u/Eastern_War_9685

So my ex and I are going through separation, we live in the UK. I've always been the primary carer and stayed at home with the kids for 8 years.

We are not married and misleadingly I thought the CMS calculator would be correct about my ex having to pay CMS for the kids once separated.

My solicitor told me today that this is not legally correct as he wants 50/50 child care and then the other parent gets nothing.

Like how is it fair that he was able to advance his career and I need to start all over. It's madness the kids can live with dad half the time with loads of cash and very limited with me.

One thing I need my daughter to understand is to never make her financially dependent on a man. I wish my mum would have told me, or anyone else.

I know I'll be fine one day and I'll get through this, but it's still infuriating for me. Considering he has never much chipped in when I was a stay at home parent, not in money, love or attention. Never done the school runs until I started to work, never got up in the night, never stayed home when they were ill. Never taken the kids to any birthday parties or playdates until I started working full time again as well.

And now he gets 50/50 time and keeps his cash even though he earns triple of what I earn as a junior.

And all while he paints himself as the one hard done by 🫠

Sent booze please.

Hey ladies,

My background is hotel management and I have retrained to become a software engineer. During my training I got hired as a tech support specialist, I'm now 15 months into my role and will be transitioning into the dev team as a Fullstack Developer.

I have a lot of recruiters reach out to me for technical support roles that require German. I'm a native speaker and have been in the UK for 10 years now.

So I have been wondering how I could still leverage my bi-lingual skills while also being in tech, I know as a pure dev my language skills are sort of wasted.

Something that always comes up is the role of Sales Engineer.

What exactly do they do and what does the day to day look like? From my research salary seems to be top notch, but how does the work life balance look?

I obviously know that my technical knowledge is not yet deep enough and I need to hone my skills for a few years, but I am just wondering if it would make sense to pursue this role in let's say 5 years?

Grateful for any insights here, cheers!

My ex makes our separation really hard.

We have separated but are still living in the same house, currently in the buy out process as he will buy me our joint property.

While I was out of the country he reached out to roofers to give him quotes. In 2 days we have our valuation, when I asked him about the roofers and the fact I am still a joint owner and he should speak to me he said it was to get an idea when he remortgages for costs. It seems reasonable, we both agreed not trying to influence the surveyor.

Then yesterday he disclosed he will send the surveyor a quote of 26k for roof repairs. I was like, we agreed not to influence him and he said he wasn't influencing him but giving him the full picture. I said if he wasn't trying to influence it he would just let him do his job without giving him any quotes.

This month he paid 800£ less into our joint account, without talking to me. When I noticed I asked him to clarify and he didn't speak to me about it.

He stated that because he paid everything when I was a stay at home mum, he can now pay in less. He said our monthly costs are lower and sent me over a spreadsheet he did.

He was stating he is still paying 2/3 and I 1/3. Which on the surface sounds fair. But he earns triple of what I earn and proportionate to what we earn I pay way more now. So I also lowered my contributions and said I couldn't shoulder this.

Our monthly outgoings have not changed however.

He pushed back that now our monthly outgoings are not covered (all essentials are covered really) and insisted on me paying the amount I was paying before.

I can see that he is trying to position himself financially stronger at my expense, even though I am the one moving out and earning much less and starting over.

How can I stay amicable? I am so incredibly pissed off with his behaviour and have contacted solicitors.

I want this to be fair but I know I'll only keep the peace if I give into what he wants and disadvantage myself, which I am not willing to do anymore.

How did you ladies, who have been there handles this time?

We are not married and want to split child care 50/50. I know due to him earning more I could legally enforce way more payment in the end compared to what he is offering him to me.

I honestly would like not to get any payments from him but it's hard not wanting to enforce everything that I legally could because I want to keep things normal for the kids and be a decent person. His turd behaviour makes it incredibly hard for me though