“We can’t afford to end our marriage and live apart.”

My marriage is over, but my wife and I can’t go our separate ways because we don’t have the money.

We get on fine on a day-to-day basis, but we aren’t in love anymore. However, we live in a nice area — which pushed us to the limit mortgage-wise — with a lovely son in a lovely school. 

If we split up, I don’t know where we’d live. Selling the house wouldn’t leave us with enough for two deposits, as we’ve not paid much of the mortgage off, and as individuals we would fail affordability checks. 

We both love being parents, so we’d each need a place big enough for our son to live there half the time. The only way we could do it would be to move to a neighbourhood that’s not as nice – and rent. 

We live in a wonderful area for a kid to grow up in. Splitting up would be disruptive enough — changing schools and moving away from his friends would just add to it all. And leaving the property ladder feels irreversible.

My wife and I are in agreement that our son’s welfare comes first. For now at least, we can raise him as platonic co-parents; friends with the same goal. And we’ll just have to see what happens financially.

In an ideal world, we’d buy the house next door. Then we could co-parent, each see our son all the time but also be free to move on romantically (currently out of the question). But we’re not in an ideal world!

I resent that it’s money — and our lack of it — that dictates how we live. But it’s not an awful life, it’s just one that doesn’t have everything we want. And, ultimately, who has everything they want? 

Even so, it’s made money incredibly complicated, emotionally. If I got a big raise or came into a large sum, it would just take us to the next messy, sad step in the end of our marriage. And that would be hard to celebrate.

Illustration credit: Emanuel Santos