Which option would you choose?

[Twocrabs30]

I have 2 DC - 4 & 6.
I met my STBXH 8 years ago in the UK. We both come from other countries and have no family in the UK.
We separated shortly after the birth of our 2nd DD.
I wanted to return back to my home country.
Due to fortunate set of circumstances I managed to get back home and managed to stay in my home country. My DC are with me.

My STBXH is now living with me in my home country. He is open to moving to my home country, to raise our daughters here. But for him to get a permanent visa / right to reside we have to ‘reunite’ as a couple for immigration purposes and live together another 2-3 years. I find him very controlling and this is making me depressed. I am now on antidepressants to help me cope. This is option 1.

Option 2 I voluntarily return with daughters and him back to the UK. I live in effective exile from my home country. Neutral territory however for both STBXH and myself. Neither of us have family support. He won’t do much parenting in any country. At most perhaps every other weekend. I would be without family support, but would have friends around me. Option 2.

I tell STBXH that I want to remain in my home country and I can’t support him in visa, which means he will have to return to Uk, and my DC will grow up without a father (he is kind and loving to them, just not great to me) and he may only see them 1-2 times a year at most. Option 3.

Either 1 or 2 effectively stops you moving on and will lead to resentment.

Option 3 is thinking about you and you only.

Option 1 is the opposite.

Option 2 is really really the only option. You chose to have children in the UK, there was always a risk you might not stay with your kids' dad.

You say yourself you were lucky to be able to take them out as you know he could have easily stopped it.

Remember that whatever you choose, tour kids will one day analyse the situation and decide for themselves whether you did the right thing for them or not.

Option 3 is the only feasible option I would say. I might think differently if he did more of the parenting.

With Option 3 you could both prioritise contact - surely it could be more than a couple of times a year if he was really motivated?

Option 3.

He had a choice to be a decent man and husband.
Despite you allowing him to live with you for the visa, he repays this by controlling you and doing nothing for his children.

Get him out.

He is NOT a good man and that is on HIM.

Questions in the future will be answered honestly.

He was a controlling man and I couldn't live with him.
His behaviour, his choice.

You do the childcare alone, stay where you have support.

Get him out asap.

He is NOT your responsibility.

OP if you do anything other than option 3 I think you will regret it for a very long time

Did he agree to you taking them out of the UK with the intention of staying in your home country in the first place @Twocrabs30. If the answer to this is yes then take Option 3 because you can genuinely say to your children that it was his decision / a joint decision that was made in their best interests. If the answer is no then you should maybe back to the UK as how would you have liked it if after you separated he just took both kids to his home country without you .

@LifesNotEnidBlyton

Whatever choice you make I really don't agree that him not being able to be in the same country as his children should even be a choice.

You met in the UK, you married and lived together in the UK, and you had two children together when there.

So whatever has happened between the two of you, unless a parent is actually abusive or dangerous to the children, I don't believe either parent should be able to just take the children and leave the country.

He has offered to move his life himself to your country, and obviously you shouldn't have to live together when it makes you feel as it does, but there isn't really much more he can do to see his children than follow you if you've taken them away from him.

He seems to be a good father, whatever sort of husband he was, if he cares about his children enough that he's followed you 18 hours across the globe and said he will move to your home country (when he already left his own and made a life with you in another).

The people who say you should stay in your home country with the children and tell him to leave would not say that, I don't believe, if you were a father saying "I brought the children to my home country from the UK and now their mum's come here and is offering to live with us and stay here but it's making me depressed having her in the house. Should I tell her to go, and stay here with the children just us?".

People would be so angry and say it was parental abduction.... and you don't say what he said about you moving home when you left the UK for us to know whether he said that was ok with him, but now he's saying it's not, and has followed you there, or whether you just went because you wanted to.

But the most important thing here is the children, and unfortunately when you have two children with someone and make a commitment to their health and stability together, you shouldn't then make a parenting choice that affects them by yourself. Even if it is for your own "health" because, as depressed as you would feel living with him for two years, it isn't going to be as bad as a parent losing contact and parenting rights of their children because they've been taken 18 hours away. The the damage it will do to the children could be even worse. So whatever you do about living with him to get him into your country, or going back to the UK, you need to do it jointly with him and remember that, if you wouldn't be ok with him doing to you what you are thinking you could do to him, then it just isn't fair on him as an equal parent with equal rights as you to his children, and it 100 % isn't fair on them.

@LifesNotEnidBlyton is speaking a lot of sense here. I cannot believe how many posters are saying Option 3. If it was the DH that had taken the DC 18 hours away they'd be screaming abduction.

Option 3.

Its been 4 years already and he's still manipulating you. Are you certain he can't get a visa without you two being together again? Would you have to blend your finances to prove you are a couple? Would you have to put off dating another man, tell all your friends and family you are together, be a couple to the world and delay you moving on for years?

Dont put yourself or your dcs through that. He moves out. You aren't together. Have you checked for yourself there is no way foe him to get a visa other than a spousal one or have you taken his word for it? He might have to get a different job or retrain to have skills needed by your home country. It does seem very convenient for him that you would have to do this.

Booking to see an immigration specialist lawyer would be worth it to be certain there are no other options available to him.

@bekindbekindbekind
but I think every little interaction between them and you is affected by how you feel about yourself… You also model to hour children how to feel about oneself, how to interact with others, how/when it is okay to set boundaries and so on.

I hadn’t really thought about this but you are right. It is a long time for DC to be around me when I am so mentally impacted by his presence and negative controlling ways

@MouseRoar
I have tried to negotiate set times for him to be out of the house and for me to have free time. He simply won’t agree this. He never leaves the house. He won’t look after the DC on his own to give me any break. This is why I feel so controlled.

@PerseverancePays it isn’t an option for him to live outside the house. The immigration here will likely find out.

@FriedasCarLoad
Is there an option 1b, where you live in a property with separate homes but one address? Eg two flats from one house.
I have thought about this. My worry is making a convincing story for Immigration and if they get the sense we are not really together, particularly as we are having to persuade them we are back together after a separation, my worry is they could find we are not in a genuine family relationship.

@Loveshelly
Can you go to family therapy with him? And sit down with an outsider and work out a way to live together?
I wasted so much of my life in family / relationship therapy before we separated. He simply turned up - like for Catholic penance each Sunday - and then ignored any discussions outside the therapy sessions. And it kept me in a controlling and emotionally abusive relationship for far longer than I should have. So no, I don’t consider therapy is an option.

@MargosKaftan

Are you certain he can't get a visa without you two being together again? yes, we have obtained expensive specialist immigration advice from lawyers who are the leaders in their field in my home country and who have confirmed the only way in is as a reunited family. Once separated he has no rights to enter and stay long term and there aren’t prospects for a working visa

Would you have to blend your finances to prove you are a couple? yes, I am unable to make any financial decisions atm re our finances as he won’t permit me to access or sell off our joint savings / assets. Meanwhile we still have to have a blended joint bank account to evidence we are re-united family.

Would you have to put off dating another man, tell all your friends and family you are together, be a couple to the world and delay you moving on for years?

Yes, the lack of dating is not a worry. I am a shell of the person I once was and am in no hurry to ever re-enter a relationship given the PTSD I feel I have from this marriage. I also have to maintain some fascade with family and friends, but I have confided in some, and the others sense the truth - and in turn appear to be discreet.

Option 3 and hide their passports and birth certificates beforehand.

The first one. For the sake of the children.

Or he can get a working visa?

Why are people guilting the op and saying she should stick things out for the sake of the children?! She's already said he barely parents and is controlling. Why are women so desperate to keep shit men around in children's lives.

I’d 100% do option 3. He is abusive to you and that makes him a bad father.
But life’s more complicated than that for you.
I think you need to realise that you actually hold the power here. In order for him to remain he needs you not the other way round.
Tell him you will only do it on certain conditions and get some control back.
Any hint of financial abuse you’ll kick him out. Only joint expenses in a joint back account and the rest in separate bank accounts. All expenses split 50/50 including those for the kids.
And some time to yourself each week.

@MouseRoar

option 1 seems best but remember that if you choose this option it gives you power over him. Therefore, lay out ground rules. He looks after the children by himself for set times each week. He leaves the house for a set time each week, e.g. to pursue a hobby or whatever so that you then know you will have time for yourself at home and outside of the home. Make your lives as separate as possible, and if he won't cooperate, choose option 3

This might be worth trying. Especially if he can find a job where he works away regularly. I don't know what's available in your country, we have fly in fly out jobs in sectors like mining, working 3 weeks straight then 1 week off. People like builders, rodders and road repair crews work away in remote areas too. There's also in home care jobs or shift work so you're not in the house often at the same time.

Option 3 @Twocrabs30

Do not live with an abusive exH for his sake - it does the children no good to see you controlled and depressed. It is in fact damaging for them.

You say he doesn't take an active role as parent anyway so the children are really not losing out. If they ask in the future you tell them the truth in an age appropriate way - Dad wasn't very nice to me and it was making me sad. I decided it was important to be happy and for you to live in a happy environment. I always tried to facilitate a reationship with him for you - encouraged facetime/calls regular contact / allowed him to visit in your country but not in your home! whenever he wanted / possibly in future allowed you to holiday in UK/country he lives.

Don't make the terrible mistake of thinking staying in any pseudo-relationship is of any benefit to anyone but him.

Option 3 then. He is still controlling you. If he was being reasonable and prepared to have a sham relationship to get him the visa, then it could work. But he's not prepared to change. So he doesn't get you to do this enormous favour for him.

It will be tough, but living in an abusive home is not good for your dcs. Do you want your dd to look at this and think this is the sort of relationship she should aim for?

[quote Twocrabs30]@MargosKaftan

Are you certain he can't get a visa without you two being together again? yes, we have obtained expensive specialist immigration advice from lawyers who are the leaders in their field in my home country and who have confirmed the only way in is as a reunited family. Once separated he has no rights to enter and stay long term and there aren’t prospects for a working visa

Would you have to blend your finances to prove you are a couple? yes, I am unable to make any financial decisions atm re our finances as he won’t permit me to access or sell off our joint savings / assets. Meanwhile we still have to have a blended joint bank account to evidence we are re-united family.

Would you have to put off dating another man, tell all your friends and family you are together, be a couple to the world and delay you moving on for years?

Yes, the lack of dating is not a worry. I am a shell of the person I once was and am in no hurry to ever re-enter a relationship given the PTSD I feel I have from this marriage. I also have to maintain some fascade with family and friends, but I have confided in some, and the others sense the truth - and in turn appear to be discreet.[/quote]
Its a hard 'no' from me. Option 3. As you are the parent actually parenting 100% of the time, you need to be well in order to do this. It seems to me that having him around is 95% negative for both you and DC. You say you are already a shell of your former self - I dread to think what another 2-3 years of being abused will do to you, and your DC.

No. 3 is the ONLY option. Good luck