Onwards and upwards.

[Barry]

Hey Mozza. Thanks for the cheerleading, although I do feel like a failure as far as DB'ing goes. I'm not busting one I'm afraid, I'm filing for one.

Regarding the chance of R, honestly, I know what you're saying about the success stories. I've read some sitch's that make me at least feel grateful that I don't have it any worse. AP's, small children, WAS's that want everything they're entitled to, feelings of hatred etc - I don't have any of those, yet even after all that and more, they clawed it back from the brink of D.

I don't seem to have seen many where D has actually happened and then they R successfully - if you know of any, please do let me know. I had an aunt and uncle who did and re-married. They were far from a success story though, and hated each other's guts by the end and divorced again!

In my case, at first I was filing for three reasons.
The financial protection it ensures when getting a consent order or "clean break" document in place. I would get my house back, even if it doesn't feel like home now, and last but by far from least I'd get to live with my boys.

However, I've come to terms with the hard truth that the only way I can hope to ever R with my W is to end our M. She needs to walk her path, and I mine. In time, maybe those paths will cross again - and that's really all I have hope for now. Who knows, maybe she'll think of me differently one day. Maybe she'll come to realise that for all our flaws, our differences, all the changes we've gone through, and everything that led us to this awful place, we had something special. We did, but to her, that's the past now. Barry is her past.

On the finance side, you're right...£10,000 isn't a great deal of money. I'll elaborate on this, you never know, maybe we have a UK financial advisor on the forum!!

When W made me the offer and I started making enquiries about it, I called my mortgage lender to find out how much it would cost to have W taken off the mortgage, deeds etc, and asked about getting the £10k extra. It was at that stage where they told me that taking the mortgage over solely based on my income wouldn't be an option. Not only couldn't they give me the money (which I would be taking out of the not inconsiderable equity), they couldn't give me a mortgage at all. So I needed to try elsewhere.

The bank who we've had our joint account with for 15 years had sent me mortgage deals in the past so I tried them. When I saw them, they said that my credit score wasn't good enough to offer me anything. They said that if I could sort that out, they'd be able to give me an amount that would see me be about £5000 short on W's money.

I checked my credit score with the three main credit reference agencies and lo and behold, there's an unpaid mobile phone bill from last September lurking. It's in my name but the phone was my sons and W had got the contract out online. I was aware of this being done around 18 months ago. When I asked W about it, she said that we hadn't had anything saying we owed it...she thought the contract had finished so had cancelled the direct debit back in September. So then I get into a two week battle with the mobile phone company. I paid the bill immediately obviously.

What I needed them to do was take off the delinquent marks from my credit file when technically, I did owe them the money. They wouldn't do it. I spoke to Manager after Manager there and tried to even appeal to their compassion. What had happened now is that I couldn't get a mortgage so would lose my house and kids over a £50 phone bill that I didn't even know I had!! They wouldn't change it.

My score had increased just in settling the account so I went back to the bank and asked them to look again. They still said no and that they wouldn't even consider me for 6 months. It annoys me, we never miss any payments on anything. The bank can see this too, but they obviously see me as a risk.

It also doesn't help that we have £9k of other debt (credit cards, loan etc) and of course most is in my name as W wasn't working when we got them. We had holidays, cars, Christmas's etc on that money. I'm paying these, the mortgage, and various other bits at the moment and W is paying the household bills etc.
W doesn't earn enough to be able to get a loan to pay off half the debt, and we actually argued heavily about these other debts a few weeks ago. I asked her what she expected to happen with them?, was I supposed give her £10k cash and take all her debt away so she could live happily ever after??? She said she hadn't thought about it. I obviously called BS on that one.

Anyway, we've used a broker service in the past to change our mortgage (we always tie into a 2 or 3 year fixed rate deal) and I called them. Obviously there's a charge for their service but I need it sorting and they are really good. I spoke to my usual contact there and brought her up to speed on things as above.

I've only ever known this woman to be optimistic about our deals. We have a fair amount of equity in the house (around £60k) and we've never had a problem before. Almost immediately after doing some calculations, she said that she wasn't sure they'd be able to help me this time. My credit score is low, and my wages just aren't high enough. I can't change either of these things any more than I have. Shs said to leave it with her whilst she tries to see if anything can be done. It could be a couple of weeks before I know either way.

So the £10k I needed to raise has become a minimum of £112,000 (which pays off my existing lender plus W), which I'll have to take (if I even can) on extended terms (adding 6 years to the term) and at a higher interest rate (because of the credit score issue which was actually caused by W). All that AND I have to file for a divorce that I don't want. This is testing my acceptance and patience to breaking point I can tell you.

So now the worry is obviously that I can't get the mortgage, and W will force the sale of the house. Should that be the case, she's not going to want to take £10k when there's 55-60k coming to us. She said £10k so we wouldn't lose the house, but if it's going and that can't be helped, she may want more. She could get really nasty about things to be honest. She could demand more than half the equity by taking at least D16 and S13 with her (I'm certain S18 will live with me wherever). If that happens, I'll be paying support for both of them too, which we were avoiding before as we both had one depenfant each.

I don't know how this is going to turn out now. I was really hoping that it was going to go a lot more smoothly than this. I'll keep posting with any news.

Barry.