I’ve been so stupid

[Feithofnote]

‘D’P and I are not from the same country. We met four years ago in his country and have been together ever since. Separated only by work commitments that horrible period we all lived through …. Last year I took the plunge and moved in with him, albeit as best as I can without residency in his country. The relationship has progressed nicely and we are talking about getting married. All good.

On Monday, he sent me an email outlining his assets, what is owed and savings needed for the future. All fine, there was nothing here that I didn’t already know. He has a house, and he is leaving it to the children of friends of his as he has no children. No problem with this at all.

Now my situation. It is very complicated… I have a house in my home country, which my exh is living in. I was away for work and he had been evicted from his flat so I offered he move into my house in the meantime. It also meant that DC was not moved from pillar to post and stayed in his own environment. During this period, exh was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and is still living in my house.

i tried to get back on an even keel with exh as he was going through a terrible time, but he became highly abusive and very possessive - mainly the reasons for our split. Finally, last year, I had to cut ties with him as his texting went over the line into seriously dangerous territory. He is, however, still in my house as, no matter what an arsehole he is, he is dying.

so, back to my stupidity. During this declaration of assets at the beginning of the week, it dawned on me that absolutely no thought has been given by ‘D’P to what would happen to me if anything happened to him. I have tried very hard to build a life and integrate into his country and community, but it has dawned on me that he has not given one fuck about where I would end up if something happened to him.

Currently, it’s not about who he leaves the house to as I have my own house, it’s about the fact that he was happy for me to move into his home in a country quite far away from my own, with no regard to my security there. I just can’t get past this thought. I have mentioned it to him in an email, and he has gone silent, bar an email to say ‘I’m trying’. He’s trying what - I have no clue. This process is all currently exacerbated by the fact we are working with an 11 hour time difference so no real opportunity to call each other. I am also not minded to speak to him at the moment.

I feel so stupid. I feel so let down. Yes by him, but also by myself. I have scrapped so hard since my divorce to make something of myself to be independent - and I’ve given all that away for ‘love’. Sometimes I second guess myself and ask ‘is it really a big deal’, but I think it actually is. His life didn’t change in any way and he never once thought how mine was changing. WTF do I do now?

I’ve just seen 4 years, so how did a long distance relationship work if your youngest was - 14 - when you started the relationship?

YANBU
I wouldn’t be happy about it either.

@WhatADrabCarpet i have addressed those points

@knobheeeeed exactly - there is currently an 11 hour difference between us. We are both working away. We departed on the same day, he flew west and I flew east. Hence the time difference,

yes, I work predominantly in his country and, yes, I have no right to live there. The tourist side of the visa gives six months to be in the country. It is not garbled, it is factual. There is nothing to misunderstand.

It may be clear to you, but everyone else is trying to piece together the timeline, your children’s ages (and hence their ‘needs’ - eg you describe them as living independently but does that mean Financial independence with jobs?), your own residency security, your prospects for being able to stay, etc - we are only going by the information you are imparting. It strikes me that you grasped an opportunity for a fresh start and took it, and the longterm ramifications are only becoming clear now. Maybe you felt risk-free when you embarked on this journey, and now you the risk is dawning on you.

@MumblesParty check my previous posts for timeline. There is no dc living with their ‘dying father’. It’s incredibly irritating when posts are not read correctly and assumptions made.

@PortUmber not at all rushed. At least three years getting to know each other. After the abuse they witnessed from their father, they are happy that I am away from him safely.

a garbled, unclear, and incomplete op, followed by snippy responses when people understandably can’t make head or tail of what the op’s situation is or what they actually want.

it’s still not clear but I think the op has left children, one of whom has just started uni, to live with a bloke on another continent where she does not have the right to live, and is grumpy that said bloke isn’t providing for her in his will. Am I close?

I think one was starting uni four years ago, so possibly 22 now, and presumably other child is older?

Understood. I think I’m broadly there with everything else though apart from the children being young adults.

yes, I work predominantly in his country and, yes, I have no right to live there. The tourist side of the visa gives six months to be in the country. It is not garbled, it is factual. There is nothing to misunderstand.

OP THIS is confusing as you say you want security and also say if he died you’ve still live in this country where you work.
BUT - you only have the right to live there for 6 months so surely your ‘security’ comes from owning property in your home country which you could rent out if/when your ex no longer lives there.
AND you have a big inheritance. No wonder your boyfriend wants to get his own affairs in order as you have a lot and want more.

How are you working in the common country on a tourist visa?! Are you self employed? Where are you paying taxes?

Doesn’t your youngest child need a home for the uni holidays? Was his/her father abusive to them or to you?

TBH, this makes so little sense about how it’s his fault, how you don’t have the right to live there, how it’s his issues to resolve etc

It actually sounds like you are kicking off in the hope of forcing him to move to your country (which makes no sense as your job doesn’t exist there) or push him into getting married.

You say that you have only been separated by work and ‘that awful period we lived through’. I assume you mean covid. If you were separated during the pandemic, that’s a massive chunk of the last 4 years.

Yes you moved for him. But that doesn’t mean your security is only his issue. It’s more your issue and you should have had the discussion. Which is why your anger makes no sense. You were happy to live under the circumstances that you moved under, can’t work out why he should have known you had concerns that you never voiced.

You said you have no legal right to stay and a tourist visa is only for six months.
Your answers don’t make any sense.

check my previous posts for timeline. There is no dc living with their ‘dying father’. It’s incredibly irritating when posts are not read correctly and assumptions made

It's incredibly irritating when people post an OP which isn't clear at all, followed by several similar follow-up posts and despite several posters clearly not understanding what the OP wrote, the OP starts having a go at people for not reading correctly and making assumptions.

If you think you have expressed yourself clearly then maybe you need to have a think about your communication style because there are plenty of us on here who cannot make head nor tail or it and NO, there is not a clear timeline at all.

But this is on you. You’ve chosen to move lock, stock and barrel - including work - to a country where you have no legal right to remain. Are you even legally allowed to work as you are?

You cannot expect him to magically fix this, or to be angry at him for a situation of your own making.

I do t understand. How can you not speak to him due to 11 hour time difference? I thought you moved in with him?

My legal status to work is completely separate to the tourist visa. The visa has 2 parts - one for arriving with work papers, and the tourist element if you don’t have work papers. It is perfectly possible to leave after 6 months for a week and then get the next six months renewed.

@sheworemellowyellow he was abusive to the eldest and only abusive in front of the youngest.

@ProfessorXtra i absolutely have no intention of moving h8m to my home country. My exh, who would only leave my house under police escort, would track and stalk us relentlessly. This is the main reason I left to work abroad as I was sleeping in my car most nights as ex would camp outside my side each evening waiting for me to return from work. I had non molestation orders etc but he was only arrested when he ran me off the road. I would enforce his removal if a) he wasn’t now terminally ill and b) it wouldn’t become dc’s responsibility to take care of him. This is not how I envisioned my life to pan out.

to all the posters saying I’m getting ‘snippy’, the comments such as ‘you’ve abandoned your children, you deserve what you get’ are not only factually incorrect, they are hurtful. As I’ve done no such thing, do I now not deserve what I get?

I came on here looking for advice about my relationship, not a volley of ‘what about the children’, when I’ve endured this situation with exh FOR the children and never thought about myself. And, honestly, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for him to say king the event of something happening to me, you have 6 months in the house to sort yourself out’. I wonder if anyone realizes the effort that it takes to move to a new country and make a new life for yourself. It requires an enormous amount of effort and the idea of ‘just get on a plane and go home’ is not as simple as is sounds.

there are huge tax implications if I sold my house and bought one in his country, so that is not feasible.

i thought the idea of getting married was that you were partners in the future, not one person making all the decisions as they hold all the cards. The one thing I will do, however, is not throw my inheritance into the mix in its entirety. That would definitely be foolish

@TheFireflies there is no moving ‘lock, stock and barrel’. His country is mainly where I work. I have said many times I have a work permit for a very specific kind of work - which makes it legal for me to be there

So then you have the right to be there through work, you have the financial means to sustain this… what’s missing? Sorry, I’m still confused about what you expect your partner to do that you don’t already have the ability and means to sort out yourself.

@TheFireflies i have already said it twice. I want him to acknowledge that I have taken the risks.I want him to say ‘you can stay for x amount of time to decide what you want to do’. I don’t have the ability to do that

You've taken the risk by moving but it doesn’t appear on the surface that he was your only motivation. Your right to remain isn’t because of or reliant on him - it’s for your work. What would you have done for work if you’d not moved, given your work is there and your job doesn’t exist now in your original country?

In relation to staying in his house, this is something you both should have talked about before moving in with him, and not just his responsibility. There’s nothing to stop you bringing it up now, though, albeit rather late in the day. He mightn’t have thought about it, especially as you are self sufficient and not dependent upon him - I don’t tend to actively think about and plan for my death now I have a will in place.

You sound like hard work and, quite honestly, rather entitled.

Could he move to your country after ExH dies?

Your ex sounds dangerous and severely abusive, so I’m not sure why you’re helping him. Terminally ill or not you should’ve told him to get fucked. I wouldn’t have someone who’d treated me and my children like that living in my house. With regards to living in your BF’s house for 6 months if anything happens to him…just ask him? Start the conversation? I still don’t think he’s done anything wrong by not expressly offering it. From his POV you’re capable of sorting everything yourself as that’s what you appear to have done, and your primary motivation for moving seems to be your work rather than him? It sounds like it would be more helpful to ask your work for relocation assistance and sponsorship of a residency visa.

But why do you need him to do this?? Apparently you can stay in the country for work - so if he dies, take a few weeks to find yourself a rental. No?

Whatever the risks and the effort, you CHOSE this man and this country for your own reasons. It’s not like he asked you to move 6000 miles away, you have nothing to do there but he with him, don’t speak the language, have no life etc. You CHOSE to move for your work and this man just happens to live there. He doesn’t owe you anything in these circumstances. Further, you’re CHOOSING to marry this man for your own personal legal status in the country. That’s not the partnership of which you speak. It’s you making decisions for yourself.

Your stupidity lies in being totally confused (hence why your posts are so confusing), and probably much like you’re taking it out on your boyfriend for not having divined your worries and sorted them out for you, you’re taking the same confusion out on posters on this thread and getting terse and snippy with them. You’re dropping in bits of information here and there, getting shirty when people point out anomalies, and frankly it STILL does make sense. You have a dual work and tourist visa, tourist visa can be renewed every 6 months - why don’t you rely on your work visa? But you’re also getting married so that will get your status covered so why not buy a property of your own once you’re married? Won’t you be free to get a short term rental if you’re removed from his house? It’s not like if someone dies on a Monday you have to leave the house on a Tuesday or even the following Monday or the one after that. It all takes time.

Mostly though: if you have an 11hr time difference, why can’t you talk to him??? 10am/9pm, 11am/10pm, 7pm/6am. It’s one of the easiest time differences to handle.