Apologies in advance for the long post.

Last year, I found out that my wife of 13 years had been unfaithful. I stupidly tried to fix things, but she just kept on proving that she couldn’t be faithful. So I filed for divorce at the end of last year.

Since then, she has slept in our sons bedroom on the floor. I have continued to sleep in our bedroom.

She claimed legal aid to carry her through the mediation, but mediation didn’t get us anywhere so she cancelled the sessions. She has since tried to apply for legal aid on the grounds that she was in an abusive relationship (which isn’t true), to carry her over to the court proceedings. I don’t think that she will get anywhere with this claim because she has no proof.

Now that she has my financial paperwork, and I have hers, I can see that she is claiming for half of our marital house (after the sale) and 25% of a commercial property that I own with my dad. She is also saying that she wants full custody of the kids and that she will make ends meet with support payments from me. Her finances show that should would nearly need ALL my income to make ends meet.

She works limited hours, and the majority of her small income comes from late night work, meaning that she comes home anywhere between 10pm-3am in the morning.

I however, mostly work from home, only having to go into my office for a few hours in the afternoon. This means I can drop the kids to school but not pick them up.

She wants to disrupt the kids day to day by moving them out of their house and finding somewhere new. I want to keep the kids in our house, drop them to school and ask her to pick them up. I would then pick them up by 7.30 on my way home from work. In my scenario, we wouldn’t sell the family home until our youngest child is finished with full time education.

With her limited income, and the fact that she works quite late, what are the chances that she will win custody of the kids? Also, its going to cost her about 20 grand in legal fees to get 25% of my commercial property with is valued at about £25,000 after sale and CGT. Is it worth pointing this out to her?