Stay at home mum getting divorced, need advice

[LittleMissMaghribi]

Hi everyone, I am possibly looking at the option of divorcing my husband and first need some advice.

I am a Moroccan national with Moroccan citizenship. I married my husband at the end of 2015 and we had 2 sons whilst I lived in Morocco.

My husband applied for a settlement visa for me which was granted this month and I am now in the UK.

I went to my cousins house rather than go to my husband, and I don't have any income, benefits, or job.

My husband has a job that brings in around £35,000 a year before tax.

He doesn't own a home and has about £15,000 in assets (mainly savings with about £4000 in stocks and shares) and about £10,000 of liabilities (mainly credit card debts), so a networth of about £5,000.

If I divorce him, will he be legally required to pay any of his salary to me during the divorce proceedings, so I can pay my own rent and expenses? And how about after divorce?

He also has a pension of about £20,000 if that makes a difference but is nowhere near retirement age (we are both early thirties).

After divorce, would he be required to share his salary with me and roughly how much do you think he would have to share?

My visa conditions state that I cannot claim benefits, so would not be entitled to government support, and I am not sure about if I would be able to find work. I have a degree in sociology but don't have a lot of work experience.

Since my sons have British nationality, I am looking at changing my visa to a parent visa, since I don't think I can stay on a settlement visa if we divorce. Would I be entitled to benefits?

Does anyone have experience of being the stay at home mum without an income during divorce and were you entitled to some of your husbands salary in the divorce proceedings (before and after), and was it enough to live on without additional income from benefits or work?

Please let me know your experiences in how the finances might work out in such a situation. I am a bit stressed. We are not really getting on at the moment and I need a plan B for how I can live if we can't live together going forwards.

Also, we are not currently living together. I am staying with a relative. Am I better off living with him and does that increase my rights during a divorce if we share a house? in the case of a divorce, if we are renting a property, does it matter who's name is on the rental documents, and would he be the one required to leave or me if he pays the rent, and would he still need to pay the rent for me and our sons even if he moved out?

Please let me know what my rights and responsibilities are.

Thank you for your help.

I have no doubt the police have thrown out your claim of DV, you have even said it in one of your posts that you will do anything you can, you must think the legal system in Britain is a joke if you believe that you turning up on a visa, with a husband who is with someone else and has kids elsewhere, that there won’t be suspicions to your motives. I love how you think your are ‘entitiled’ to apply for leave to remain for being a DV victim based on an alleged one off assault and are entitled to legal aid and money and what ever else you have found with the magic money tree....

Christ almighty 😳
Gloating, calculating, manipulative, dishonest only just begins to describe your behaviour.
Not to mention highly entitled.

OP, I urge you to seek some professional advice. You seem to be relying on the internet for information and not considering any potential pitfalls or flaws in your plan.
Surely you can see how calculated this comes across? Don't you fear for the Home Office to do some digging and decide that your visa should be revoked? Whether that would be rightly so or wrong, the way you've posted here certainly gives the impression that your marriage could be interpreted as a sham.
You've been treated abominably by your DH. You deserve better. But I think you need to face up to facts and concentrate on raising your DC as a single parent with minimal financial support (from your DH and/or the state) at best.

According to the laws, an allegation of abuse is sufficient to warrant three months of emergency benefits whilst on a spousal visa. A single police caution to your partner is considered conclusive evidence for a fast track to indefinite leave to remain. There is also free access to legal aid for both my IDL application and also divorce proceedings. The emergency benefits include housing benefit, which will cover the £650 a month on our flat, and income support, which is about £300 a month.

I understand that some people may find these laws unfair, and in a democracy, everyone is entitled to have their opinion on the laws. But I am only interested in what the law actually says, and not what people think the law aught to say.

I have read through huge amounts of pages online including government websites, womens support groups, the laws themselves etc. This is what they say.

For a person on a spousal visa, if her husband gets even a single police caution, this is CONCLUSIVE evidence that domestic violence has taken place and therefore the IDL fast track, legal aid and benefits are all automatically legal (not moral) entitlements.

I have not found any information online of any instances of migrant women finding themselves in the situations mentioned above, regarding getting deported, accused of faking the marriage etc. Because of how the police have previously treated women in these situations, and because women have found themselves trapped in marriages and scared for their legal status, these laws have been brought out to protect women. And the police and law cannot be seen to punish women for escaping from toxic situations.

So whatever people assume my motives are, the law is the law.

If anyone knows of anything different to what I have said, feel free to provide some links.

But I will post what I have been reading and the law is massively in my favor in this situation. So why would I accept to struggle and be in hardship just because some people don't like what the law says?

You are an arse. Good luck trying time fiddle the system...

By the way, for those who disagree with these rules. You should know that the Moroccan education system was mainly formed by western Europeans during colonial and post colonial rule. They are the ones who have taught us about women's rights, domestic violence etc. We specifically studied all of these topics as part of sociology. In Morocco we have non of these legal protections. Women suffer severe abuse.

So I find it strange that your country brings out laws and concepts, educate our people with them against our own previous traditions and concepts, and then when we ask for these rights when in your country, people complain about it.

Do people only dislike women's rights when a foreigner is claiming them?

You can't have it both ways. You either have laws protecting women or you don't. I have studied life in Europe before feminism, and during feminist progression. From the years when police assumed a woman "must have done something" to deserve her domestic violence, a foreign women brought into the UK were constantly subjected to physical and sexual violence, along with many other types of abuse like financial, emotional, coercive control etc.

You now have laws protecting women in these situations and I am one of them.

I am struggling to see why everyone is so angry about the utilization of laws to protect women in my very circumstances.

I will dig up some links to share with people, but there is a lot of material specifically on women on spousal visas who are subjected to domestic violence.

This document summarizes my situation entirely and all of the protections in place for me according to British law.

rightsofwomen.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/ROW_Domestic-Violence-A4-DIGITAL.pdf

You are totally outrageous. You seem to want to enjoy all the rights of the UK while ignoring the responsibilities. Your application can and should fall at the first hurdle because if you were honest with the HO it wasn't because of domestic abuse that your relationship has broken down. It's because you never really had one, and then he moved back in with his wife. Falsifying evidence is a crime and the entire basis of your leave to remain hangs on whether domestic violence had lead to the break down of your relation, which it hasn't. You could easily return to safety in your country of origin, but you prefer not to. You could work to support your family, but you prefer not to. You are a piss taker and a fraud and I hope the courts see through you as clearly as most of us have. Your behaviour makes a mockery of abused women and adds fuel to the fire of people who want to shut down perfectly legal migration because they know that if there are loopholes, canny and manipulative people like you will exploit them.

According to the laws, an allegation of abuse is sufficient to warrant three months of emergency benefits whilst on a spousal visa.

You're even more hilarious that you think they'll pay it out pronto. Even on the old, legacy system, it took about 2-3 weeks to processs IS or JSA and housing benefit is always paid a month in arrears.

But you know, go ahead and try to fiddle, it's going to be a right laugh in the wake of Brexit. Really funny.

You honestly think you're gonna sit back on benefits and it's a total joke. People are on foodbanks on those things.

This guy is going to soon learn all he has to do is quit his job and find someone to shack up with and he doesn't have to pay shit for your kids, or go self-employed. You really think he won't? More fool you. LLs tend to evict people who don't pay rent, it costs less than never getting their rent.

Morals aside, I'm astounded that a grown up educated woman (with 2 small children, no less!) is willing to bank her life and whole future on so many 'what ifs'.

Essentially homeless, no income whatsoever, no proper right to remain/valid visa, no job, no childcare, no help - nothing. Yet you feel 'sorted' and secure because you've read some laws/stories on internet. You don't seem to understand that theory and practise don't always go hand in hand. What's 'supposed to' happen, doesn't always happen. Try, if you must, but what you really need to do is to think of plan B, when all your calculations prove wrong and won't fall in place and you end up on the street or deported. You have two children. What about them?

All it takes, is for your husband to say/prove your marriage was a sham (not difficult to do) and you'll end up in a very very bad place.

He may say it's a sham to get out of paying. You are really underestimating him, tbh. He'll be swotting up himself. And yeah, the practice of the law is an entirely different story. Just saw a woman on ITV now who's husband of decades had been abusing her emotionally and who was found, proven, by the police and the law, of drugging her and trying to poison her, of drugging her and raping her. He's on the streets right now and you think you're going to get all this money and protection.

Wow. I have a lot of thoughts but I'll just say this or I'll be banned.

Well played OP. Well played.

Re the assault charge - has he been cautioned or convicted? If not, your little scheme might fall asunder.
Also - did he do anything re the criminal damage you caused to his property?
He CAN and probably will have the bailiffs come and turf you out so that he can end the tenancy. You're essentially squatting.

And can I just say, you sound like a right piece of work.

Mind you, he doesn't sound much better.

That said, if it was you I was married to, I don't think I'd be jumping through hoops to uphold my moral obligations to you either.

I suspect he could easily claim due to your immediate request for divorce upon arrival that you only married him to receive a visa (which it is increasingly sounded like to be fair).

If you have read all of the information you will have read that you must prove the relationship broke down as a result of domestic violence You weren't living together or in a relationship at the time, so the application will likely fail. It also says that you must demonstrate that you were living as a family at the time.

These are the documents on the Gov website.

Well done on finding a legal loophole though.

From my understanding he has just been bailed but not charged yet and certainly not cautioned or convicted.

When is the court date if the CPS are going ahead with the charges?

Is it possible that you physically assaulted him first and he merely defended himself? Is it possible that you saw this as your only legal loophole to remain in the UK?

Forgive me if I'm wrong - I've been a victim of DV (too many times). But it all sounds a little contrived to be believable.

I don't understand though. You came from a nice middle class presumably respected and respectable family in Morocco. Why come to the UK to become what is at best someone living off the dregs of what the state offers and what your ex offers?
I don't see the logic there.
You met this man online. Why not a Moroccan man? I'm just wondering was it love at first sight for both of you? Were you pregnant before the marriage? How many times had you met before the marriage? Does your husband speak Arabic - was he aware he was marrying you legally?
So many questions - oh and what is his background ethnically - yes it matters for the other questions in my head.

@Minorityreports we are clearly of the same opinion on this. However, even if this ploy does come off (and I doubt it will) I think the OP is in for a cold hard shock about the reality of life on benefits and her ability to run a house on what she thinks she is 'entitled to'. Be careful what you wish for OP, you might just get it.

Also, you state you're in your 30's. And you got married 4 years ago? How old are you now?