Unemployed husband totally oblivious to my stress

[DeepViper]

My husband hasn't worked for more than three years. I am at the end of my tether with trying to get him to understand our financial situation and how stressed I am. We have two DC aged 11 and 10, one of which has special needs and needs significant care and I have to pay private special school fees. I am British but we live abroad.

I have seen a lawyer about getting a divorce but they advised I might need to pay him alimony given his long-term unemployment and I really can't afford this, already I am going into debt every month trying to cover expenses. We have downsized as much as possible. No car, smaller house, we rent, no assets. He cleaned out all our savings and he sold investments without telling me. I am absolutely distressed about making ends meet each month, not to mention our future. I am starting to hate him. He sits on the sofa all day and watches soap operas.

He tells everyone he's a stay at home dad, but he does nothing. Nothing at all. No cleaning, laundry, school admin, homework. I do it all. He refuses counselling. I have a good job but I work 60-70 hour weeks and can't take on a second job.

How can I get through to him and make him get a job? He refuses counselling. He's 51.

My only option is to take the kids and move home to the UK, but my lawyer advised against doing this without consent. when I mention it, he says absolutely not. And yet... he won't work.

I have spoken to his mother and his friends and they all tell me I should be more sympathetic to his situation because it must be tough for him. I am sorry but my patience has run out.

What on earth do I do?

I think you need some sound legal advice. My friend was working full-time while her husband was sitting on his ass. I did warn my friend that if she was to apply for divorce he could claim to be the children's main carer and he could end up staying in the marital house with her moving out. This is exactly what has happened. He also turned the children's opinion against her and she was and is a wonderful mum. My friend sees her eldest twice a year. He was a teenager when she filed for divorce and he took it really badly. It's been almost 10 years and it hasn't got better.

Is there anyway you could split the house into separate zones and avoid your husband as much as you can? It's not an easy situation. You can rationalise it by thinking you have 8 years to go before the end of your sentence (your youngest turning 18). Being married to a useless man is not a life sentence anymore.

Um...No

There in no "marital home" just a rental (casual) through a friend. OP should move out and get an official rental with DCs.

This is a lucky thing!

If you are referring to my earlier post regarding "a marital home" ... my friend and her useless husband were renting. I am not a lawyer however I do believe a rented house could be counted as " a marital home".

Not really since the OP could be court ordered to pay / contribute to his rent for a couple of years and this means there is no equity to split to let her argue he should take a lump sum instead.

The point I am making is that the husband could end up with the main custody of the children if he claims to be their primary carer. This is what happened to my friend. She had to move out and did not get 50-50 custody arrangement. He claimed it was in the best interst of the children to stay with the parent who had been providing the bulk of the childcare previously. Even though it was obvious to everyone who knew the couple his idea of childcare was to watch TV whilst the children entertained themselves. My friend lost out and she is an intelligent woman. I don't know the specifics. We fell out when she felt I wasn't doing enough to support her.

and @Kosenrufugirl yes. I see both points. However, I do not think there is even a formal contract or legal one. This is key.

ie DCS and OP could be made homeless tomorrow (in theory)
The relationship has broken down and so OP supporting herself and DCs. Sheis from overseas and has no family support. Husband has his family home to go to.

I am not a lawyer but have very recently been through a complicated internatonal divorce (am British but DC born here but married somewhere else) so I have a very fresh idea! Unfortunately.

I suppose OP could stop paying rent, get the family evicted and use this method to go separate ways with the husband. I am not sure how it will work out in practice though and whether she will be branded a reckless parents. OP needs sound legal advice. Also to take into consideration that a home spots team has a better chance of winning, statistically speaking. No one quite sure how it works but it does. OP is a foreigner. She needs to proceed with utmost caution, imo. No rush decisions.

She has her (minor) DCs and left the home as was stressed financially and emotionally and the marriage was over with her husband unable to support the DCs and was not in a stable rental with a contract and husband has somewhere to go (family) No need to pay the "rent", why?

She is absolutely protected from any funny business because of minor DCs.
Nothing bad will happen. Well, I was assured of this anyway. Infact, I was helped. I ended up with sole custody.

She is the responsible and reasonable one.

You can end up terrifying yourself with what ifs.
But it is likely to be as the first lawyer says. More or less. You just need a
proactive one and to move fast.

When I said DCs born here I meant my husbands country, where I still have to live. (Actually, I like it now!)
It is a very similar situation to OP in that respect.

Yes separate out the divorcing and the moving to UK. I think the moving to UK with husband consent (only lawful way to do it) may be a non starter and the UK is a bit crowded and I doubt special needs provision is very good so Australia may be better anyway even with the child having to move schools.

Also the children cannot necessarily move to the UK as I think they were born in Australia even with the mother born in UK - take immigration law advice about visas if husband agrees to move to UK (unlikely he will).

I think Australian and English law probably are similar with each favouring the lower earner - the man here but if that is not so in Australia then divorcing there may be best anyway.

Here in the UK I was keen to have a clean break (my husband wanted maintenance for life - he does work very hard indeed full time; we both do, but I earn more) so my ex got about 59% of our assets, not even 50% as I was buying out his maintenance for life claims AND he had no obligation to support the children and our order even said I had to pay university costs as I am the higher earner.

Good luck.

I think contact child services and telling them you feel you have two choices, abandon the children to child services or an non working, non contributing, abusive asshole who wouldn't mind them when you had an emergency visit home for your mothers death.
Tell them you are not on a rental contract and are leaving and want child services advice.

Put it on THEM.
Sometimes you have to be ruthless to get decent treatment.

Look for a one bed studio and tell him go home to his mother.
Start rdmoving stuff from the house, would someone take stuff for you?

Tell Child services you are going to abandon your children and possibly return to the UK as your mental health is suffering at his hands or they can help you.

I find it hard to believe they will want them abandoned by their mother and left to him.
Spell out that he does NOTHING for them.

Years ago my friends sister had a widowed neighbour mid 50's, with one daughter in her early 20's.

The poor neighbour had early onset dementia and services were putting it on her daughter to give up university and stay as her carer. She didn't want to give up university.

She stayed home at Christmas and wanted to go back to university but her mother was increasingly confused with leaving the front door open etc., so upsetting.

She called to my friends sister who told her to go stay nearby with friends and she would call an ambulance for her mum.

Ambulance arrived and the lovely medics found her confused and said she clearly couldn't be left alone.
She was admitted and her daughter was getting horrible calls until she blocked the social worker.

Eventually her mother was put into a nursing home and less that 12 months later she had passed, thats how fast it took her.
She was a lovely woman and wouldn't have wanted her young daughter being her carer.
Absolutely disgraceful that was what it took for her to get appropriate care and support.

My point it that sometimes you have to take ruthless action to move a situation forward.

Well i did! :) all via lawyers

How odd. You have to be resident in the country.

Functionally maintenance, for children or spouse is impossible to collect from another country, no matter what the law on it is.

..which is why for international divorces sometimes people will prefer a larger amount of the house equity as it may be hard to obtain maintenance if the higher earner spouse goes abroad, although in this case the mother probably does not want to move abroad without her children. I am not sure involving social services is wise too as that starts a process over which you have no control.

@DeepViper
I'd suggest you take advice on what the situation would be if you lived separately from your husband - so moved out locally with the children, stopped paying the rent on the marital home , and then just waited to divorce until the children are grown so there is no child support to pay. If you have been living separately for years and your husband wasn't financially dependent on you maybe there would be no alimony? It sounds like there aren't any assists to split anyway as he has spent your savings and inheritance

The husband might object to OP removing the children from their home. They are 10 and 11. They might be equally attracted to their dad

She could always say "come and get them", couldn't she? If he can't be bothered to do that, he really has no come-back.

He spent our joint savings, kids savings accounts and all the investments that we had. We both have our own superannuation/ pensions. I haven't received inheritance yet, I'm about to get some, my mum recently passed away and my dad is still alive and he is quite comfortable.

The issue isn't really about splitting assets (yet). It's that if I go ahead with separation or divorce, my lawyer advised I might have to pay for him to live a lifestyle similar to the one he has now. ie. I would need to cover his rent and bills. I know it sounds ludicrous but it's a possibility, and this is what I am getting a second opinion on. If I had the money I would absolutely do this to get rid of him, but my problem is I currently don't have any extra. Hence the trap.

I will be ok for money eventually. It's just that things are very tight at the moment, so I am exploring my options on how to improve and get out of this shit situation.

He has a supportive family who lives locally. This approach is a recipe for disaster in my opinion. Nothing good ever comes out of adversorial approach when children are involved. It just drags the matter on, costs a lot of money and children suffer. OP really needs to find a good lawyer and part company on amicable terms

Further to the earlier post... the husband might well mind being separated from his children.

He would object. He's a shit, non-existent husband to me and a lazy arsehole but he does love the children, even if he is useless. They're attached to him because he's their dad and he sits on the sofa and watches TV with them and he lets them watch iPads. At their age, that's a fantastic dad. I do want to try to be amicable, for their sake.

I gave an example of someone in U.K. who has to pay maintenance to her ex but that’s because he never worked. What was the lawyer’s justification for maintenance to a man who always worked until recently and just hasn’t bothered to get a new job?

Have you broached the idea of return to the U.K. with him?

I have broached the topic of moving home with or without him, and he always starts crying and says he will find a job, but then nothing changes. It’s like Groundhog Day.

The tears are a reason I think he’s depressed. But as I said before, he flatly refuses to see a doctor or counsellor. I do have sympathy for people who suffer depression or debilitating illness, but there is good medical care available here and he doesn’t take advantage of it. After 3 years I am done with feeling sorry for him.

To your earlier question, my lawyer said the family courts tend to take a dim view of able-bodied men who don’t work without a valid reason, but her warning was that I need to be careful as it could all go against me.