‘I left my husband, but things are messy ... everything is about money now’

Question

I left my husband last winter after several years of unhappiness and his refusal to talk about our problems. His view on things is that we are first and foremost parents and needed to stay together for the sake of our children.

Things are messy, I fell in love with another man, and my husband is with another woman now. Our children are in their late teens and one no longer lives at home, but everything is so complicated. He doesn’t want to communicate about their wellbeing or how we will separate our belongings, as he wants to buy me out of our house that we fully own.

I am consumed with guilt and am finding it so hard to have left our home, even though I do not want to buy it back as the last years there were so lonely and unhappy. Everything is about money now and how much I owe him for this or that, yet I pay half of all our children’s needs and have our second child half of the time. Since I moved out, I have been paying all my rent and costs, while he continues to live in our family home and his girlfriend is now there a lot of the time. I feel hard done by, but he says if I can’t pay for my costs, I shouldn’t have left.

What can we do to move on to the next part of our lives serenely, rather than dwell on what happened, as we have both got different situations now?

‘Although my current job has a structured career path and is secure, I find it meaningless’

‘I am divorced at 60, envious of my ex-husband’s new life and struggling with loneliness’

‘I’m dating a previously married man but I feel sad that I will always come second to his children’

‘A stranger entered our family and turned them all against us’

Answer

You are still in the early phases of separating and the emotional cost of this is very high. However, many hurts get played out by arguing over finances and access, and this can have long-lasting impacts on everybody, including the children.

It would be very wise to engage with mediation as this allows an objective professional to make sound recommendations regarding parenting, finances and the future. These recommendations can then be ratified by the courts when the separation is final. The cost of separation and divorce can be very high in all spheres (emotional, physical and financial) and so there is a free Government mediation service to support couples through the process.

Look up citizen’s information and type in family mediation and you should be able to connect with some services in your area. Mediation requires both parties to agree to the process so you will need to talk to your ex-husband about it. The best chance of a reasonable conversation is one where the best interests of your children are served by both parents agreeing to come together in planning for their welfare, with the added bonus of a neutral person laying out a financial plan for the separation.

Your husband may still be hurt that you left him, demonstrated by his saying you must feel the pain (costs) of abandoning the marriage and so it may take him some time to come to terms with the finality of it all. This is why mediation is conducted over several sessions to allow all the tricky and difficult issues to be raised and hopefully ironed out. The danger of not going through this process is that the leaking of anger and hurt can go on for years, with sometimes dire consequences, eg custody battles, long court proceedings and difficult relationships between many family members.

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You say you feel guilty about leaving the family home. We use the word “consumed” in relation to guilt as it can feel so huge that it overtakes everything else in our lives. Guilt makes us question if we need to make reparation so the correct action is to address the issue if we can and let go of the guilt. Accept that you left the family home (because you did) and now look to what can be done to make life bearable for all of you. This means being as self-aware as you can be, focus on your children when they are with you and practise fairness and compassion with your ex-husband when you are in contact with him.

You too deserve to be treated fairly and require even-handedness in the distribution of your property and finances, which is your due, and it follows the track of natural justice. Relationships break down; it is a fact of life and punishing yourself with guilt and regret will not alter the reality of the situation. The fact that you fell in love with someone else so quickly probably signals that the relationship was almost over when you left. Allow your ex-husband time to come to terms with the separation, but be firm in the view that an objective external professional is needed to navigate the dissolution of the relationship, if everyone is to pull through this difficult time.

The children are likely to be the biggest beneficiaries of this process, as there is no age at which we are not deeply affected by family breakdown, so any good negotiations will help alleviate their anxieties.

Seek professional support now and begin the process of creating separate lives while continuing your parenting relationship.