My boyfriend and his legal wife have been married since they were in their late teens - they had an “uh oh” baby and he wanted to do right by her by marrying her. Their marriage/relationship has been on and off ever since, and is permanently done at this point. They’re both 30 years old for perspective.

I met my boyfriend because he was offered a job across the country (CA) from his prior residence (NY) and she refused to go with him. They agreed to separate, though they are not legally separated - she initiated the separation because she didn’t want to do a “long distance marriage”.

He has two kids and they predominantly spend time with his parents and sister (in NY), and his wife goes back and forth from Miami to NY for work. He travels back to NY to spend a weekend with his kids almost every other weekend.

My boyfriend doesn’t care if she takes every financial asset that he has as long as he gets the kids. She’s incredibly emotionally and verbally abusive towards him and the boys and is pretty much a clinical narcissist. Either he gets majority custody of the boys or the majority of his child support payments are going to need to go towards therapy/mental health support for the boys - it’s that bad.

If it matters, all of the major assets that they have are only in his name- houses, cars, etc. Knowing he’d be faced with paying approximately 3k a month in child support to her, I’m worried about the financial aspects of them divorcing even if he isn’t.

What advice do you have for us going forward? She’s been tipped off that he’s seeing someone, but neither has formally filed for divorce yet. Thank you for your support and advice.