Married the wrong person with dodgy financial history: grounds for annulment?

drmr69

I am in a marriage I never really wanted, but am afraid that getting out will have consequences that may be even harder to live with than staying in.

I would value any advice on my options/rights if I was to attempt going for an annulment, both in terms of financial impact and custody of our child.

In a nutshell: I ended up marrying a person who outwardly comes across as a very caring, friendly, positive person, but in fact is someone I now know can be very deceitful, manipulative, envious of others, judgmental, and capable of physical aggression. I am not sure if she suffers from some kind of narcissistic disorder - I still sometimes fall for her charm and often give her the benefit of the doubt, especially as I know she had a difficult childhood. But I invariably always come back to feelings of resentment at the way she controls me and takes me forgranted, and I'm not sure I can take the strain for the rest of my life.

I feel financially vulnerable, as I brought over hard-earned 150K+ net worth into the marriage, and all she has brought is debt. I am also concerned at the prospect of not being able to have a close relationship with my child.

Highlights of my story follow:

- She put pressure on me to have a child (before we were married) and never mentioned that she was on the brink of bankruptcy. She had debts totalling 10 times her income. In particular she had a self-cert interest-only mortgage at 9 times her annual income. To this day I do not know how she managed it, but I suspect someone committed a fraud somewhere.

- We had discussed marriage before I knew she was pregnant. But when we discovered she was pregnant she put immense pressure on me to get married ASAP. We had some really stressful arguments. I said I was not ready to do this so quickly, especially in view of things that I was learning about her finances. She threw up a tantrum, got very emotional, and bordering on aggressive. I was seriously concerned for the health of the child she was carrying, and eventually bowed into the pressure. Big mistake.

- Once I gave in, the pressures built up even more. With the wedding date set, and people travelling from afar going out of their way to make last-minute arrangements, it just made it harder and harder for me to back out. I was also afraid of losing access to my unborn child if I did not marry. I discussed it with some friends and most of them tried to calm me down and said that debt was a common problem these days, and I shouldn't make such a big deal about it. But they were missing the point - the point was that she should have told me about it earlier, certainly before raising the prospect of having children.

- I kept hoping that once the wedding was over we would be able to sort out the mess. The plan was to sell her house which (according to her) would have enough equity to pay off the rest of her debts. That assumption turned out to be completely wrong, as did many other naive assumptions she made.

- She admitted she is no good with money, but I did not need to know in advance of her getting pregnant, because if I loved her it would not make any difference! And anyway she would eventually get inheritance from her mum or dad which would cover it. Scary!

- After the wedding things got worse. She became very controlling, especially where other female friends were concerned. SHe wanted to know about my whereabouts every minute of the day. She started accusing me of flirting with other women, even possibly having an affair.

- At one stage I tried to get her to attend marriage counseling with me. She refused. I attended on my own. She said she did not want another female interfering in our affairs and I was to stop. As far as she was concerned there was no problem with our marriage, and I was just looking for something to moan about.

- Whenever we have an argument she has a really bad temper and swears and shouts abuse. On a number of occasions she has been slightly physical - mostly pushing and shoving, but on two occasions she struck out at me with her fist. ALso on two occasions I was actually holding our baby when she hit me.

One year on: I have been servicing her substantial debts for a year and we have only just sold her house - which turned out to have all sorts of damp problems due to lack of maintenance. So had to spend more money to fix the house problems, and ended up selling it for 20K less than we'd hoped. Which still leaves her with more than 10K debt - and of course she is not working now because she is a full-time mum.

Apart from the money issues, my life now is just work and family. On occasion I manage to get out the pub with some work colleagues (as long as they are male) but that's about it. I have put on weight and feel very stressed.

The only saving grace is our child, who I love to bits. I really do not want to do anything that would jeopardise our relationship or force me to spend less time with her.

I know I have made some big mistakes and rushed things that shouldn't have. At the time of making these mistakes I was vulnerable (for reasons I won't go into), but its pointless to make excuses. What's happened has happened and can't be changed. I can only think about what I can do in the future.

So the big question I am constantly asking is: Can I get out of this marriage without losing the fruits of my life's labour, and with full custody of our child?

Any advice / help much appreciated.

Spendless

There's a lot of 'her' and 'I' in your post. Her house, her debt, your money, she doesn't work but that's cos she's looking after a child that belongs to both of you.

I don't know where you stand re money. In the vast majority of cases I know the children have stopped with their mother, especially when she has been the at home carer. hopefully someone else can come along to answer your queries shortly.

purplepurple

Hi drmr69... maybe you could print out what you have written and take it with you to see a solicitor. You are entitled to 30 mins free advice (someone please correct me if I'm wrong about that) and just see what they say..

Kimberley

If the child is not at risk with your wife, she will gain custody and you will be granted access. Only if you can prove she is unfit to look after the child and the child would be at risk in her care would you get custody in the majorty of cases.

Also because their is a child involved i'd guess that your wife would be entitled to half the money, i'm not totally sure on that though.

The main concern is that your child would pick up on any problems between you and your wife. You may not think it, but she will sense this and it could effect her in the long run emotionally.

You also have to do what your heart tells you, not your head. You have to maintain your own wellbeing to be fit enough to continue a good relationship with your daughter.

Some parents stay together for the sake of the kids, thinking the kids would be better off. This is not so, kids are far better off with parents who seperate and have access to, rather then staying with parents living together and watching them argue all the time.

Do what is right for you and your daughter. If that is staying in the marriage then do so, but if you think life would be easier if you separate then do so.

You need to stay sane for your girls sake and your own.

Bossyboots

purplepurple wrote:

Hi drmr69... maybe you could print out what you have written and take it with you to see a solicitor. You are entitled to 30 mins free advice (someone please correct me if I'm wrong about that) and just see what they say..

Please stand corrected, you are indeed wrong. Some firms will offer a free 30 minutes, many will do a first interview at a reduced rate. Subject to income, legal aid would be an option. In all this though, you are not "entitled" to a free consultation. Even with legal aid, there may come a time when the fees have to be repaid.

However, the idea of printing off what has been written and showing it to a solicitor is a good one.

drmr69 - because of the short duration of your marriage you are in a better position to come out of it with your finances intact. In relation to your daughter, the act of hitting an adult while they have a baby their arms is considered a very serious act and if you are prepared to raise this issue, then you would be in a very good position to be awarded residence (it is no longer called custody) of your child. You do need to seek advice from a solicitor to go over all your options in detail.

Kimberley

the act of hitting an adult while they have a baby their arms is considered a very serious act and if you are prepared to raise this issue, then you would be in a very good position to be awarded residence (it is no longer called custody) of your child. You do need to seek advice from a solicitor to go over all your options in detail.

The thing is that would have to be proved he would have to prove she hit him with the baby in his arms which is hard to do without evidence. It would be his say so on hers

Bossyboots

Kimberley wrote:

If the child is not at risk with your wife, she will gain custody and you will be granted access. Only if you can prove she is unfit to look after the child and the child would be at risk in her care would you get custody in the majorty of cases.

Also because their is a child involved i'd guess that your wife would be entitled to half the money, i'm not totally sure on that though.

It is not cut and dried that the mother will be granted residence. More and more fathers are and (assuming the OP has told us the truth, we only have one side of the story but I am not doubting him) in this case, hitting him while he was holding the baby would be a concern that would be taken seriously and could even be the deciding issue on who the child should live with.

The wife will not get half the money just because there is a child involved. The issues of providing a home for the child and the wife are separate, the most common way to resolve it is for the wife to remain in the home with the child until a trigger event (remarriage or cohabitation for example) when the other partner would then receive their share or whatever the arrangement is to be.

Bossyboots

Kimberley wrote:

The thing is that would have to be proved he would have to prove she hit him with the baby in his arms which is hard to do without evidence. It would be his say so on hers

If it came to court, she would have to lie. If she is prepared to do that then she is likely to be prepared to do anything but in reality, faced with the possiblity of perjury charges people normally tell the truth.

helen21_2

I cant offer any advice expect please go get some legal advice immediately.

Good Luck XX

Kimberley

Bossyboots wrote:

It is not cut and dried that the mother will be granted residence. More and more fathers are and (assuming the OP has told us the truth, we only have one side of the story but I am not doubting him) in this case, hitting him while he was holding the baby would be a concern that would be taken seriously and could even be the deciding issue on who the child should live with.

The wife will not get half the money just because there is a child involved. The issues of providing a home for the child and the wife are separate, the most common way to resolve it is for the wife to remain in the home with the child until a trigger event (remarriage or cohabitation for example) when the other partner would then receive their share or whatever the arrangement is to be.

Bossyboots in court cases proof on the hitting would have to be shown. Anyone can say the wife hit me when i was holding our child just to get custody maybe your right, but in most cases the child stays with the mum unless their are strong medical grounds that she is unfit to look after the child. The money issue is down to what the courts grant. It can go either way.

black-saturn

My boyfriend has sole custody of his daughter. Her mother was unfit to look after a child after a string of drunken incidents, drugs, mental institutions and unplanned pregnancies. Even with that it still took 8 years of court battles to finally gain sole custody of her. It can be done but you might be in for a fight.