Financial separation

I am on Legal Aid and currently proceeding with divorce on the grounds of my husbands adultery as agreed with him. He now says there was no adultery, unreasonable behaviour would be a painful process and I am concerned of the impact it may have on the children. As my husband is poor at managing finances, can I get some form of financial separation so that I am not liable for his debts before applying for or being divorced?

Sank

Sank,

Has the divorce petition been filed already?

Does your husband want the divorce?

UB does not have to be as bad as you think, you could still use the adultery but to a lesser extent.

As for financial settlement that is fairly hard to achieve without a divorce in progress or at least a legal seperation if one party doesn't want to play ball.

Do you have any joint liabilities, ie the mortgage, joint account or loans?

If this is the case then you would need to inform the relevent people of the situation and maybe put it in writing. If you have a joint account you could get the bank to put a freeze on this account but it would mean that neither of you would have access to the money and all direct debits would be frozen. There are ways around this.

Is your husband still currently living in the FMH with you?

Give me a bit more information and I will assist you further.

Regards, Sarah

My husband has clarified things since the last posting;

He will admit to adultery but that it took place after we separated and not before.

He refuses to pay for the costs of the divorce and says he is prepared to wait the two years for it to go through - does that make it cheaper?

He has moved out, is living above his means - he has to impress I guess. I released £14k to clear debts he claims to have had between Aug 07 (when he left) and December 07! I transferred the money to him end of Feb/beginning of March and at our last mediation appt he says he has another £6.5k on his credit card/s. I no longer have any money and am concern I will be liable.

I am miffed that he is not prepared to pay for a divorce he is in effect instigating by starting another relationship but more importantly I want financial independence in the cheapest possible way as I only earn£80 per month!