Friend in need

[unclefred]

Hi, my wife's friend, who is married and has two children age 3 and 8 has been in abusive marriage for quite a while.

The husband takes drugs hard and soft (ongoing) and doesn't work (I think he is on disability for some reason) and is generally neglectful of his children. He has attacked her on a number of occasions. She has been saying she would leave him for years but has made excuses not to (needed to get passport (she's not British)), etc. Before Christmas he came home to find her with another a man and he ended up strangling her.

She didn't think she had any rights because of adultery. The mother-in-law (she has no family here) supported her son saying what she was doing in her husband's house was disgusting. (I told her to go to the police immediately but she never did.)

My wife and her friend went out for a night out in London and he was being absurdly paranoid. I understand it now she's at work and he's saying she can't come back to the house she's a gold-digger (they've been married for 10 yearsish btw) and just trying to take the house which I think was mostly paid for by an inheritance from the husband's father.

I think she isn't really aware of her rights and she's saying she just wants to leave forget the house leave the kids with him and she'd like to work and be able to see the kids when she wants to.

I believe she is likely clueless about the extent of women's rights in this country compared to her home country and she is likely to make a mistake, just wondering what she should do in the first instance.

She needs to speak to a reputable immigration advisor to get reassurance as to how her immigration status would be affected if she leaves him.

Thistledew I don't believe her immigration status is really in question, I was just explaining that she has said she would leave him for several years but was always finding reasons not to, 'last chances', etc.

I agree that she should not leave her children with him, I think she has been browbeaten by the husband and mother-in-law's propaganda about her being a gold-digger, which is really absurd tbh, and she says 'oh I will prove I'm not by just leaving the house', I'm not sure why she thinks she needs to justify herself to a mother-in-law who thinks it's ok to strangle your wife for seeing another man, but then I think there are some cultural issues. I will call her and get her to speak to Women's Aid, hopefully she will extricate the kids and then everything else can just wait really.

It may be relevant if she has gained her right to remain in the UK as her husband's spouse, because she may believe that she has to show that their relationship is still subsisting in order to qualify for further leave to remain. However, this need not necessarily be the case, as it may be possible for her to apply to remain in her own right as a victim of domestic violence. Fear of losing the right to remain in the UK is a powerful disincentive for non-British women to leave an abusive relationship. Women's aid should be aware of these issues and should be able to refer her to a sympathetic lawyer, if she needs it.

My understanding was that indefinite leave to remain (which she certainly would have after 8 years or more here) was precisely that, excepting if you left the country in the mean time.

unclefred- if she has indefinite leave to remain then she will not lose that, but neither would she be dependent on her husband to get a passport (she could get one three years after gaining indefinite leave in her own right rather than one year as a spouse).

The length of time she has been here would not necessarily mean she has indefinite leave to remain. It may be completely irrelevant to her situation, but also it may be something that is really worrying her and that she is anxious to reveal, even to her friends.

They have children and so she can stay, didn't thstcguy get to stay after running someone over because of his children?
Women's aid can help.

Honestly the immigration issue is just a red herring, that was a while ago I was just trying to illustrate that she was always finding reasons not to leave.

I spoke to her just now on the phone, I said that she is in a strong position and she shouldn't let her mother-in-law (previously she said to her when she complained about being hit by her husband 'well he said sorry afterwards didn't he?') and husband bully her, and she had a lot of rights.

She said she didn't want to be fighting with them she just wanted to do it nicely. I told her that her husband is a dickhead and that he's not going to change and if she goes a long with what he says she's going to end up in a poor position, because he's not going to agree to anything. She said she didn't want to go to court and she didn't want to ruin her husband's life by airing his drug problems in court and I told her it was all private.

She said she didn't want to ruin her children's life by taking them out of school, I told her she should call Women's Aid and she said she had but nobody answered.

I told her she should go home and leave with the kids when she got the chance, and she didn't seem keen on that so I said she should tell him that she's leaving and taking the kids with her. My wife pointed out to this that she doesn't have anywhere to go (she lives in Buckinghamshire).

I said that he's never going to change and that she needs to leave, but I doubt she will. She said she would go and see the CAB but I told her it was probably a waste of time.

My wife spoke to her this morning and she said that she'd asked my wife 'you won't hate me if I leave my kids with my husband?' (basically she's so reluctant to get in a confrontation with them that she seemed to think she would have to leave on her own and she asked me 'would I be able to see my kids every day?'; also she says she doesn't want to be thought of as a gold-digger, because that's what they were saying she was). Apparently what happened is after the last beating/strangling/whatever she told her husband that she was giving him a last chance. But when she went out with my wife a couple of days ago to London, she said she'd be back by lunchtime but actually it was 3pm and he got angry and asked who she'd met there and when she said nobody he didn't believe her and said she was a liar, and basically this precipitated him telling her to leave.