Separation from girlfriend 31 March 2020 at 12:14PM in MoneySaving dads 9 replies 2.1K views

leeo123

My gf and I have been together for 10 years. We have a 7 and 5 year old together. We bought our house last year.

We spend most of our time arguing. She is very secretive with her own finances, but I share everything. I earn a lot more than her. I’ve had enough of this and feel we should separate. She won’t face this and just walks away when I try and speak to her.

my question is what will end up with the house etc? I’m not too bothered with this, but feel I should get something, as I’ve been earning the majority of the money all these years. I have no problem paying child maintenance. We own the house 50/50. I understand a may not be able to force a sale of the house, but if I were to move out then I couldn’t afford to pay for the house and my life essentials.

any advice,

pphillips

You need to discuss the practicalites with your gf and try to come to an agreement concerning the house.

clarejones

Good luck. I would talk to a lawyer but try to keep things as amicable as possible between the two of you so that things don't escalate.

tacpot12

I assume that you bought the house with a joint mortgage and own it jointly, and that you did not sign a deed of trust to agree that the split would be anything other than 50/50. If this is correct, then you are entitled to half the equity in the house if it is sold. You can force the sale of the property, but this will incur courts costs and probably legal costs to do so. 

Agreeing an amicable arrangement is much the best way. You can pay for mediation services if you want, and your partner may be able to trust the mediator enough to begin to talk about this. She sounds upset at the prospect of you leaving, so perhaps you need some relationship counselling before you decide to separate?

As you are not married, she is more at liberty to not share details of her finances with you. You may need to accept that until you are married, what is yours is yours, what is hers is hers, and what is jointly owned is jointly owned!

Having been divorced myself, one thing that did help was to prepare a budget for each of us  - I had been doing a budget for us as a married couple anyway, so I knew all the costs for the house, and most of my wife's outgoings. I prepared a budget and looked at the Child Maintenance Service (CSA as it was then) calculator to see what child maintenance I would have to pay, and included this figure in our budgets. Inevitably, both of us had a shortfall; not enough money coming in to cover all the bills + our usual spending. We were able to agreed to split the shortfall, so that both of would have to tighten our belts to a similar degree. Unfortunately it is the case that two people can live more cheaply together than apart. 

I needed to move to a shared house as that was all I could afford in rent, but I was soon able to buy my own (small) property, and paid off the mortgage in 17 years rather than 25 by making over-payments,  and then saved hard and was able to retire at 53, so the divorce although extremely painful at the time, it did not destroy my financial future.  

  

MovingForwards

OP hasn't logged back in since April.

Aranyani

leeo123 said:

I have no problem paying child maintenance. 

That's big of you

MovingForwards

*** OP HAS NOT LOGGED IN SINCE APRIL ***

Aranyani

MovingForwards said:

*** OP HAS NOT LOGGED IN SINCE APRIL ***

I heard you the first time.

anotheruser

Aranyani said:

leeo123 said:

I have no problem paying child maintenance. 

That's big of you

How is that helpful?
Or kind? 

Pollycat

nigelDi said:

You need to discuss everything with a lawyer in advance and try not to worsen the relationship with your girlfriend. So that with your parting, there would be no big problems.

nigelDi - As above:

The OP posted over 10 months ago and

*** OP HAS NOT LOGGED IN SINCE APRIL 2020 ***

And only posted the once.

I doubt any further advice will be read.