To want to move back to england with my 5 children

[tryingtogohome]

Hi sorry if this is all over the place

I live in Poland with my partner who is Polish and we have 5 boys 15 11 5 3 and 10 months and im pregnant again 25 weeks

I keep thinking about leaving him and going back to England but then i think im being stupid because ive been here so long and dont even know where id start anymore.

I dont really have anybody. No family. I grew up in care and havent spoken to anyone from my past for years and years.

Things have got worse between me and my partner. Hes always saying what a real man should be and boys shouldnt cry and things like that. My 15 year old argues with him constanly (constantly) now and the whole house feels tense all the time.

This is going to sound silly but i keep feeling like this baby is a girl and every time i say it he gets annoyed. Not shouting just annoyed and says he doesnt want a daughter and what would he do with a girl and says hopefully im wrong. Maybe im overreacting but it upsets me more than it should.

I dont know if its hormones.

I keep looking at Doncaster and Rotherham and Sheffield on my phone when everyone is asleep and then crying because i dont even know if my children could go to school there after living here all this time or where we would live.

I know people will say leave if youre unhappy but it isnt that easy when youve got this many children and no money and nowhere to go.

Am i being unreasonable wanting to go back to England or does this sound completly mad after 11 years away

I do speak Polish, not perfectly but enough for day to day things and appointments and schools etc. I didnt when i first came here but i do now.

I dont really have any friends though. I had a couple years ago but not anymore. Everyone sort of drifted away and i dont really go anywhere without the children now.
All of the children are his. They were all born in England apart from the baby who is 10 months. He came early at 31 weeks and was in hospital for a while and thats part of whats panicing me this time because im pregnant again and keep worrying the same thing will happen.

I dont know about passports off the top of my head because my head is all over the place today. The older boys definitely have British passports. I think the younger ones do as well but I'd have to check.

Something happened yesterday that i cant stop thinking about. I went out with the baby and when i got back my partner had shaved my 3 year olds hair off. He had lovely little curls and now half his head is basically shaved. He said it was only hair and he was messing about but my little boy was crying and didnt want anyone looking at him.

Maybe that sounds stupid compared to bigger problems but it really upset me. Hes only 3.

He's obviously fairly amenable if hes cool with shipping the whole family over to an Airbnb in the UK for you to have your births "just" because you would prefer to have English-speaking staff so im guessing it shouldn't be too hard to engineer this

I think he also goes with them?

They're probably dual citizens because they'd be entitled to British citizenship through their mum as well. For abduction, the relevant issue is domicile and they are domiciled in Poland, regardless of citizenship. Yes, agree they would be ordered to be returned.

Exactly and I'm not even sure it is allowed? When I returned to the Uk 25 years ago ( I am a British citizen ) after just a couple of years abroad and was pregnant within six months of returning to live in the Uk, I was questioned and had to fill out forms to show I was intending to stay etc and not just there to give birth. Sorry but I'm not quite sure I believe everything I'm reading here.

You are not the first person to be in a situation like this and won’t be the last. You need proper legal advice. I had a quick search and found Rights of Women (rightsofwomen.org.uk) who seem to offer free legal advice to women and would be a good first call. Reunite International (reunite.org, 0116 255 6234) say they specialise in cross-border family situations specifically.

You grew up without a safety net and built a whole life, learned a language and raised five children largely on your own strength. You are not mad for wanting something better.

Coercive control is the impression I got. Especially the fact that she's very isolated and he isn't keen on her working. It doesn't sound healthy and the OP's background as being care-experienced is also a vulnerability.

But in any event, all the advice telling her to just go is wrong, as she will need leave to remove the children from the country.

I dont like how things are in my house anymore.

So separate and co-parent in Poland. You don't get to take his 6 kids to another country just because after many years together getting along okay apparently, you've suddenly decided you don't like your DP's attitude. It's good that you've 'woken up' to the situation and won't go on to have even more kids with a sexist man, but that doesn't give you the right to abscond with all the kids and move back 'home' to a country that isn't your kids' home and isn't even yours as much as Poland is now. I'm not sure I buy this innocent "I wasn't paying attention" take about coming back to give birth via the NHS in this very planned way then going back to Poland - to not know that was dodgy is wilfully naive at the very least.

People are jumping to your rescue on here because the assumption is abuse, but from what you've said, you've been all in until recently. He sounds like a dick, but so do plenty of men in England and plenty of women are okay with it. As I say, it's good that something has shifted to make you raise your standards, but that doesn't mean he's an abuser or that you get to move his kids overseas.

Practically speaking, get proper legal advice and look into how things would work if you stay in Poland and raise the kids there separated. If he's amenable and his family are on side, there may be a way to move everyone back here, but that won't be from a righteous moonlight flit like some of the posters seem to imagine. The DP has said pretty unpleasant things, shaved his child's hair and clashed with his teen son. That's nothing that warrants abducting six children. And in fact nothing does - you have to do things properly by your DC and the law.

Yes. The Embassy could be a starting point and the Haigue organisation people have mentioend.
They could at least put you in the way of finding some proper legal advice. There are a lot of people on this thread saying you won't be able to leave with the children etc... but you want REAL legal advice from someone who has information about your particular circumstances to find out if this is acurate or not.
Don't just accept that there is no way out of this. Do your research

Don't listen to people saying you could get charged with kidnapping. Its very unhelpful for people to write this as an assumption. Check the real facts by contacting real life organisations.

You’re right @Pickledonion1999 . Just had a quick look. NHS treatment is based on residency so OP must be making false statements to be able to give birth in an NHS hospital free. Costs up to £14k a time according to maternity action and a lot more for a c-section. Any bills unpaid over £500 get reported to the Home Office. The NHS shouldn’t be there for lifestyle choices (get an interpreter in Poland) as over £80,000 worth of treatment all in at the expense of English taxpayers is taking the P a bit.

How on earth do you afford to have your kids here? Surely you don't qualify for the NHS treatment having never contributed?

Would you be eligible for benefits here having again not contributed? How would you survive with 6 kids to look after and no income?

Your OH sounds very typical of traditional Polish blokes. Not abusive but not very educated with ideas which went out of practice here in the 60's. Wifey at home, spewing out kids and doing everything for the home whilst he has free rein.

If you get all the kids here and move in with his family then he may be less difficult.

Good advice above.

Not kidnapping but international child abduction. She needs to go through the Polish courts to get leave to remove. Poland is a signatory to the Hague Convention which governs child abduction. It's not a question of "accurate or not", it IS accurate that one parent cannot leave the country with the children without the other's consent. Just as it is here. It's very long established and well known and there's no point in getting the OP's hopes up that this is something she can do. She might get leave to remove them from the Polish courts though but probably not if she first of all abducts them and they are ordered to return.

So you come back to the UK to have your babies?

Im actually surprised you are allowed to do that.

Do you have money stashed? Otherwise how do you plan to deal with housing, education etc?

Just seen someone say that else’s post that in fact you can’t just rock up and get the maternity care unless you misrepresent your situation . Is this accurate?

They will have duel nationaliy

I’m really shocked by those figures. It’s not that I don’t feel sorry for the Op but housing, schooling, healthcare and presumably benefits is going to cost an astronomical amount, she would presumably need quite a bit house for that size of family, even if she could bring them over.

Fully agree. Pissed me off, that. Has anyone asked the kids, do THEY want to move to the UK? A 15 year old? 11 year old? All their lives are in Poland, their family, their school(s), friends, their home. Or is it simply presumed the UK is somehow 'better' than Poland? In what way? Richer? I've been to both, and would choose Poland every time, so would many other people. Poland is doing perfectly alright, much better than the UK right now.

You don't get to have FIVE kids, 6th on the way, build their whole lives in Poland and then just unilaterally decide 'whoopsie, I miss 'home' and don't want to be here anymore'. Time for that was BEFORE the kids, not after. Years and years after. And what about their father? So ok, let's just take the kids from him, just like that. He can - what - come to the UK and visit? Live in the UK, whether he likes that or not?

I'm not from Poland, but from a country bordering it. There was exactly this kind of scenario, a couple of years ago. Local dad, Brit mum, 2 kids. She went on 'holiday' to the UK, enrolled the kids in school, rented a place, registered them with the GP, etc. Dad applied in court to get them back, as they were citizens and habitual residents of his country. The UK court returned them to the father. She lost custody. And being a citizen of a third-world country, it's not guaranteed she'll get the visa to visit easily. So proceed at your peril with all the 'advice' to go on 'holiday'.

The cost to the country for all this is going to be huge.

It is true.

for NHS services you need to show residency. You can get it on day 1, if you show address/job/UC arrangements etc.

they will not block you from having care, and you will receive care same as anyone. it just has to be paid for.

Your m/w friend is likely not privy to the accounting department and whether they chase insurance/country of origin, so won’t be aware if it’s truly “not questioned”

it sounds like o/p doesn’t even know how it’s handled as her dh deals with the paperwork. They may have insurance, there may be an agreement with polish healthcare, he may be lying to avoid payment, who knows.

Just googled and EHIC covers it for emergency purposes so my guess is she claims she was over on holiday and didn’t expect to give birth so they don’t charge…

Definitely fraud unless there’s some sort of reciprocal agreement whereby the Polish government pays it but I doubt it.

It isn't going to be straightforward to move your children to the UK without their father's consent, and to do so secretly or without him knowing the plan beforehand.

Try to focus on getting through this pregnancy (not seeing it as a deadline to get out / have your life sorted) and maybe later getting a job, some independence may be enough for the first few years. You might even find you want to retrain in a career that you'd want to work in in the UK.

She's not going to go to prison if she brings the kids to England! The Hague Convention is a civil treaty, not criminal.

The Hague Convention is not an organisation. It's an international treaty that stops parents from unilaterally moving their children to different countries.

I agree the OP needs actual legal advice.

• NHS eligibility: British citizenship alone does not automatically mean all NHS maternity care will be free if you’ve been living overseas. Whether you are ordinarily resident in the UK is often the key factor for free NHS treatment. If you’ve lived abroad for 11 years and are not ordinarily resident in the UK, some NHS services may be chargeable.

Just asked chat GPC. Your husband is committing fraud while doing “the paperwork”…

That’s awful, I spent many hours on a hospital trolley in a corridor and the quality of care was hideous yet people can just come and give birth at a cost of thousands by not telling the truth?

Having been asked to prove my citizenship when seeking NHS treatment myself in a different region of the UK (because I was not working at the time) I see what you’re saying and believe that you were questioned after spending some time abroad but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t go on.

I know for certain that this happens on quite a large scale in my area of rural Scotland and the ‘going into labour on holiday’ story written down is known and admitted not to be true, but nobody within the hospital ever raises it as an issue.

We have someone admitting doing this with no problems on this very thread, why is it so hard to believe?