Estranged wife
Android07
Forumite 98 Posts
Where do I begin ?...
I have been married to my wife for 8 years. She came here on a spouse visa 4 years ago. She spent the other 4 finishing her studies.
She gave birth in February last year. Every since she came back from the hospital, she seemed like a different person. She would be flippant and proper rude. After enduring this and tip-toeing around her for six months, I decided to book an appointment without telling her with our surgery that she might have signs of post natal. She must have lost it and told a lot of things and the Doctor was convinced that she was not safe with me.
She asked my wife to come with our child the next day. After dropping her off, I could not get hold of her for over an hour. Eventually, she rang me to say that she would be staying with a family friend ( unrelated to her by blood and I have never met them before ) and that social services have been informed by the surgery. Defeated and unable to reason with her, I went home. Coppers then arrived and nicked me as my wife had complained that I was controlling and coercive. I was released shortly after I reached the station as I had no prior DV reports and I had a clean record. The word 'safeguarding' was also mentioned. Wife then came few weeks later with the coppers to collect her clothes.
Initially, she showed me little one via video on Whatsapp couple of time and then she stopped! She did not respond to messages or emails. She then changed her number. Through relatives, we have tried to reason with her family friend but they have set their own unrealistic T & C's and have not allowed my wife to speak to them. My in-laws have also suddenly decided to stop speaking to us and blocked our numbers.
It has been five months now since my wife let with my little one. I have been to plenty of solicitors and have received a mix of advice.
They have said that my relationship is over.
-I should apply for a child contact order to see my little one. But, this is bloody expensive and I am not financially stable now! A family friend's son ended up spending 2 years in court and £30k in solicitor & court fees before being able to see his child.
-The next things is child maintenance. My wife has not come after me (yet) to claim this. I understand that if I earn £3k a month, it comes to about £300 according to govt website calculators.
- And the very last thing is divorce. That is also bloody expensive. Googling suggests it takes a few months but costs £10-15k in solicitor fees and I also have to give away half of my bank balance.
What do I do at this point? How can I see my little one or force my wife to show her without going through courts? How do I start divorce proceedings if I cannot even contact her and don't know where she is.
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What you can do is:
1. Get yourself financially stable
2. Pay her child maintenance to look after your child (your child will find out sooner or later if you have supported them, and will resent it if you have made their mother pay all their costs). Don't wait for your wife to ask for this, but pay it as soon as you can. Tell the family friend that you want to pay and ask for bank details. Suggest to the friend that your wife should open a second bank account that is only used to receive your payments.
3. Apply for a Child Contact order so you can see your child. It only needs to cost a lot if you pay solicitors to do all the work. If you do the work, and use solicitors just to tell you how to use the court system, it can cost a lot less. You also have to take advice and listen to it. If the solicitor tells you the case is hopeless and you keep fighting, you can easily spend £30,000. Take the solicitor's advice.
4. Apply for a Divorce. Again the cost can be quite low if you do all the work yourself, and you can come to a fair agreement yourself with your wife. The easier you make it for her to agree with you, the less it will cost her and you.
UK law pretty much expects all the assets owned by a married couple to be split equally if they decide to divorce. When you get married, this is what you are agreeing to - to share everything equally. Each of you will have to declare your assets to each other. Your solicitors will help you do this. You then need to divide the difference between the assets you each have in half, and the person with more assets pays that amount over to the other. Only in cases of a very short marriage would the split be different than 50:50.
I have been divorced and would say that getting a clean break order to financially seperate you from someone who does not want to be married to you any more is a very good thing. It took me a good two years to get over my divorce emotionally (we were only married for two years), and it took about five years to get my finances back fully under control, but once they were under control I was able to make decisions for myself, and have ended up very secure finacially.
Even if this was your wife's plan all along, she cannot live on what you will have to pay her for child maintenance. It won't be enough.
If you wait for your wife to claim child maintenance and don't ask for a child contact order you are likely to find that you will not have any contact with your child nor will they want contact because you haven't provided for them. You need to provide for your childl and you must not let your wife stop you doing so. You need to make this happen.
The courts and the benefits system expects able-bodied people to work, so your wife will not be able to be lazy in future, unless she finds someone who she can sponge off. She also has a responsiblity to care for the child and this will be a full-time job for a few years yet.
Visa, marriage, child, UK benefits = sorted.
However does the wife not need to reapply to stay after a marriage breakdown? Would certainly make sense if citing DV (if there wasn't any).
The child also wouldn't make staying a given but would increase her chances.
Or does she have an automatic right to stay now?
Also read the other post about the OP dad being 80% responsible for her leaving due to brain washing her.
All sounds very messy. Two partners leaving at the same time, neither with plans to return leaving a house to e sold or rented out.
OP if you claim benefits be aware any rental income will need to be declared and will likely affect them.
Sorry but I do think that is grasping at straws. Plus the living off child maintenance comment. Have you ever tried living off £300 a month?
I understand you’re upset but focusing on ideas like that are going to make you more resentful and aren’t going to help,
Do you know if social services are still involved?
As it was during COVID, the surgery chose to do a phone appointment with my wife. So, the Doctor rang her. No, she did not get lazy after having the baby. She was like this since the day she moved in with me.
I thought that too. Why wait 8 years? It seems she waited for my British child to be born. And, like Marvel1 and HampshireH suggested, British child = British citizenship and benefits.
If yes, then ask what the plan is around your contact as the child’s father.
If no, then you’re back to court ordered contact if your wife won’t co-operate.
And I still think that anyone desperate to use a child as an excuse for leave to remain and benefits isn’t going to wait 8 years. For a start, it’s really not as simple as have child: get benefits and leave to remain.