Common-law Spouse of 8 Years Would Not Update His Will: What are the Consequences?

Lord_Frugal12

Savvy_Sue said:

I don't know if this would help, but I've just watched Martin's programme on the three Ds (Death, Divorce, Dementia) from a few weeks ago. Series 12, Episode 14. https://www.itv.com/watch/the-martin-lewis-money-show-live/2a1827/2a1827a0141

I'd recommend that your cousin watch it, and see if her 'partner' will do so too. 

Thank you for this response. 

I have to watch anything with Martin Lewis. 

elsien

This is coercive control. Which is now a criminal offence.
The difficulty that you have is if you try to talk to her directly about it she's likely to tell him and then you might find yourself pushed out as well. 
I wonder if you would be able to get some advice as to the best way to support her for now from one of the helplines? This is also a helpful guide.
Support for a friend or family member (somersetsurvivors.org.uk) and echoes the advice about gently building up her self esteem and just letting her know you are there for her if and when she is ready to talk. She will know it's not a normal way to live. She may not be ready to admit that to herself or to anyone else at the moment. 

jackieblack

Lord_Frugal12 said:

MalMonroe said:

Hi, exactly as Sheramber says, above, you can only help those who want help.

Nobody else can live another person's life. From the way you tell the problem, your family is not small and you are a caring bunch of people. Is it not possible for someone from your family to offer your vulnerable cousin a place to stay for a while? And maybe help her get on her feet as a single woman again?  If she wants that, of course. She's a relatively young woman but the way your post reads it's as if she's waiting to benefit from her partner's will, as if they were both about 90. 

You say "She feels sorry for him. Without  my cousin, he would not survive two days. He can't be without her for more than five hours. He has to be with her as much as possible. He is one of those men who is incapable of being on his own." 

That's not a relationship. Feeling sorry for someone is not love and it isn't a reason to stay with them. I bet you five bob that not only would he survive two days, he'd probably survive two or three - or even four - decades. He CAN be without her for more than five hours because he's an adult, grown up man. And he is capable of being on his own. If your cousin goes (and I truly hope she does) then he will be more than capable, believe me. If he cannot manage on his own then he will have to seek help from social services like many other people who don't have a live-in carer. His sibling (and whoever's wife it is) can help him. After all, they're the ones who are going to strike it lucky when he dies, so it's the least they can do.

From what you say he is a very controlling person who thinks only of himself and I agree that your cousin needs to escape. Please help her. Don't just sit there worrying for a few more years, do something positive. He may well outlive all of you. Stranger things have happened.

If she really doesn't want to leave, then sadly there's absolutely nothing you can do, short of kidnapping her.  But if someone in your family could offer her an escape route, she may just decide to take it.

I wish your cousin all the best for the future.  

Thank you for the detailed   response. I appreciate it. Lots of good points to think about. And you might be right. He could end up outliving her because she is the one who has to put with the stress of living and caring for him. On top, he is the stingiest person I have ever met. Despite having just been given £80,000 after his nan's death, he would not put on the central heating in their house.  I stayed with them over the bank holiday weekend. Their house is in one of the best and most expensive parts of England. But Mr Creosote's maisonette is a squalor.  He would not use any money to renovate. One room stinks of cat !!!!!!. The indoor cat had been a single room all for herself. Mr Creosote is incapable of living by himself when he was single. So, an aunt offered him a cat as a gift.  He kept this cat until others told him that the Cat is one of the causes of his ill health. 

The cat stayed in that  room for over ten years. And it had to be given away in December 2022. Now, the whole house stinks of cat !!!!!!. (Anyone could advise us to how to get rid of it?). Even Mr Creosote and my cousin smells of this foul smell. I had to stay in this bedroom for two nights. And I ended up  naming in the Cat !!!!!! Purgatory. 

He would not put on the heating. On the first  night, I had to keep my winter jacket on until I went to bed. And in bed, I had to wear a thermal trousers inside my pajamas. I have no health problems and never done that before. So, if I felt this cold, how would Mr Creosote and my cousin have felt?   I was shivering. Even my cousin mentioned that she was cold. Mr Creosote said, "No, it's not that cold. We don't need the heating." 

So, on the next day, I bought a room temperature monitor.  It showed 16.2 Celsius. Optimum temperature should be between 19 and 22 Celsius.  Mr Creosote has too many health problems including a loud cough he had for 3 years as well as asthma and other breathing problems. So, you would think he would put on the heating? But, he won't. 

And in the living room, he does not want the lights bright. So, they are kept so dim that I noticed my cousin squinting all the time. She mentioned that she keeps getting headaches. I was struggling to read my phone. Yet, Mr Creosote would not brighten the lights. 

They live in true squalor that does not suit a first world country. It is really sad. 

And as you advised, I have to try and inspire to leave this man. But as you also said, it is up to my cousin. The sad thing is that I feel that she had been 'groomed' in a different way by Mr Creosote.   

My house is often around 16 degrees and I don’t find it cold
But if they really are living ‘in true squalor’, perhaps a report to Environmental Health might be in order 🤷🏻‍♀️

sheramber

Comfortable temperature is a personal thing.

my DIL grew up in a house with two disabled adults and as a result was used to high temperatures.  She sits with a blanket over her in a room at 20 degrees while my son and grandson are sitting in short sleeved t shirts.

My other son lives in Romania where the norm for  room temperature is 22 degrees, night and day. She is uncomfortable if the room  temperature drops below that, 

WhiskersTheWonderCat

What I don't understand is; if this man is so horrible, why on earth would you want your cousin to marry him? It seems you only want the marriage, so that your cousin can have his house IF he passes. And you talk about him as if he's about to drop dead, but he may live until he's 90, and your cousin will then be "servant" to him for the rest of her life. If he's so awful and treats her so poorly, then maybe you should be convincing her not to marry him, to get some financial independence and find somebody that treats her well. 

Lord_Frugal12

elsien said:

This is coercive control. Which is now a criminal offence.
The difficulty that you have is if you try to talk to her directly about it she's likely to tell him and then you might find yourself pushed out as well. 
I wonder if you would be able to get some advice as to the best way to support her for now from one of the helplines? This is also a helpful guide.
Support for a friend or family member (somersetsurvivors.org.uk) and echoes the advice about gently building up her self esteem and just letting her know you are there for her if and when she is ready to talk. She will know it's not a normal way to live. She may not be ready to admit that to herself or to anyone else at the moment. 

@elsien

Thank you for this response. 

I am glad you reminded me the dangers of speaking to my cousin directly. As I wrote earlier, I observed that she goes and tells Mr Creosote every mundane thing I might say. So far, with my conversations with my cousin,  I haven't said anything serious about the signifiers of domestic and emotional  abuse I noticed. 

Mr Creosote continues to be ill-behaved. Two days ago, he weighed himself. He found out that  he weighed 94 Kg. He is about 5 feet  1 inches. So, according to the charts available online, he is nearly 40 Kg overweight. Instead of accepting the real causes of this obesity, Mr Creosote was ranting about the bad work being done by his nutritionist, his doctors and specialists. 

And today, he had to see go to hospital to give urine samples. And he had "lost it" with the doctor who told him to give another urine sample. So, he had shouted at my cousin: "__________, GET IN HERE NOW!" My cousin was not supposed to be in an area where Mr Creosote was being examined. Hearing the shouting, my cousin rushed to be by Mr Creosote's side.  He had become agitated by the doctor asking for a second sample. 

When he came home, Mr Creosote was doing impersonations of the female Asian doctor who was wearing a hijab. 

You sent a really useful link to an article from the Somerset Survivors. Thank you. 

Lord_Frugal12

WhiskersTheWonderCat said:

What I don't understand is; if this man is so horrible, why on earth would you want your cousin to marry him? It seems you only want the marriage, so that your cousin can have his house IF he passes. And you talk about him as if he's about to drop dead, but he may live until he's 90, and your cousin will then be "servant" to him for the rest of her life. If he's so awful and treats her so poorly, then maybe you should be convincing her not to marry him, to get some financial independence and find somebody that treats her well. 

@WhiskersTheWonderCat

You   asked many good questions here. If Mr Creosote is this horrible, why would we want our cousin to marry him? 

The way wrote the original post must have focused too much on the house that is valued at nearly £400,000 and that's nearly paid off.  The reality is this:  none of us who know our cousin approve of this relationship. We wish our cousin would leave him and start a new life. The phrase "she can do a lot better than him" is one that we always use  when it comes to this couple. 

We felt that getting him to marry our cousin might be the only way to confront this issue. Our cousin would not say anything negative about our cousin.  Last month, when my wife mentioned  this to our cousin, the latter felt uncomfortable. She said, "it's alright for you.... You can tell me to ask him to marry me. And go away. I have to live with him seven days a week. If he gets angry, I have to live with him in that state." 

And a few weeks later, Mr Creosote had given our cousin a hard time because my wife had directly asked Mr Creosote "when are you getting married?" 

Mr Creosote had complained that it was not anyone else's business. 

The real difficulty is finding the right time and space with our cousin when Mr Creosote is not with her. This is nearly impossible. In fact, yesterday, I was trying to have a mundane conversation with my cousin in the kitchen. It lasted about a minute before Mr Cresote started to shout for my cousin to get back to the living room to watch a live football match with him. 

And as you and many others had advised, the best approach is to get my cousin to increase her confidence and build her self-esteem. Then, she might have the courage to leave him. 

But, that might be a long shot as I fear that she is showing signs of the Stockholm Syndrome.  Two days ago, I asked her about my cousin's email account. She uses Gmail. But she said that Mr Creosote had set up two-step verification for it. And my cousin's Gmail is linked to his phone number. I felt really sad. I wanted to correct this problem. But, to do that would be to undermine Mr Creosote's control of my cousin. And that could make the situation worse. (It is already worse). 

I wanted to share all these issues about domestic abuse because it might help others who might not want to write about it in these forums. 

Sincere thanks to everyone who contributed to this discussion with so much empathy.  As a result of reading a lot of these responses, I phoned a helpline that deals with domestic abuse.  They were really helpful. So, if anyone else experiencing or observing incidents of domestic or  emotional abuse , do please come forward to share your experiences, or phone the relevant helplines. 
 

   

Lord_Frugal12

It has been over a month since I asked you for advice. Here is an update. 

  After reading a lot of good advice here, I managed to take out our cousin for a walk. And near the end of that one hour walk, she confessed to not being happy with her fiancé.  Then, two weeks later, she realised that she is a victim of domestic abuse. She really did not know about control and coercion being a criminal offence. 

So, now, we are in the process of secretly arranging an escape for our cousin.  The fiancé is a lot worse than we originally thought.  

 Anyway, now we are struggling to find out what type of evidence  the Crown Prosecution Service require to convict this man. I phoned several domestic abuse organisations such as Refuge with Independent Domestic Violent Advocacy Service, Women's Aid, Safer Places and others. So far, these are all passing me off to other places because "we don't deal with the legal stuff." I feel angry because control and coercion has become a crime since 2021. So, there must be a resources that states what type of evidence is required by the CPS to convict an abuser.   

 Anyone know? 

elsien

If in England or Wales 

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/controlling-or-coercive-behaviour-intimate-or-family-relationship. 

and 

https://rightsofwomen.org.uk/get-information/violence-against-women-and-international-law/coercive-control-and-the-law/#Reporting%20coercive%20control%20to%20the%20police

A couple of points - the CPS doesn’t convict anyone. That’s down to a court - the CPS role is to decide whether or not to prosecute. 

This is a comparatively new crime, and I wouldn’t hold my breath that the police necessarily know what to do about it if she does report it.  Domestic voiolence has historically not been one of their strongest points in dealing with.

I think you also need to consider really carefully what your relative wants to happen, and she’s not really in a place to do that until she’s out of the relationship and safe. She doesn’t need to go from being told what to do by one man, to being pushed into a particular course of action by other people, however well meaning they are. However angry you are on her behalf, she needs to regain a sense of control over her own life and decisions.

RAS

You absolutely must let your cousin start taking decisions once she's out. You may need to start with the basics, what would you like for breakfast? Literally.

I recall being so broke that buying food took planning. And then having £100 to send and nearly having a nervous breakdown because there were too many options.

Baby steps. And expect her to get angry if she perceives that you are trying to push her in any direction.

However, research benefits and housing options. Has she any cash at all?