As the title says, I am currently thinking about pulling the trigger and announcing to my wife that I want to get a divorce. I am trying to figure out my position before doing that though, and could use the help and experience from this community.

The Situation

We [M46 and F46] are in the UK, and have been married for 10 years. Two children, F10 and M5. We jointly own our family house in London where we have circa £230K equity. I earn a decent salary, about double her salary. We have jointly shared expenses with a mechanism where we both put in the same percentage of our salary into a joint account.

I have been WFH since covid, do most of the school runs, and am involved in our home and kids’ lives.

I want the divorce as I just need rid of her and her various toxic behaviours towards me. I have put up with them for 15 years, and I just cannot take it anymore. I need the situation to change so I have some control over my own life. I have been thinking about it for years, but never acted as I was concerned about the effect on the kids.

She hasn’t cheated on me. Full disclosure I have had 2 affairs and a predilection for spending my spare money on ladies of negotiable affection as I ain’t’ getting nothing at home. She doesn’t know anything about this, but it would easily come about if anyone started looking at accounts or phone records.

I would like this to be an amicable divorce. I know she at times has thought about it too, so I have hope we could both be viewing this as a good thing for each other (not sure though)

My priorities as of current thinking are

  1. I escape the daily battle with my wife, and take back control of my life
  2. The kids
  3. I am not financially broken
  4. She is hurt as little as possible and is financially OK to support herself and our kids

Some questions

  1. Are my priorities right? The kids used be #1 which prevented me from acting, but following this nightmarish holiday period I have put my need to move away from my wife first.
  2. I am thinking 50-50 share of the kids. How does this work in real life, is it good for the kids? I worry that their constantly moving between 2 homes would be bad for them
  3. As I earn roughly double she does (but she gets school holidays off!) - what should I expect/aim-for in terms of future contributions to her?
  4. How should we deal with the house? is there any good way where one of us (likely her) can stay in the house, but I don’t lose out on my equity?Any other useful advice on the process?Thanks very much!