight as they would like it to, don''t ever reply to anything without thinking it through calmly, I know now I''m not dealing with my husband he''s a stranger, and you need to do what''s best for you.
I now try and achieve something every day, today I will cut the grass and clean the kitchen, I have been letting things slip because I can''t be bothered, but that''s made me feel worse.
Your solicitor can only advise you what to do, they can''t tell you what you want, I know because that''s how I felt. The decisions have to be yours and you will do it because you can. You have had a fantastic job so you have a good deal of intelligence, so fight and get yourself back.
I felt like swerving off the road a few times in my car, but I couldn''t do that to my parents and family as they have also suffered since my husband left. I don''t think it''s because I want to die, it''s because I want to wake up and se that it''s all been a dream, I suppose that''s because I don''t want to face the reality of it.
As for being a DRONE drone on, that''s what I do, eventually it will start to fade, and you actually start to laugh about things, I even laugh about my husband!!
Take care stay strong, cry and scream when you feel like it, get some makeup on and look in the mirror and smile at yourself. He will look back one day and realise no matter who you are with or where you are we all become content and life sometimes gets a bit boring, so while they are blaming us they will one day realise that actually it takes 2 to make a relationship work, but by then we will be having a good life ourself, we will be healed emotionally and even if we have don''t have some one new, at least we will love ourselves.
Keep posting and take strength from others.