To want to move back to england with my 5 children

A polish friend of mine told me recently that they don’t have a welfare system in Poland. Everyone has to work.

Leave and come home. Bring all your children with you. Go back to your home town and join the council house waiting list- you should be prioritised for housing as a pregnant single mother with a care background. Going to your home town is important as it gives you a local connection which helps with housing.

Call Citizens Advice in the U.K. or email them from Poland but make sure he can’t see your emails/calls.

Agree re calling Women’s Aid.

You’re in an abusive relationship. If you get home you need to be wary of men who will try and get in to your life too soon, potentially as a way of getting to your children.

Do you have any money and do your boys speak English?

Agree.

Maybe you could suggest to partner that you all just try coming to England for the year so you can get nhs treatment and have some friends for maternity leave and children can improve their English and decide if they want to do uni in England, then you’ll go back to Poland. And see how you all feel at the end of the year. If the kids are happy and settled he won’t be able to force you to uproot them again.

This is the best advice so far if the children would be happier living in the uk and that’s quite a stretch as all they’ve known is life in Poland

I also dont understand why you would go through the hassle of having all your births in the UK when your life is in Poland? Im assuming Poland in 2026 is a pretty advanced "first world" country with the health serbice to match?

Op I would focus on trying to make friends now are there any baby groups like pregnancy yoga in Poland?

Women become pregnant by their abusers all the time sometimes it’s the only way to appease them and keep themselves and their children safe. This is ignorant.
not that ops husband is necessarily abusive but he does have some harmful traits for sure.

So you take all the kids over to the UK and stay in an Airbnb to give birth at a local hospital?

That seems absolutely insane and actually pretty unfair but thats an aside.

Maybe you need to leverage your DPs family here. If they're in the UK, cant you all travel back to the UK for you to give birth, and then you just refuse to head back to Poland after the birth and get your partnwrs family to apply pressure on him to stay in the UK?
Obviously thats a messy solution but I dont see that you have options.

OP what is the reason for separating and trying to move country and all the stress that comes with moving schools and trying to find an home and job etc.

Rather than just separating and staying in Poland?

Yeah why OP? and unless you are having a pre planned c section, which would be hard to arrange from Poland, how do you know exactly when to come over to England to give birth?! Or do you just come over around and due date and wait?

I don't think anyone here thinks he treats you and the kids well. I certainly don't. It doesn't mean you can just fly back to the UK though. There are some very helpful posts here about the Hague Convention which set out the situation. You need some legal advice which explains this all to you so you can start evaluating your options.

Why do you travel to England to give birth? I can’t possibly imagine being heavily pregnant and hoping on a plane just to give birth in England? Why do you do it?

Do you have the children privately?

because you wouldn’t be able to access the NHS unless you can show you are resident…

I'm sorry you are such a difficult situation OP.
Here's the advice from Hague Mothers - file:///Users/home/Downloads/Advice-for-Mothers-ENGLISH-12.pdf - basically you can only leave with your husband's permission (that's still the case even if you divorce). As others have said, if you leave with the children your husband can bring a Hague petition against you for 'wrongful removal' and the children would be returned.

The situation you are in is known as being a 'stuck' parent. There's a brilliant charity that supports stuck parents globally - definitely worth contacting them for advice: https://www.globalarrk.org/

To all those telling the OP to just come to the UK, please check out the facts about the Hague Convention. It's brutal.

As Lawyer Anna Kerr puts it:
"On the current operation of the law, once a woman conceives a child, regardless
of the father’s subsequent level of involvement or conduct, she has unwittingly
traded her right to liberty of movement and the freedom to choose her own place
of residence if she wants to retain custody of her child."

I agree with this. I don’t think you’d be better off in the UK with 5 boys and a baby and not knowing anyone than in Poland with all those kids and knowing a few people. It sucks. I would try to speak to a Polish women’s charity and see if you can get some advice about where you stand legally if you want to move back to the UK with the kids. I also know a couple of women stuck abroad as they won’t leave their children there and they can’t legally bring them home. It’s tragic and too many women walk into this situation not realising 🙁

Just want to add if you have been out of the UK for several years you won't be able to claim benefits in the UK without jumping through several hoops. Will you have funds available to find yourself permanent accommodation before attempting to meet the habitual residency test for Universal Credit etc?

Hey. Im also british in Poland. You need to think of the legal problems here. You could get done for child aduction if he complains about you taking the kids. There are some facebook groups for brits in poland who may have better advice. Brits in poland and Brytyjczycy w Polsce. These groups have a few divorced britihs women so will be able to help :)

Can you quote the Polish law that you are relying on for this?

I completely agree.

It feels very unfair on the dad and children involved.

I also don’t know how OP would cope with 6 kids, 3 under 5 with no support.

Much better to focus on separating and staying in Poland for a couple of years and have the eldest get through his GCSEs etc and then think about a move.

It would be way too much for the kids to deal with their parents separating, moving countries, going to a new school, speaking a different language and having different cultural norms etc.

It would be different if her DP was abusive and she needed to flee but the relationship can’t be that bad if she’s pregnant again.

Hi op you really are in s shit situation your eldest is probably getting into trouble because of his father there relationship sounds awful. Op I would ring someone in the uk for advice women’s aid or shelter you are in an abusive relationship. your sons hair mattered to him and your dh had no problem shaving it he’s probably traumatised by this. Does he hurt you physically? He doesn’t sound like he is going to welcome a daughter can you get a scan to see if it’s a girl?

Sadly you might not also be entitled to homelessness support by a council.

Op is dad’s name on the bc for all children? If not he has no rights

Don’t put dads name on the bc for the baby at least