A painful, short-lived marriage & divorce - advice?

marcus85

Hi all. I'm going through a hard time and would appreciate any advice.

• I started dating a woman 3 years ago.
• We got engaged 2 years ago.
• We signed a pre-nup 18 months ago agreeing that, in the event of a divorce, we'd both get back what we brought into the marriage.
• We got married 1 year ago.
• I bought a house (deposit + mortgage) 9 months ago, which we both moved into. She didn't contribute to the deposit nor the mortgage and it was bought in my name.
  
• 7 months ago (i.e. 4 months into the marriage), our marriage started to fall apart, and she moved out.
  
• 3 months ago we decided we want a divorce.
  
• We both had jobs throughout our relationship.
• We never had children.

Now that it's been 1 year since we got married, we can apply for a divorce.

She has been very vicious and hateful towards me. She's so angry about me "giving up" on us and that it didn't work out between us. She implies that she wants a divorce, but she doesn't want to talk about it or make it easy. She tells me that I should speak to her lawyer.

I've actually been unemployed for the last 3 months because I got fired for performing badly and I've been mentally unwell due to the stress of the divorce since then.

I'm worried that she's going to try to claim money from me that I don't think she deserves. She keeps telling me she "doesnt want anything" from me... but she doesn't give me any real assurance about that. And since it's been one year since we got married, I haven't heard from her lawyer yet. And I'm worried that if I start the divorce petition, she's going to challenge it and try to take half of my money.

Does anyone have any experience in this short-lived type of marriage/divorce situation? What are my risks?

I am speaking to a laywer, by the way, but lawyers tend to speak on a worst-case basis. I'd like to get a more realistic view.

unholyangel

What grounds are you claiming? You only have adultery or unreasonable behaviour and those can be hard tests to satisfy.

Otherwise you're looking at a period of 2-5 years before you can successfully petition.

Unless you're in scotland? Would be good to know as the law is quite different in some regards in scottish law.

marcus85

Well I'd be going for "unreasonable behaviour" which my lawyer and I think is a reasonable claim given the situation. It may be difficult, but given that we both want a divorce I don't think *that* will be the issue.

I think it's more about assets and clean break.

sheramber

Are you in Scotland. England, Ireland OR Wales? It can make a difference.

marcus85

Sorry - I'm in England

Socajam

Stop communicating with her because it is affecting your mental health and that is going to make the situation worse for you and may even affect how you are looking at this situation.
If both of you can get to mediation and come to some consensus about divorcing, which would help to decrease your solicitor's bill.
If she is agreeable to meditation, I would as a good well gesture give her some money, but do not under any circumstances inform her of this or inform your solicitor until she shows her hands.
I would say give her 5,000 pounds, yes, it's may seem as if its a lot of money, but trust me as someone who went through this, it is small compared to what you will or may eventually pay out if this drags on and your solicitor keep doing work.
I always tell people, in any disagreement it's best to work things out between the two of you, as this will limit how much money is paid in legal costs.
In my case I looked at the bigger picture and where I wanted to see myself in years to come.
I was able to pay him off and move on with my life.
We have a joint mortgage and if I had listened to my friends, I would have left him on the mortgage and then later on he could have returned and claim 50%. I did not want that and choose to pay more to secure a future where there would be no claims from him later on in my life.

unholyangel

marcus85 wrote: »

Well I'd be going for "unreasonable behaviour" which my lawyer and I think is a reasonable claim given the situation. It may be difficult, but given that we both want a divorce I don't think *that* will be the issue.

I think it's more about assets and clean break.

Is she going to agree her behaviour was unreasonable? I know you say you both want a divorce, but you also said she isn't going to make it easy. One way to do that would be to contest the claim of unreasonable behaviour unless you agree to her proposed split of those assets.

marcus85

Yes I understand your point. I think my lawyer is aware of this and has suggested we try to do it as amicably as possible.

The point is that if *she* starts the divorce petition then she can stall it, whereas if I start it then she can't stall it.

I guess she could contest the behaviour but in the end we'll have to agree on something... if she wants to claim that I had bad behaviour, I'll accept that, so long as it actually goes through.

I guess I just want to get the ball rolling. I know she wants a divorce. But she's not going to do it if I leave it all to her.

gizmo111

With such a short marriage the court would look at putting the parties back in the position they were before the marriage - your solicitor should be able to sort It relatively easily.

hazyjo

gizmo111 is right. I've been in your shoes twice before.

All the best. It does soon become 'history' so try not to let it get to you. Know it's hard.