A thread of one's own: living overseas, getting ready to leave H, hand holding please

[Zorra]

Not sure how to give the whole story without writing a novel, but having exploded all over someone else's thread I thought I would move out to my own :)

I've been with my H for 3.5 years, we were together for a few months then I got pregnant and we (after a lot of faffing around deciding what to do) got married. I was living in his home country at the time (he is an African Muslim); he refused to tell his family we were married until after the birth so I moved back to the UK to have our DS. H was there for the birth and three weeks after, and he told his family about it. He then returned to his home country and I stayed in the UK as a married-single-parent with no financial or emotional support. He moved over to be with us / study in 2010, and last year when he finished he moved back home. In February this year, DS and I joined him here.

Our life together has always been pretty rubbish, as you can ascertain from the above outline. He is not emotionally engaged - he can be very loving and caring but he is also happy to not speak to me or his son, even by phone, for weeks at a time when we are in different countries. He is not concerned with providing for us; when he has money he will maybe contribute to the rent, but has no qualms about my total financial, emotional etc support of our family. This means I have to work, which he is sometimes supportive of and sometimes resentful of. He wants me to be successful enough to be proud of, but not more successful than him, and not to the point where I am unable to look after DS / the housework etc.

So in the two months I've been here, he has been absent (physically or emotionally) and we had a huge row last week. He sulked and refused to talk to me - at all - for a full week, then a couple of days ago sat me down and listed my many hateful faults, which include negativity, ingratitude etc etc. He has bent over backwards apparently to welcome me and I have failed him. He is not sure what to do. He says that we are now fine (though no affection and still absent since then) but for me I have just had enough. I could give a hundred examples of him being a bully, emotionally absent, unfaithful (or at least extremely inappropriately behaved) and so on. I am not even angry any more, I just don't want to waste any more of my life on someone who, as far as I can see, doesn't even love me.

So (finally, sorry) to the point. I live with him and DS in this African Muslim country, and I can't quite work out how to leave him. I could open the conversation honestly and ask for a divorce which I think he would give me, but I can't risk that he then says "here's you ticket, I'll tell DS about you when he grows up" or in any way separates me from my son. Under sharia DS should stay with me until he is 6, but I would of course want to leave here, and I don't know if I would get custody to live with him elsewhere. DS is on a UK passport. Even if there are no problems with this side, I also have to work through the emotional issues of becoming (even more of) a single parent, and having to manage my son's relationship, or non-relationship, with his father. Hold my hand and help me to be brave please!!

It all sounds, sorry, like a bad novel!

Can you not tell him that you are keen to be in Britain for the Queens jubilee in June, and come home for holidays?

Under what legislation are you married? Is your marriage recognized in the Uk?
I think you might get some good responses if you were to repost in "Legal".

Have you checked if your current country is on the list of states that have ratified the Hague Convention? This may have an impact on your entitlement to take the child out of his country of habitual residence.

Have you any possibility of getting confidential legal advice? If 6 is a key legal age, then that's useful, and it gives you a clear timeline for taking action. Your ds must be around 2 or 3, so if he were to live in the UK with you for the next 3 years, I can't imagine any court here ruling that he should leave you and join his father at the age of 6.

I think your decision will have to be based on your assessment on your H's character. If you took your ds and just left, would he fight it through the courts, come to the UK and try to take your ds, or just let it lie?

I think you can worry about the emotional side later and should concentrate on the legal and practical side. (J K Rowling did okay when she left her first H in Portugal and came back to the UK!)

Hissy was in Egypt with her ds and an abusive h, so she might have some helpful advice.

Do you have enough money for tickets back to the UK? If so, I think I would just book one way tickets and leave. Your son is a UK citizen as are you; unless you are both citizens of the country you are in too, I can't see that you would be stopped from leaving.

Does your DH work? If so, book tickets for during his working day, take hand luggage and go.

Yes, repost under legal or living overseas.

I'm sorry you are in such a difficult situation. I too am living far from my home country without any support from my family and it is incredibly difficult. There is nobody to validate your choices or talk things through with.

It sounds to me like you will manage living as a single parent in the uk, you have done it before you moved to Africa and you are not getting much from your dh now when you are living with him.

I think you need to say whatever it takes to leave with your DS safely.

Do the separation talk once you are safely back in the UK.

You know it's time to go, and you cannot risk losing your ds. And frankly, he's not much into either of you so it doesn't sound as it's going to make a jot of difference once you've gone.

But do take care of yourself by hiding your true intent until you're safely home.

I have reported the SPAM

Thanks. No, the country hasn't ratified the convention. DS and I both need an exit visa, and DS needs a letter of permission from H to leave the country.

I don't think it has come to that yet - there is nothing horrendous about our relationship, it just needs to end. I work here full time, and can't live in the UK (financial tax-related issues) so I will have to solve ending my job here and finding another one.

In any case, we have discussed that this is not a safe country at the moment, and I could - fairly easily, I think - find a new job in the region and move DS there, then ask for a divorce.

I also think that, if I ran away (as it were) then that would be the end of any potential relationship between DS and H. I don't think he would come looking for us, but I do think that he would nullify his parental role, as it were, with the future consequences for DS in the future.

Sorry if I am seeming contrary - I am working things through in my own head, and trying not to fall back into the 'he's not that bad really, why don't I just try harder to be a better wife' trap that I always end up going back to...

Go to the UK with your DS on a long "holiday".

Get legal advice on how you would go about divorcing him from the safety of the UK - you may need to establish residency there first.

Once you are safely settled in the UK and have your legal plan in place, inform your H that it is over and that you are filing for divorce.

Good luck.

Good that it hasn't signed the Hague Convention.

I really don't want to be alarmist. You know your H better than we do. But just be prepared.

One option you might want to think about is coming back to the UK and keeping a financial link - occasionally sending your H some money. It would potentially keep the relationship with your DS going and would prevent any objections to you coming to the UK. I know you would end up with tax issues if you came back, but so what, it's only money. Sometimes, if throwing money at a problem can fix it, it's worth it.

How are you going to not lose your son?

Do you know what: taxes and his future relationship with his son are the LAST of your problems here. Get home, with your child

Be as happy and jolly and loving as you can. Flatter him outrageously. Tell him how wonderful Mali/Timfucktu or whatever place you are in, is. Tell him how much you love his mother and sisters, how his mother is a mother to you. Be the best/most obedient and happy daughter in law you can be. STOP trying to 'change', 'reach' or 'engage' with him. Agree how dangerous [Mali] is and how you will get a job back in UK and he can follow soon. You need to get that letter.

You still quite haven't got that you, and your child, are his property.

Sort your tax issues once you are back.

Saudi?

Saudi's not Africa.

I don't think we really need to speculate on the country - if someone is an expert the law of a particular country, maybe they could let OP know privately. It's better not to give away too many identifying details on a thread like this.

the marriage seems to be a dead duck and your emotions for him have cooled, he has always been cool. You have always had to be the income earner providing for your son so that would not change if you left. You have always been more or less a single mum, married or not. If you are divorced, at least you have the chance to meet someone you could have a happy marriage with.

So what is actually holding you there?

As I understood it, you are contemplating staying in that country, moving away from dh and getting a different job. Is that right? I cannot really see the advantage in that. He is alerted to the fact you might well take ds and leave the country if you leave him first.

If you are worried (your last paragraph) that he will take ds at some point and wave goodbye to you, best to get away now with ds. I really wouldn't mess about. You can say you want to take ds to visit your parents because one of them is very ill or say something which is the truth and reasonable and he will give you the paperwork you need to leave the country with ds. Once in the UK, investigate the tax and job situation. You could always go back if that is what you really, really wanted to do because you'd investigated life in the UK and decided it would definitely be the best move, right?

Hasten to add, I only said Mali because it is a north african state. It could easily be Egypt Morrocco Somalia or Burkino Faso who cares.

The issue is, she is in the shit.

Thanks for the replies. I don't think the specific country makes much difference either, and I'd rather not give any more identifying marks than I already have.

zzz, no I wouldn't contemplate staying here if we divorced. I would think about staying in the region - I have lived in Africa for work almost all my adult life except coming back to the uk with my son for the past two years.

In terms of timing, we are planning to go (all of us) to the uk in June, with H already coming back here before us. I think the least boat-rocking thing would be to wait until then, and just not come back. It save all the hassle of arousing suspicion, and buys time to make a plan for what next...

Sounds like a plan, zorra.

You might find some useful information here

Go and speak to your consulate/embassy they whould be able to help you and your son get back to the UK.

It feels like a plan. And it means I am not panicking, which is also good. For the time being, mine and DSs passports are locked in a safe in my office, and I notified the British embassy that we are here with a national spouse.

I know it seems as though I am emotionally disengaged, and I guess I am. He broke my heart so many times, I feel like all my anger, upset and misery has run out, and there's just a vacuum of nothing where my feelings for him were. I am terrified that I will never meet anyone else, that I will have fucked up my DS forever, and that I will never feel anything again. But I have to maintain the status quo until I get out - I can't fall apart here.

Honestly, you're not fucking up your DS. It sounds like you're getting him away from a pretty poor role model. A father who is nasty to the mother and isn't all that bothered with his son is confusing and distressing to a child. You're both going to be fine.

"Your son is a UK citizen so make sure you know where the nearest British embassy is in the UK"