How to escape my marriage or should I just give up?

[queenofbaddecisions]

My life is a big mess right now and I'm afraid that it's not going to get any better. I left my h about a year ago, live abroad in his country. We have 2 dcs aged 2 and 4. I was happy for a while as I was free from what felt like a draining and controlling relationship but now I feel very low. I desperately want to leave this country but am still waiting for the first court hearing for the divorce and he can stall and make it drag out for years. The chances of me being able to return to the UK in the near future are very slim but I am finding it almost impossible to function here now, I really don't think I can carry on with my job and life here beyond this summer.

He says he is still in love with me and he wants to just be with me and the children. He is saying he will move abroad and will let me move back home while he sets up a life for us in another country (he wants a fresh start away from his or my family). He wants to have marriage counselling first to build up trust as at the moment he thinks I will try to take the children back to the UK and shut him out.

I am wondering whether to either try and do this for the sake of the children, they love him and he is very good with them. Or to go along with it and fake it so that I can get back to the UK and then just stay there and never join him where he goes to.

If I stay here, I think I'm in danger of falling into a deep depression and my worry is that then I'll have my children taken off me as I'm an unfit mother. Being in limbo is driving me crazy. If I go through the courts I will most probably get sole custody and I can try to fight a case to move to the UK without his agreement if he won't agree (which he probably won't).

He says that we are his whole life and he has no interest in moving on or accepting this situation. I don't love him and I don't want to be with him but I am at the point that I would do virtually anything to get out of this place as soon as possible.

I am at the point that I feel like maybe just killing myself would be the best solution all round. I am utterly exhausted and hopeless. I told him today I am feeling depressed and I don't think I can keep going like this much longer and he responded with his usual amount of empathy telling me that my solution is always to try and leave the place I'm in. This is after 6 years of living in his shit hole of a country.

So what do I do? Fake a reconciliation to get away and then leave him again? Or fight the slow dragged out legal battle and possibly lose my mental health along the way? Or am I just going to magically fall back in love with him if I give him another chance?

This all sounds horribly difficult for you. I can only tell you what I would do and I'm sure many won't agree - but I'd fake it till I could get to the UK and then deal with things from here. You don't say what country you're in as that might have a bearing on how to proceed - I don't know. I hope you find the solution soon.

Another vote for faking it here as court outcomes can rarely be predicted with any certainty and the emotional toll of the proceedings, to say nothing nothing of the cost, would be sufficient to inspire me to become an award winning actor.

Killing yourself is most certainly not 'the best solution all round' when you have dc to consider and the devastating effect your premature death by your own hand would have on them - they'd always wonder why you didn't love them enough to put their needs before your selfish desire to take the easy way out, and they may conclude that they're not lovable or not worthy of love which could have a disasterous effect on their future wellbeing.

I know killing myself is of course not the best solution for the kids and would never do that. It just feels like a desperate situation and I worry constantly about the effect on them about everything.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Do you have the dcs passports and the means to convey them and yourself to a neighbouring country where you are unlikely to be impeded if getting a flight back to the UK, and do you have family hee who could temporarily house you until you get on your feet again?

Yes I have those things but I would still be breaching the hague convention by doing so.

Perhaps you could talk to eg Women's Aid, police dv team, while you're here?

Is your h abusive as well as controlling? I know that sound like a contradiction in terms, but I'm trying to get a clearer picture of what has taken place in your relationship in order to give you a more considered opinion.

Also, am I correct in assuming that your dc weren't born in the UK? If so, do they have dual nationality with the UK and their country of birth?

If I were you and I had the means I'd get back here as soon as I could, and then enlist the help of every channel I could and take my legal chances.

Btw depression doesn't mean you'd get your kids taken off you as a given. Or I - and plenty like me - would have lost our kids.

How are you lovely?

do whatever you have to do to get yourself and your kids away from him and back home. Try to have good legal council so you will know the outcome of your choices. Take sole custody and go!

The Hague Convention forbids a parent to take the children out of the country of their habitual residence (not necessarily the country they were born in) without the other parent's permission. OP, be mindful of this. Are you talking about European countries? Would your husband not move to the UK with you?