Advice on what to do now (separation related)

marcarm · 22 May 2017 at 8:49AM

Apologies in advance for the long post.

On Saturday night my wife told me she wasn't happy as we have 'grown apart' and does not want to be with me anymore after 10 years. There is no question of there being anyone else.

Our situation is this; we live in a rented house owned by her boss. We have 2 children of 4 and 2 and my other son from a previous relationship also lives with us. He is 18.

She works full time where as I work part time 10 hours a week as I look after the kids during the day and work in the evenings. I went from full time to part time when she went back to work after her bout of maternity leave. Now it would appear that I will be unable to continue that as although I work from home I do have to attend the office occasionally but I will no longer be able to do that due to childcare. I do think I will have to quit that as I am unable to fulfill the role how they want me to.

She has said that she will get a flat to move into and I can stay in the house and take over the tenancy, and we will share the kids ie she picks them up after work and drops them back here in the morning, so apart from being a different place it's still pretty similar to what they are used to.

I'm not sure what I can claim, it has been a long time since I've needed to make a claim with anything. My rent is £650pm which is about half of what the normal market rate is round here. My take home pay for my 10 hours per week is about £520pm.

I'm sure I can't do anything until she actually moves out, I've barely spoken to her since Sat night as my head is spinning and I can't get my head round it. It has come as a big shock to me.

We do want it to be amicable for the kids and to cause them as little upheaval as possible.

Any ideas where I go from here? I don't think there is anyway back for the relationship so I just need to know how we can move forward as quickly and easily as possible