The Expat’s Tale: “I’m a stuck mum”
Last week a visitor to the blog read my post about Payne v Payne (Leave to remove a child: what about the parents left behind?) and contacted me with her story. This reader married an overseas national and moved to another country. After her marriage broke down, the court in that country refused her permission to relocate with her children. Describing herself as a “stuck mum”, she is keen to make contact with parents who are in similar circumstances. With her permission, I am sharing her story here.
On the blog this week, we are going to look at the fraught subject of relocation in more detail. We will be examining external relocation (leave to remove from England and Wales) and internal relocation (within England and Wales). When one parent wishes to move away with the children, there are no easy answers. In different countries, different rules and priorities apply. Compare this reader’s experience with that of a father in a case recently heard by the Court of Appeal. It is often impossible to reach a solution that satisfies all parties.
“I’m a stuck mum”
I am, I believe, one of a great number of women who have been trapped by family court decisions. My relationship with an overseas national fell apart, and now I live in a remote area of the world (let’s call it “Faraway Land”) where I have no family or support system.
I have two children from a previous marriage, who have always lived with me. I met a new partner, a native of Faraway Land, and we had a baby. My partner informed me that in his home country, life was safer, healthier and more family-friendly. He also persuaded me that if we moved there, it would be to our financial advantage.
In retrospect, the relationship already had a few cracks in it. I also believe that he may have wanted to improve his prospects of winning custody of his own child, a toddler at the time, by being able to draw upon his own legal and financial system, which he knew well.
We moved to Faraway Land, to a rural area, and for a couple of years we shuttled the older two children back and forth between their biological father and their new stepfamily. However we soon ran into debt as it was simply not an affordable scheme. The cost of living was much higher than at home. My older children and I found it difficult to settle in, and my relationship with my partner deteriorated. It was a clear flop. We just wanted to go home.
My partner dug his heels in. He refused to take any actions to sell up and return, then informed me that Faraway Land had jurisdiction because our child had lived there nominally longer than in the child’s country of birth. He demanded that the arrangement continue as it was. I tried to find local accommodation, but ended up in a women’s refuge, having left him the house and car so that he could find a job.
I consulted a few lawyers, one of whom told me that despite the circumstances, I had a four per cent chance of being permitted to relocate. This was due to my older children being of an age to make a decision, and the youngest too young to do so. In this country, the parent who wishes to relocate is first asked by the judge and also the court psychologist whether he/she will stay with the child if denied relocation, even when the reasons for wanting to return are good. An answer of “no” is often taken to be proof of a lack of care for the child, resulting in the child being handed over to the non-relocating parent.
The lawyer who took my case was not the one I should have picked, as he never had much time and he was not clear in his communication with me, but he was recommended by someone I liked and trusted and all the other lawyers in town were busy.
I was panicking at this point. None of us wanted to live here, but seemingly we would be forced to do so anyway. The ladies at the women’s refuge told me to “do a runner”, so that I would at least have a few years left to enjoy my children’s youth before I was dragged back to Faraway Land by the Hague [Convention]. I thought this would be illegal and decided to play with a straight bat, as my lawyer recommended. I encouraged my child’s relationship with his father and tried to keep things as civil as possible despite our pain and panic. Ultimately my good behaviour didn’t matter in court, but I know women who did do runners and who were pulled back to Faraway Land by the Hague [Convention].
It took almost three years just to obtain a decision, such was the bureaucracy. My child’s father’s lawyer regurgitated all manner of concocted and irrelevant assertions, in an effort to cast aspersions on my parenting. No evidence of anything was offered. Only accusations and mud. All my evidence remained in stacks and files in my lawyer’s office, never introduced either in affidavits or in court.
The half-siblings did not matter to the court. I was blamed for the financial problems, for being “disorganised in my finances”. This, despite the fact that I had managed my own business at home for 30 years without a hitch. Their dislike of living here and their stepfather’s treatment of them were dismissed as no longer relevant. So while the mother (myself) and other children did not want to stay in Faraway Land, the father played his home advantage. I was denied leave to remove my youngest child. I found I could not convey the tragedy and causality of our situation in court. I was of the impression that they wanted to rush the case through because of their backlog and the amount of time it had already dragged on.
My child’s father made a big deal out of my son’s grandparents being very available to him, one of the benefits of our child staying in Faraway Land. Yet he barely saw them at all, and rarely mentions them. They have since moved out of the area.
The proceeding felt like an anti-relocation farce to me. This didn’t seem to be about “families” at all – it was a simple belief that all one child needs in order to be happy is the isolation of two parents in a status quo situation. It is a very simplistic formula, being applied to one complex case after another, just to move them through an inefficient court system.
My child’s father won shared parenting, and we don’t know when we will be able to go home. Ever? Soon? Next year? When my youngest child turns 16 and the others are all grown up? This process itself is abusive of families. We can’t make any longer-term decisions about any of our lives while pinned down to a place where no one actually wants to be, and the provisional misery being generated cannot be good for this child. The courts are pinning us down like butterflies on corkboards and saying, “this is how we will create stability for this child”.
I have struggled with the debt left by the marriage, the loneliness and the high cost of living. The recession is awful here, and citizens of Faraway Land have been fleeing to healthier economies. We don’t even have the freedom they have to do this! One of my older children lives with his biological father in our home country, and homesickness is the overweening flavour of our household. This is not good for anyone, including my youngest child who is the object of the case.
I have held it together, working like a maniac to stay afloat. I co-parent, am pulling myself out of debt, studying, caring for my children. But genuine emotional cracks started to develop after the court permitted us to return home for a visit. This visit was made after years of being prevented from leaving Faraway Land. Home was everything I remembered it to be. Family, friends, natural beauty, emotional warmth, comfort, ease, stimulating activities, inexpensive living… It was glorious. My youngest child loved it there as well, and he has uncles, an older brother, similarly-aged cousins to play with and no lack of male role models and relatives, unlike here. We could own our own home and not be bumped from rental to rental.
It was terrible returning to Faraway Land after this visit. Now I am living day to day, unwilling to jeopardise my professional work by going on anti-depressants. I was told by local doctors that anti-depressants are a “solution” to which many unhappy expats resort, whether they are stuck due to children or some other reason.
I have spoken to so many other women in the same situation. In one case the mother had to “import” her own mother from the UK on a humanitarian visa just to have family nearby, she was in so many bits due to the decision.
My youngest child deserves to experience the culture he was born into, for at least part of his childhood, so he can make an informed decision as a teen about which society he prefers to live in as an adult. His remaining sibling and mother both want to be home. It is all the harder for me to have two other children affected by this case as the years drag and drag. It is not about just the youngest. It is harming my mother, my other kids, other people back home who want to be a part of our life, to help and be helped by us – and cannot because we can’t make any long-term plans!
I perceive that the vision of families in the courts these days is not an organic one, and the judges are not weighing enough factors in making their decisions. They are focusing on the child-made-happy-with-status-quo-and-two-parents formula and decreeing unnatural, stressful situations to try and bring a dead fairytale to life for that child, whose world has already irrevocably changed with the splitting-up of his parents.
Image credit: Orin Zebest.
|
Share this post
|
Get free family law updates
|
Marilyn Stowe’s new book: expert advice on all aspects of divorce, for just 99p!
Divorce & Splitting Up by Marilyn Stowe is the essential how-to book for anyone who is getting divorced or splitting up from a partner. Read more >>
"A must buy that really opens your eyes to what is involved if you are considering or going through a divorce." - Amanda Brown
"This will answer your questions in a way that non-lawyers can understand." - Miss P.
"This really has helped me to see that there is light at the end of the tunnel and I will come out of it a stronger person." - J
Awards
IAML
22 Comments
Sara Lawrence on April 12, 2011 at 5:14 am
Very well expressed. The same thing happened to me in Faraway Land and I had to wait until my children were 18 to find work in the Middle East. I brought all of us here on a free ticket from my employer and have been working very hard to afford to get my children back to our home country, where they have always wanted to be. Three yrs have passed and they are finally there and enrolled in community colleges, working and building their new lives. It has been extremely hard for them to slot back into the culture they were born into and wanted to be a part of. They just have no points of reference. I am finding life here difficult as well now that they are gone. i am an older mother and have suffered a small stroke. I miss them a lot and can only keep working here until I can save enough money to go ”home”. I haven’t been able to go home for 16 yrs. I really need to stay here until I hit 65, when Medicare will cover my health expenses. Only 7 more yrs to go. Sigh. Had I known that all this would be the result of letting my foreign husband convince me to go to Faraway Land, I would have run like hell 21 yrs ago.
Chambers on April 14, 2011 at 12:11 pm
2 children from the mothers previous marriage were dragged to ‘faraway land’ because of the mothers wishes. I don’t suppose these children’s father had much of a say in this mothers decision to transport them from their school, friends, crucially their father and other family.
Then the mother wants to do the same again with her new child by moving back and thereby terminating/severely limiting another child’s relationship with their father.
The children who were dragged to ‘faraway land’ and who had to make the best of it and may have settled, then had their mother decide to move countries again.
It’s not rocket science to understand that the mother is only focussed on her wants and not what is best for the children.
The ‘faraway land’ court should be commended for its good sense in stopping the merry go round of the child/ren being moved from pillar to post by a parent who is primarily interested in her own wishes.
Lukey on May 5, 2011 at 4:17 am
Chambers may come over a tad harsh, but it is a hard position to argue with, when adults are continually screwing up their lives and the lives of their children it is hopeless to expect any court to ‘make it all better’ for everybody
Amanda on January 19, 2012 at 2:25 pm
I too find myself in a situation where i feel trapped in a country which is not my own, using a lauguage which is not my own, coping with the burocracy of this far away country. My husband decided that he would “put his firewood in other bonfires” as he kindly explained his actions, and that i was no longer of use.
After giving up my job as a teacher to look after my children i now find my self stuck and unable to work or return to the UK where i have family, friends and job prospects. Here i can not return to teaching as the timetable would mean my ex husband would have our children every evening and if this happened he would ask for custodity, saying i was not caring for them. With the custodity i would also loose the right to the house where we now live and if i wanted to be with my children i would have to rent and work all hours of the day to see them alternate weekends.
My children are now 12 and 10, i dont know when i will ever be able to return to the uk . Depresion and low self esteem follow. My life i live for my children while my ex husband enjoys his job, family, friends, and social life and plans for the future. My plans are only based around my children, surviving with little money, concious of a better life i could offer them but knowing i am not allowed to, because my ex husband has so decided. I see my life as holding out physically and mentally until the decision of my children can be taken into account, and then perhaps we can all get on with our lives.
I don´t want to take my children away so they never see their father again and I am more than willing that they spend their holidays as long as they wish in his country. Which when comes down to numbers is aproximately one third of their time. What I do need is the freedom to start my life again, i came here for this man and now i have been left by him and yet i have still to stay here and do whatever he wishes.
Probably the men who what to see their children all the time do not understand this however i do wish they would put themselves in the ex spouses situation and consider what they would do themselves.
Deidre on February 17, 2012 at 7:53 pm
Amanda, our situations are really similar. I’m in the middle of the court case right now, trying to get permission to return home to the UK with my 2 children from Italy. We are all English, we moved out here 3 years ago. I ended up leaving their dad because he’d developed a drink problem. Then I went out to work but when I saw the children suffering because they weren’t seeing me enough, I went very part time, but then couldn’t afford rent, bills etc. My ex refuses to give me any money from our house, and because we weren’t married and my name wasn’t on the deeds it might be complicated to get anything back. The long and short of it is I can’t afford to stay here. And also I don’t have any “reason” to stay.
If I don’t get work, there is a benefits system to “catch” us. I’ll be closer to friends and family, and be able to bring them up to a decent standard of living.
Of course their dad claims they should stay here with him, even if I can’t stay. He claims they have their whole lives here and to change would be harmful for them. He also claims it’s “nearly impossible” for him to return to the UK due to the economic climate, so the court would be depriving the children of their father.
I’m told he has a strong case and there’s a good chance the judge (an older man) will take his side. I’m really scared, as I can’t live off the loans of family and friends for much longer. I no longer have a job, and still must pay rent etc. I receive only 84 euros a month from the Italian social security.
If my children are separated from me I’m scared that my ex will start drinking heavily again (he’s stopped for the court case). My daughter (4 years) and son will grow up without the daily love and practical care of their mum. And of course it would break my heart.
This is the most stressful thing I’ve ever experienced. But at least until the court declines my application I still have hope. I can’t imagine what it must feel like to be told “no the children must stay”, knowing that you must go.
I can’t believe I’m in this position but there must be thousands of mums and maybe dads out
there like me/ us. Are there any specific blogs out there other than this one? It would be great to be in contact with other people in the same situation…
Amanda on February 28, 2012 at 10:48 am
hello Mary
I would love to start a facebook page or a blog about this. I feel like we are the silent few that for one reason or another have to give up the rest of our lives to be with out children knowing we could do better else where.
Perhaps some one out there can let us know if there is something already up and running.
I hope it all works out for you, i dont think anyone can know how this feels til they go through it.
Ive posted this page on facebook and you can get in contact with me if you want. xx
Amanda.
andrea on March 5, 2012 at 3:20 am
FYI the father in Payne v Payne still enjoys contact with his daughter including phone and email contact and his daughter visits the uk annually
s.mum on March 10, 2012 at 7:45 am
I’m the mum in the first story above, and my own husband’s cannabis growing and abuse (among other things, including my father-in-law’s behaviour with my daughter and husband’s employment reluctance) were left out of the story above. As were his claims to be a qualified accountant. By the time our case came up in front of a court, he had gone off drugs, and his contribution to getting us in the sad situation we were in, were of no interest to the judge. My lawyer warned me that if I were “negative about the father” that it would go against me.
Mary on March 19, 2012 at 4:08 pm
Hi Amanda, I’ve looked on Facebook but can’t find it! So I’ve just started up one called “Expat stuck mums” – hope you can all join. It’s an open group. But perhaps we should start a blog or forum, it might be more inclusive? I think us stuck mums (and family and friends) need a way to communicate, for sharing important legal information and giving emotional support. Like you say, no-one can really understand what it’s like until you’re in this situation. Hope to be in contact with you all soon
Jane on March 19, 2012 at 11:29 pm
https://www.facebook.com/ExpatStuckMums
online on March 20, 2012 at 10:54 pm
Those of us who have court cases going on for years, with the exes and their lawyers taking notes on everything as ammo for the mudball fights, would be served best by a private discussion group.
Arosdra on April 3, 2012 at 4:30 am
I would like to make contact with expat mums in Australia, but I too don’t think the facebook page is the best way.
Ruth Mcauley on April 6, 2012 at 8:35 pm
Please pass on my details, I am from New Zealand and miss my homeland and live here because of my child.
Name Witheld on May 31, 2012 at 8:36 am
I’ve been through the family court wringer in New Zealand applying to relocate with my daughter back to the UK. I went to hell and back and then some.
I understand how awful it is, especially when you are alone and a million miles from home and support when you need it most.
I felt, and I believe many other share the same experience, that the courts immediately put you on the back foot for wishing to relocate and change your child’s status quo. However I believe my reasons were very reasonable- I simply wished my daughter to have a better life as I think most parents naturally do. I wanted to move back home to the UK for familiarity, family, friends, support network, better job opportunities, more affordable living and better financial security to offer my child. The courts used all sorts of things against me, and glossed over the father’s negative points (they there were some major concerns, such as pot smoking, being abusive, and being work shy) supporting their own citizens. I looked bad in the courts eyes for evening mentioning these things and I felt I’d have more chance of a successful relocation if I just shut up about that. New Zealand prefer the “friendly” approach to relocation. However you are damned form the beginning, eventually I realized that I would never be granted permission to relocate back to the UK with my daughter. I clearly stated that I did not at all want to cut out my daughter’s father from her life. Quite the opposite, I wouldn’t have moved to NZ in the first place if I didn’t want my daughter to have a father. I generously offered him 4 holidays per year in NZ and UK and a computer and internet service to keep in regular touch and I would foot the bill for all of that. It’s not ideal, but when 2 parents are from different countries it’s the best solution I could come up with. The father said no, that he will have our daughter full time and I can come and visit her. I am not a bad person at all, I’m a normal regular mummy. I would understand it if I had some terrible flaw, like being on heroin or something like that, but I’m not like that at all!
My daughter was born in the UK and I was never married to her father. We were together for a year and a half while we both lived in the UK. We moved to NZ when our daughter was 6 months old. I knew early on I wasn’t happy in NZ, and there was none of the father’s family nearby either, they all live 6 hours drive away. I was feeling isolated and depressed, with little work opportunity. I have previously had a lucrative career in the UK and my aim was to replicate that in NZ, but unfortunately after exhausting every avenue it was not happening. My ex asked me to give it another year, which I did. So by the time I had completely made up my mind to return home to the UK we had been living there for 2 years. At the point of applying for relocation I thought “2 years, whoop-de-do”, the courts can clearly see that we’ve never settled here? No, they didn’t!
I spent 2 years going through an agonising and expensive court process, enduring further abuse from the father and felt like I was living in hell. I was advised by my lawyer that to apply for a protection order in NZ would put me out of the running for relocation as the judges view that as a barrier to relocation, so I had no choice but to suffer on thinking of the long term goal, to get back home. I bent over backwards to be nice to the father, to try and make things as comfortable as possible, but things got worse and worse.
By the end of 2 years fighting twice in the courts for relocation, it was clear that the courts were not in support of my daughter relocating back to the UK anyway!
I was ill, skinny, messed up, a shell of my former self. I was permanently run down. I knew I couldn’t take any more. I felt like I was going to die within a year. That is no way to be a good parent to your child, my child was suffering because of my anguish. And I felt the awful conflict between my and the dad would never cease, it would only get worse. That’s no good for a child to see. Such a contrast to the happy day she was born and my excited hopes for her future, ones that I thought her dad shared too.
I returned to the UK with my child end of 2011, my father was ill and consequently died. Despite this I started to feel happier, being back home and feeling for the first time in years safe. I could see an attainable future again. My daughter was also the happiest she’d been in years and we maintain regular phone and skype contact with her dad. In NZ it was living in permanent limbo, and having to run every life decision past the father, you lose your human right to autonomy in so many ways, and an abusive man uses the courts to gain more control. I knew that I couldn’t return to NZ in my heart and health. Her father applied through the Hague convention to have our daughter returned to NZ and was successful. All those clauses in the Hague convention (clause 13 b regarding grave risk of harm to the child) mean nothing. No matter how depressed I had been feeling in NZ and the knock on effect that had on my daughter the fact that we’d had shared care and he was willing to have her full time meant that was no defence. The abuse we’d suffered wasn’t bad enough, and they advised that NZ could sort out a protection order upon our return, they can’t do that before you leave. I have found out each country interprets 13 b differently, and even in very serious high end abuse, the Hague policy is to return the child to the other country and to get the social services of that other country to intervene. Who would want to live in the other country under a protection order when you can live in your home country and feel safe?
Sadly I had to let my daughter go back with her dad recently. She is only just 5. She was ripped from my arms crying and screaming and saying quite clearly that she wanted to stay with me. Her father came to collect her.
I am choosing to remain in the UK without her. To some that might seem terrible, as when you become a mum you stick by your kids through thick and thin, end of. I also feel like that. I am a good mum. But I view it as self preservation. I’d rather get myself strong, being home and happy and importantly alive for her when she is older and needs me. I just know I couldn’t carry on living lie that in NZ any more as I would be little use to her feeling the way I did. Or worse I would die. I really tried very very hard to make a life in NZ, but I just wasn’t big enough or strong enough to hack it.
Sarah on June 2, 2012 at 10:12 pm
Hi stuck mums,
It’s clear we need a way to secure way to communicate. The facebook page is there but it’s public, so unsuitable for free chat. (Although if you mail the Expat Stuck mums page the messages don’t appear on the page, they seem to come only to me as i set it up). A few of us want to start a private trusted group for discussion – ideas welcome. So far we’ve become fb friends, so can do chatting, and also have exchanged email addresses. But I think there must be a better way? Ideas welcome
Hope on September 11, 2012 at 7:52 am
It is being in a prison without walls!!!
I am stuck in Germany and now my ex will move outside the eu.
I informally asked a judge if I could move and she said yes, now he has. She said he can kick up a fuss, but if it is my home country I will win.
The problem for me I worked hard at making it work here for the kids that now I do not see how they would cope in the U.k
There is some graffti near where I live it says ; `Life is killing me` This is how I feel it makes mothers feel.
I am sorry for us all- it is hard enough to go through separation and then this further insult.
My advice is make a plan for when your kids are grown up- then you can move where you want and will be free. it can keep your mind happy to know this.
StuckDad on September 11, 2012 at 11:45 am
The fact is that when you have a child, you are ‘stuck’ with many things. Complaining that one is ‘stuck’ is all very well, but in a big way, this also betrays your selfishness.
I and thousands of other dads are ‘stuck’ with a lot of things. Instead of complaining about it, we move to other parts of the world, we deal with litigious parties and their unethical counsels, we put up with non-stop harassment, and then we get put into cell for false allegations of harassment, and then we get up again and start the whole process over. Why? Because we would do anything.
Being ‘stuck’ is the least of our concerns.
Jayne on November 7, 2012 at 11:33 pm
Hi all,
I am also in a similar situation. I came out here 7 years ago and met someone here (who is enlgish) and had 2 children here. We are now seperated and he has put them on the ‘stop list’. I am currently fighting through the courts to get them removed but seem to be getting no where fast. My reasons for wanting to go home are not just because I want to go home. My son who is 2 and a half has been diagnosed as being profoundly deaf. He has been told he is a prime candidate for cochlear implants. I and everybody around me knows the UK is better for him. the support he will get and his whole lifestyle will be 1000 times better in the UK. It is breaking my heart that I and my babies are being kept here where I know he will not be able to live the life he deserves. I have liked the fb page but would love to get in touch with other mums who are also stuck in a place they dont want to be x