To think he can’t get away with this? Marriage breakdown.

[SheIsStuck23]

I posted this on the Relationship board yesterday but only got two replies so I’m now posting it here because I’m desperate for help and advice.

I’m posting because of all the fantastic knowledge and support that is offered on here to women who want to escape shitty relationships and because I don’t know how to help my friend.

I’m going to see her in a few days time and I would love to be able to give her some guidance.

The back story of her and her husband:

Together for 13 years.
Married for 7 years.
They have two children aged 11 and 8

My friend was a SAHM until the youngest started school and then she started a college course in order to get into a career. She should get her qualification late next year.

Her husband works in banking and she thinks he earns about £95k.

My friend has never had any access to his earnings and all she has had since the birth of their first child eleven years ago is a monthly “allowance” that he gives her, as well as the child benefit.

He pays for the mortgage and bills and keeps the rest of his earnings to himself.

Their marriage has been very rocky for about 3-4 years (he’s awful) and a few months ago my friend told her husband that she didn’t want to be with him anymore. He made lots of promises about how he’d change (which he’s already been promising for many years with nothing changing) but she said enough is enough.

A year or so ago she had suggested marriage counselling but he wouldn’t pay for it and still won’t.

Their house is worth £400k and she wants to put it on the market but she knows he won’t agree. They are still living there together (separate rooms) and my friend says the atmosphere is just horrendous. She wants to start divorce proceedings but is terrified about how he will react and she doesn’t have access to any money to pay solicitor fees anyway.

He has now stopped giving her a monthly allowance (out of spite I imagine) and so all she has now each month is the child benefit money. She has to use this to buy things for herself and for the children, and for her travel costs back and forth to college.

He’s treating her so badly and it’s just a mess. It’s just awful. He’s telling their daughters that my friend wants to break up the family and he’s the victim…..

Surely he can’t get away with this?

She has no other family nearby and she feels completely trapped.

How can I help her

@SheIsStuck23

Your friend may also want to look into finding a counselor/therapist who specializes in domestic abuse. They can give her a sounding board to bounce her thoughts off of and a place to vent. They can be impartial and help her understand that this is NOT her fault and she has a right to 'fight back'. They can also provide her with tools and strategies to help her cope with his vileness.

Sometimes having friends and family to vent to isn't enough. As much as we love them, we aren't professionals and don't necessarily have the knowledge and tools to help them cope or to enable them to 'sort the wheat from the chaff'. We can sympathize and give them a soft place to land, but sometimes that's just not enough.

OP, your friend needs to move back to the house, quit her degree and get a job so that she can afford to either move out with the children, or legal advice to get an occupation order to stay in the house.

TBH though it’s likely that the house will need to be sold as part of the divorce so personally I’d be looking to move out.

I know that people have said she shouldn’t quit her degree and that she should stick with it etc, but that time has passed now. She runs the very real risk of losing her children to their father at this point, and no degree is worth that.

Emotional abuse and coercive control are incredibly difficult to prove, so although people are advising that she goes to the police, I’d be inclined to speak to women’s aid first to see where she can go from here.

But her children need to come first, and that is going to mean sacrificing something, and that something realistically needs to be the degree so she can get a job.

She’s only been gone for 3 days.

Parents are away from their children longer than that when they go on business trips with work, go on Hen or Stag Do’s or visit sick relatives etc. I don’t think my friend is going to lose her children because she hasn’t been at home with them for 3 days.

There’s no way her husband would want the children anyway, he doesn’t do anything for them or with them.

She’s told me that she’s going to look into what benefits she could claim if she were to move out and rent somewhere, as well as what maintenance she’d be entitled to. She said she’s also got an appointment the week after next with someone at Uni regarding what financial support they can offer her, or to see if she can take some time out from her course and resume it again next year when things are more settled.

We have a mutual friend (I will call her Amy) who potentially has room to put them up as she has a spare room (where the girls could sleep) and my friend could sleep on the sofa but it’s such a big ask, especially as it’s for an indefinite amount of time, plus it’s the lead-up to Christmas when everything is manic enough. Amy doesn’t know the complexity of what’s going on though and my friend doesn’t want to ask Amy if she can stay because like I said, she thinks it’s a huge favour to ask of anyone.

My friend is returning home tomorrow and despite what she says about renting and sorting out financial assistance etc my gut feeling is that she will bow down to her husband and stop the separation process. According to him they have a marriage worth saving and she’s going to cause long lasting damage to the children by leaving. He keeps pressuring her to stay and I sadly think he’s going to wear her down to the point where she just gives in because it’s easier.

Everyone from the outside can see what a bad idea that is and what long term damage it will do to her and the children, but she’s the one living this current life and she’s really, really struggling to cope and she’s tired from all the fighting and the cruelty.

It’s only just over two weeks until the children break up for Christmas and then they’re all going to stay with my friend’s parents so I have said that even if she can just cope at home for these next two weeks she will then get some breathing space and some prolonged time away from him to think clearly, alongside having consistent emotional support from her parents.

She’s just so confused and worn down that she’s struggling to think logically.

There’s zero reason why continuing a degree would result in losing her children, this is nonsense. Ending her degree is very bad advice - it will simply impoverish her and her kids in the long run. It’s already been paid for she needs to finish it now.

I don’t think my friend is going to lose her children because she hasn’t been at home with them for 3 days.

That bit has some truth to it, she does need to go back home immediately. Or move out with the kids.

So what do you suggest? That she stick with it for another 7 months by which time he will be well installed as the primary carer? Will have turned the children against her?

Finishing the degree in itself wouldn’t result in her losing the children, but moving out without them and finishing the degree absolutely could.

So she has two choices at this point. She either moves back in, plays happy families with him again for another 7 months or however long it takes her to get a job after her degree, or she gives up her degree and gets a job so she can move out with the children and can afford to rent somewhere.

She’s in an impossible position here. The child benefit is already in his name. Inn the eyes of HMRC he already is the primary carer, and now she’s left and left the children with him.

She’s not been getting any pension credit for the past x years because the cb has to be in her name for that.

At the very least she should be able to defer the degree until she is away from him.

How on earth is he well installed as the Primary Carer?!

The Child Benefit issue has been sorted as my friend’s Solicitor instructed her husband to cancel his claim so my friend can make the claim instead. Thankfully he didn’t try and argue with it.

He’s working. OP has been a long term SAHM, doing a degree now doesn’t undermine her status as primary carer.

She doesn’t have only two choices: she can talk to her uni and take a year out - which most likely they will give. Then she sorts out her divorce and finishes her degree once that’s sorted.

She hasn’t moved out, she’s staying with her parents temporarily and is going back. I have underlined the importance of going back myself.

How on earth is he well installed as the Primary Carer?!

It’s bollocks.

Badmouthing a parent and involving the children in conflict is abusive. She knows he is a bully and an abuser. She has left her children to be abused by their father without her support. She really needs to go back and get them asap. If she feels like she can't stay in the home then she needs to find somewhere for her and the children to stay.

This.
I know she feels like leaving will make things better for them, but it wont. She has left them with someone they aren't used to being with for any amount of time, who is going to try and turn them against her. It will be incredibly confusing for them. They will feel abandoned at a time when they need her most. I know thats not her intention, but she needs to go home, and not leave them again.

He isn’t abusing the children, he’s only abusing her.

Yes he’s shouting at my friend and bad mouthing my friend in front of the children, but from what the children have said on the phone, he’s been perfectly normal since my friend went to her parent’s house and home life has been quite calm. The children haven’t been upset when my friend has spoken to them.

That’s why my friend has stayed at her parents for so long, because when she’s not at home, the home environment is much more pleasant for the children.

It’s when my friend is in the home and her husband starts getting nasty and aggressive that the children get upset.

The children obviously miss my friend but at least when she isn’t in the home they aren’t living in the centre of a war zone. That’s my friend’s reasoning anyway which I can understand.

Part of the reason she doesn’t want to go home is because of the emotional impact it will have on the children when her husband starts being nasty to her again 😢

What a fucked-up life for those poor kids. They already are tremendously damaged.

Does she truly not see that? Where is her sense of urgency?

Why can't she and the children move in with her parents?

In fact exposing the kids to his abuse of her and attempting parental alienation are considered to be on the abuse spectrum even if not direct abuse of the kids.

Because they live three hours away and the children need to be in school.

He is abusing the children. Involving them in his disputes with her is abusive. Badmouthing their mother is abusive. We know that repeating negative messages about a parent can not only harm a child's relationship with BOTH parents but can also seriously impact a child's own self-esteem. Many children view themselves as half mum, half dad. Bad mum =Bad child in their head. So yes. He is abusing the children. And she is reinforcing what he is saying by leaving them during this highly charged time. They will likely be feeling abandoned and scared.

Exactly. This woman has made so many terrible choices, I've lost count.

I wouldn't leave the kids with him. Abusive men usually start on the kids one way or another...and without wishing to be unkind, she doesn't seem to be capable at the moment of recognising the severity of his abuse (pretty standard for many abuse victims) and I just don't trust her judgement that he's treating the kids fine or better in her absence.

The poor kids are probably masking on the phone calls so they don't "worry " mum.

Can't she find an Airbnb near their school, then??

Can't the uni help with accommodation? I'm sure my uni in the early 00s had mature student family flats

The Uni isn’t near the children’s school - it’s about an hours drive away. I mean it could be doable and she would do it if she had the option to and hopefully it’s something that can be discussed at her meeting with Uni the week after next.

In the meantime I’ve convinced her to speak to our other mutual friend (Amy) to see if she can stay there until the children’s school breaks up for Christmas. She’s going to hate asking but at least she’s going to do it. I asked my friend if she wanted me to come with her when she speaks to Amy, but she’s worried Amy might feel pressured to say yes if we are both there. I think Amy will say yes though, she’ll probably be really upset when she hears what’s been going on.

OP, she is putting herself in a really dangerous position here.

Her husband may not care about the kids but I'm betting he will be happy to use them as a weapon. He will 100% tell the court that she has abandoned them and she is the primary carer so she has to move out and rent and he gets to keep the house. That will be what his game is.

She needs to move back in, report him to the police for domestic and financial abuse and instruct a solicitor to try and get an occupation order.

Her solicitor needs to argue that the house is essentially hers anyway because her inheritance was used to pay off the mortgage and her husband has barely contributed to the cost of it, and that she needs to stay in it because she is the children's primary caregiver.

Coercing her into spending her inheritance on paying off the mortgage at a time when she wasn't earning and has been dependent on her husband for income, and then arbitrarily stopping her allowance when they argue, is financial abuse.

She’s going back home tomorrow.

How long does the Occupancy order process take?

She can speak to Rights of Women about getting an occupation order, they will guide her through the steps.