Don’t know what to do🫨🤯

[Plummutum]

Hi everyone, needs some advice,

so, basically, long story short - my DH’s spouse visa is about to expire in less than 48 hours and although we’d managed to save some money for his visa extension, there’s still a large chunk left for the IHS and we’ve exhausted every other avenue so I thought that the last option would be perhaps asking my mum. I really didn’t want to explore this option but we really don’t have a choice so I asked my mum (and they don’t have the most watertight son/mum-in-law relationship) but she reluctantly agreed on the basis that my husband asks her directly and formally agrees to pay her back for X amount of months. She wanted a formal arrangement because sometimes DH would forget to pay her back on the early days of our marriage. My husband is point blank refusing (he’s got a lot of pride) but I don’t think now’s the time to have pride as his visa depends on it. I really don’t want him to become an overstayer 😭 do you think he’s being unreasonable for refusing to speak to her directly? Or is my mum being unreasonable for wanting the request to come from him?

It's easy for others to say he should have planned better. But if he's been here a while, on numerous visas, that's a significant chunk of money on top of other expenses.
Some people just jump on any opportunity to rag on a foreigner.

But he left it to the last minute because of his own stubbornness and pigheadedness and risked losing his wife, his children and his job. That is why people are judging him. He isn't suddenly the hero because he managed to get some money from a friend at really short notice after causing you all this stress and worry.

He may have some very good qualities but in this situation his behaviour is pretty unforgiveable and certainly not the behaviour of a kind and loving husband and father.

OP, do you have enough income to cover the loan repayments? I wonder if your husband has the avoidant type of adhd?

Your mum is being pretty generous. If that was my mum, she absolutely would not be lending him the money… and if he refused to speak to her directly… she would probably report him the second that visa expired. Your husband needs to give his head a wobble.

Actions speak louder than words- if he overstays his visa and has to leave, that sounds like game over for your marriage, or at least life as you know it now. Your mum is being absolutely reasonable and very generous to consider lending money if it has not been paid back in the past (he forget isn't an acceptable excuse). So if he won't ask for the money because he values his pride more than he values your current life, and stability for you, then I think that tells you everything you need to know... A person is the sum of all their parts- and a small bit of bad can override an aweful lot of good...

after his storming out I actually felt relief as opposed to fear and a little part of me just felt a calmness

Wait a few days for the immediate visa stress to go down, then you need to have a really, really good think about this.

so thats how he feels, is it?

please have a think about how you would see this if it were your daughter in love with this man and trying everything to enable him to and him letting her, even expecting her to sort everything out for him, with no effort on his part.

how would you feel in that situation?

Ask Mr Superiority if he needs your help packing his things for his deportation. Because that's where things are headed if he doesn't get over himself and ask politely for some help with the situation HE's created for himself.

Alternatively, ask yourself, OP, if you really want to spend the rest of your life with someone whose 'pride' comes before common sense and everyone else ... I imagine this isn't the only example selfish, entitled narcissistic behaviour being called 'pride' wrongfully.

I feel for you. You sound nice if a little naive. You are in debt, renting with small kids and another sulky child for a husband. From what you say, it sounds like he sees you as his mum, solving all his problems for him. Now you have another problem because he left it too late to think about how to pay a rather important debt. He didn't like your solution because he has to change his sulky behaviour to 'be grateful and nice' mode. This time instead of putting another plaster on his knee you've ripped it off and put it on him to solve. Good. Except it's not. His solution has added to your problems by creating more debt with another lender. I'll bet this woman ends up regretting lending him money too.
Never a borrower or a lender be. That is a saying for a good reason.
Can you really continue to live like this? Hand to mouth. Him storming out and not listening to reason but with no decent solutions himself. Letting your kids witness in this immature 'toxic' relationship: being rude to you and your lovely, kind, generous mum and family by not speaking or smiling or being welcoming, hiding upstairs, not getting on top of the debts, leaving important issues to the last minute for you to sort. This will continue for the rest of your life. Can you really bear that? OP you are at a crossroads. What do you really want? Luckily you're a woman. You can make it happen.

well that was very stressful and whilst you can be glad that in the end he did sort it out (albeit temporarily until the next time he has a crisis he expects you to sort for him), that was unnecessary stress to put on you.

I suggest that you give yourself a bit of time to cool off and then maybe take another look through some of the comments and your replies and reappraise where you want to be in life.

It's okay that the partners in a relationship have different skill sets and rely on each other, this needs to be done from a place of joint enterprise and in full openness and honesty.

I'd be wondering at which point he made you aware that he was in difficulty? Was it always his responsibility to sort this from personal funds rather than family money? Was he doing more than his fair share of contributing to the household which left him short and he was trying to protect you? What are your future plans and what is he doing about learning to manage his finances better to support that? Is he frittering money away that should be for the family? Does he take equal responsibility in other areas of life? Do you feel loved, protected and supported?

Only you can answer these questions but speaking from the other end of a long marriage, don't stay with him simply because he can drive you places and help with the housework or for your children. Your children will be fine, it sounds like you have a loving and protective family who would support you (and do at the moment). You say your partner is an orphan, did he have a good example of what a loving marriage should look like?

I think some long conversations need to happen but not done at the moment in the anger of the situation.

Good luck OP.

At least he hasn't ripped your mother off. Thats something I guess 😐

He landed on his feet when he met you, OP. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Your dh is a piece of work. He’d would have rather risked getting kicked out then ask for help. He’d rather lose his family than utter a few words to your mum. Seems like it’s a shame he got the money in the end.

He’s not coming across great. Your mum was doing him a favour and he’s acting like she owes him something.

It's worse they are female. Looking at how he's annoyed you didn't fill in the application. Furious his MIL didn't give him the money.

See the common theme?

He’s an arsehole!

"I think it’s so easy for people to judge and make comments without actually knowing the full story."
We know as much of the story as you told us. For the rest - you know that old saying 'you can't see the wood for the trees'? That's how these threads work. You, overwhelmed by the situation (tree) and loving your husband (more trees), can't see beyond your immediate surroundings. Us, looking on from afar, not in the situation and to who your husband is a total stranger, can see the woods - which is to say, the wider view beyond your immediate situation. And that wider view encompasses your husband's arrogance (you call it 'pride' because you're standing right next to it), and all the ramifications that this arrogance has brought to your door. And this distance allows us to see you tying yourself in knots to try and stop his arrogance destroying your and your children's future.

To continue the analogy - you're not our of the woods yet. He has borrowed money that will have to be repaid. You don't know what terms he has borrowed it on, when it must be repaid and whether interest will be charged.

A big conversation MUST be had. The two of you need to talk through how you got into this fix, and what steps you're going to take to get out of it (because you're not out of it yet, that visa extension has still to be applied for and granted). You need to learn to plan for the inevitable - he was always going to have to deal with this visa! He needs to learn not to bury his head in the sand and dump this on you.

And you do need to talk money together. You mentioned "we already have debt and really don’t want to enter into anything more" when asked about formal borrowing from a bank / credit union / credit card. Wherever he got the money for the immediate situation, he has just increased the debt you are in. You need to know to who and how much.

As an aside, you posted "Yes, he is spoilt and I’ve (kindly) pointed this out to him before 🙈". How does an orphan get to be spoilt? That tends to be the result of overindulgent parents, not no parents.

Sorry Im confused. You said he needs a visa but then isn’t breaking any laws if he doesn’t get one so what exactly are you paying for?

There must be a penalty for not renewing otherwise nobody would bother 😂

@Plummutum
You are also have to remember
He/you now need to repay your DM back
He/you now need pay friends kind loan back
He/you are already in debt (your words)
He/you now need to start saving for the next visa renewal
If you can actually afford all this on top of maybe any debts you have not disclosed… why has this been left til the day before it’s needed… i feel like you are not listening to all the valid advice on here… things will get worse if you carry on allowing him to bury his head in the sand… you seem to be making excuses for his intolerable behaviour 🤔

No one was going to say anything negative if he had raised the funds the way he should have…over the period of a valid visa so he had funds when it expired.
Of course there are questions as to where he raised it from, 2 days before his visa expires, after acting like he did when money was offered by your mother, putting you through the hassle he has, and getting it from a friend, on loan, and now apparently, it’s more than one friend because you said one of those helping is female. So he owes money right left and centre, has no qualms about putting his problems out for others to solve, borrows money he probably can’t easily pay back, getting you as a family into more debt than you already have

and you think anyone but you is going to think hey, the boy did good in the end?

He did appallingly and just because he has raised some funds by begging, does not bring the saga to and end…because the repaying or not will bring its own drama .
He should count himself very fortunate to have found you, because most women would be standing up for themselves and the kids against this deadbeat. rather than making excuses for the inexcusable.

You said that he supports your studies - are you still studying? and also working and mum to 2 kids?
Are these further studies or did you not complete your degree - due to pregnancy? You mention he proposed after 1.5 years - was that while you were still at Uni?

sorry for the questions, just trying to workout the timelines and the visa deadlines - you have one child at school, so Im jumping the gun here in thinking you may have deferred your uni to have a child, whilst he stayed on as a student. Then married?

He waited you out. He truly thought you would pull out all the stops to save him.

Now that you haven't, there's a good chance he might change with you. A spoiled man who didn't get his way has a tendancy to do that. Time will tell. Good luck OP.

You think it's funny??

He could leave and take them with him? Where is he likely to be deported to?

What fighting for his marriage did he do op? He did telling you to ask your mum, he did leaving it till the last minute, he did refusing to ask your mum when that would have fixed it… he isn’t doing any fighting for his marriage and I think you’re starting to see that even if you can’t acknowledge it.
please focus on how you’d care for yourself without him. Job, housing, benefits.

He sounds like my brother’s ex wife - a taker and a narcissist! She acted spoilt, sulked when everyone wasn’t doing everything for her, got people to pay for things and didn’t pay them back. Like your partner she had no qualms borrowing from friends or family and felt entitled to the money and never paid anyone back. My mum paid for her flights home to the US, paid for all my nephews extra curricular, his child care etc… and she would still slink off like it was a hardship to be around her. She split up with my brother around the time she got citizenship (which again my mum helped her out with) - we are pretty sure she was cheating on him but hung around for the citizenship to go through. She owes my mum thousands which she will never see again (my mums a bit of a pushover and loaned her money even after they split). Watch this space he won’t pay his friend back but he couldn’t possibly be expected to for x,y,z reason - there’s a reason he didn’t want to sign a legal agreement!