Husband abandoned me and two kids by text message and emigrated to New Zealand

[Cleme]

It has been a difficult time. Two weeks ago my husband of 17 years abandoned me and my two children, 9 and 13. He did this by text message when we were walking back from swimming. It was 4 days before ny daughter's birthday. Just writing this makes me feel appauled by his behaviour.

He has gone to New Zealand to start a new life with a woman he met online. He met her a few years ago but only met her last October in person for the the first time. He told me he had been offered a work opportunity and went for 10 days. I thought it was a bit odd but I didn't question it. I always trusted him. I always supported him in what he wanted to do.

When he came back he told me he was leaving me for this woman. I pleaded with him to stay. In the end he did. He promised to cut contact. I thought he had but he never did. Behind my back he applied for a job out there and arranged his visa and medical.

I thought we were working through things. We went on holiday over the summer, had a good time.

The last few years have been a bit tricky. His mother died from cancer this year after a long illness. He has been drinking heavily and on the sly.

I am so desperate for me and my children. I did love him very much. How can I get over this and move forward. At the moment I can't get out of a constant doom-loop of no sleep, crying and messaging him.

Jesus a divorce and/or an affair is one thing, but moving 10,000 miles from your own kids in the process? Sounds like a sociopath. There’s being a bad parent/father, and then there’s just not giving the slightest shit for your own kids who you’ve been raising/living with for more than ten years! Could there be a mental health/brain impairment aspect or is he really just that low?

Just going to put this out there....as someone who's suffered a brain injury and nearly died...a brain injury doesn't equate into turning someone into a nasty, selfish asshole!! This man, and I use the term loosely, had planned all this prior to having his accident. So, this situation has bugger all to do with having a brain injury! Some people, yes, they suffer a complete personality change after a brain injury. That's not something that happens to everyone. He's used his accident to 'reassess his life' as an excuse to justify what he knows is a shit thing to do to his family.

He's done a reverse Taika Waititi. Try and imagine yourself in 5 years, when all the dust has settled and you've taken back control. You can do this.

My father did something like this when I was 12, but in reverse - we were living in the UK after coming here after years of my mother being a 'trailing spouse', following around what were then called 3rd world countries for his work (not military).

My mother is Australian, both myself and my younger brother were born there after they moved back there from the UK when my older brother was 6 months old.

After a visit from my Australian grandmother during the summer, my father suddenly became very keen for us all to move back to Oz...which was weird because the reason he'd started working abroad in the first place was because he disliked Oz so much...he'd even refused citizenship when it was offered after living there for 7 years. So to move back he had to apply for a new visa - the arrangement was that if it didn't come back in time, myself, my brothers and my mother would fly out to Oz first and my father would join us as soon as it did.

Literally on the day we were flying my mother found out it was all a lie - his passport arrived in the morning and my father confessed that he had lied about giving notice at his job, and had in fact arranged new accomodation for himself in the UK for after we'd left! (looking back now my mother is pretty sure he was having an affair with a work colleague and was moving in with her). He was going to wait until we'd arrived back in Oz to tell my mother he wasn't coming, he was staying in the UK. My Australian grandmother was very wealthy and he knew that she wouldn't have let us all starve/be homeless!

What makes a bad story even worse is that even after my father confessed all of the above, my mother still stayed with him! We did move back to Oz, had a very miserable 18 months there until we came back to the UK. 9 years later, 6 months after my younger brother turned 18, my father left my mother for another woman. That was 35 years ago and he's still married to the other woman...

To be honest, I wish my father's plan had succeeded. It would have been horrible at first, but at least myself and my brothers would have been back in our home country, settled, and my parents wouldn't have been living a lie for 9 years. My mother was still young enough that she could have made a good new life for herself .

Omg he sounds like an utter pig! And at some point you will reach a better headspace and see that.

The first thing you need to do to start the healing process is stop making excuses for him - almost everyone goes through grief at some point in their life but it does not excuse transforming into an arsehole.

I know you still love him and it’s very difficult currently, but if he came back it would not be the same again. You would spend the rest of your days treading on eggshells around him in fear that he was gonna fuck off again in the blink of an eye. You deserve far more peace than that.

What a cunt bag

All of this about the work visa.

He won't be able to work - he isn't qualified as a teacher and he would need to have a job offer to go to. Even then, his visa would be limited.

He will be back at some point, because the NZ government will not allow him to stay.

What a shit

There's another thread on here where a man had a 2 month affair and the OP has ended the 40 year marriage (I'm in total support of her) and she pointed out that people who cheat - they go deluded. Like thinking the ex and the next will be friends etc. This sounds like that.

I'm really fucking angry at your bastard of a "husband" for doing this. If I ever meet a man in real life and find out he's acted in this way, I'll spit on them.

Are you managing to eat? Ready meals etc?

I wonder if he planned this for years, but waited until after his mother died before leaving

Stay strong OP. It may get worse before it gets better, but you'll get through this

Agree with PP, perhaps try to nail down financial settlement ASAP while he still feels guilty and hasn't yet got financial commitments in New Zealand

Are you 100% sure he is in New Zealand? I would start by changing the locks, just in case. Even if he is would his family come after any possessions?

If his name is on the house deeds (is yours?) then make sure you get notifications from the Land Registry https://www.gov.uk/guidance/property-alert

The NZ child support system only seems to apply if a child is in, or was born in, New Zealand. https://www.justice.govt.nz/family/paternity-and-child-support/child-support/

You should be prepared for him to be increasingly difficult over money as NZ is expensive. Your solicitor needs to get you the equity in the house. As the family home he cant make you sell it until the children are 18 but he may stop paying the mortgage, you need to look for full time work as soon as you are up to it.

No words bad enough for him.

Gosh these men are real shithouses aren’t they.

Yes I also agree about sorting finances asap before he buggers off to his idyllic life. When I posted earlier in the thread about my exh doing similar I omitted to say I let him off the hook financially and he paid an insulting tiny amount. It wasn’t my intention to let him dodge his responsibilities . I was shell shocked at him walking out on a toddler and small baby to pursue a new life thousands of miles away and it took a while for me to think straight. He was slippery enough to dodge all responsibility and I just didn’t have enough fight in me.

C’mon Cleme stay strong, we’re all behind you 💪

You will look back in years to come and thank god that he did it, because even though it's painful now it's far better than your kids growing up with an alcoholic and the ongoing pain and suffering of that on them.

And given everything he's done, the vast majority of men out there are an upgrade.

I agree with the people saying don't trust him on the mortgage thing.

Keep posting here. The posters here are lovely and helped me through similar when my shithouse DH upped and left.

I cannot even believe there are so many women with stories like the OPs. :(

I would be very very surprised if he wasn't a narcissistic or at least self-centred person prior to this action. Not to come at all creatives, I am one, but my guess is that in his head he's a kind of romantic artist hero who can't live an ordinary life with kids in the burbs and you are spoiling his main character plot by asking him to do things like have a job, look after the kids and do the housework.

You cannot reason with this madness, and it is madness. My dad did similar and admits now he did it all for sex which is quite tragic. Can't undo it though.

You sound clever, insightful, resourceful with ace children. I don't see you so much as relying on your children for support, more that they are caring and reaching out as they realise you have all, collectively, been treated very very badly. I mean, who leaves their own children for the other side of the world. They will need a lot of support from school, agencies, private therapy going forward as well as this is a very deep type of rejection.

You will be ok as a family unit. Him, not so much, but just leave him to his selfish fantasies. My guess is that he's always been a bit selfish and now he's got a chance to display it in full and it's quite grotesque. Do all the sensible admin stuff everyone is suggesting and you will go on to have a happier life,

This is true. A head injury can cause a personality change affecting impulse control and can cause aggression. It also increases the risk of dementia in later life.
So sorry @Cleme that you and your DC have been treated this way. What an appalling man. He should be ashamed of himself. What has his family said to you?

The OP has said he’d got all his plans in place pre the accident 🙁

This man was planning his getaway and new life from before the brain injury. He booked the tickets, faked what he was doing, and then, as soon as he was well enough again, put his plan into action.

This is not just about his brain injury, although it may be that has long-term consequences for him too.

If he comes back, blaming his brain injury, see through it for what it is- a pack of lies! He was lying for months before this. What a deeply unpleasant man.

I mean this gently but you sound really patronising.

Yes, and me-railing! Other posters personal sharing is at least relevant, but what you've taken from pps nightmare is to share you 'don't like dogs' ?!

OP I am sure every PP is keeping you in their thoughts.
Apart from what he’s done to you as a wife, to do that to your own children, to look back without a glance, to have planned it all. It’s cruel beyond contempt.
He has let you look after him. He knows your parents are elderly.
This ‘man’ is living in a fantasy world. He wants to escape real life by running away to do his paintings, with a woman he wants to save from herself. Wait until they are both pissed and he’s had enough and then he will be under threat. All under the watchful eyes of two teenage kids he’s not the father to.
There is another thread on here of a lady who has just been left and is in absolute shock. Her ‘DH’ has basically blamed her because he wants to bog off with a woman locally. He’s introduced them without the wife knowing who she was. The OW had employed their daughter as a babysitter. It’s almost blood-curdling in a parallel universe. Again, she has teenagers and this man is running from real life.
I am not disrespecting anyone when I say that the way this woman has been speaking to a man on the other side of the world about suicide - it’s just a tactic to draw someone in. Just as the threats will start when she’s not happy with him.
It is horrific for you but you have two wonderful children who are your greatest gift. You still have your parents. You can rebuild your life and live it with true meaning.
Any relationship built in secret using manipulation never ends well.
But your story will be different. And everyone on here will keep cheering you on.
(Just to note I have personal experience of suicide as a genuinely horrific outcome, and also seen it used as a weapon to control. I genuinely feel heartsore for anyone who has been suicidal or been touched by suicide).

Oh my days, there are knobs and there are knobs with bells and whistles on - and then there's your husband.

Even if he stayed I'm sure you'd agree that trust is lost and without trust there's no relationship. Go let him pursue his mid-or-whatever-age life crisis. I'd bet a pound to a penny he regrets his decision within months.

Much love to you x

Personally, and I know this is hard, I would cease any communication with him other than that in relation to finances and that would be through a solicitor only. He chose to walk away, not only from you, but his children. He deserves nothing but your scorn. He clearly had no consideration for the families emotional wellbeing and not only has he left the house but presumably he has left the country.

When he ceases to know what is happening with his kids, it will make or break him.

All this sounds simple but it will be very hard to do and my heart goes out to you.