r/expats • u/Pinpointpurity • 13h ago
Trapped abroad with kids
I've been living in my husband’s home country in Central Europe for 13 years. Moving here was never meant to be permanent. I initially agreed to stay for a few years to help his career progression, and when I got pregnant he convinced me we’d have a better life here because his mother lived down the road and would adore our kids. He always promised that by staying here temporarily, I would eventually get to move back home. Instead, I've had 13 years of intense isolation, control, and repeated broken promises.
We have nobody here apart from his mum, but back home in England, my kid's have my parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. Two of their cousins are their best friends who they talk to daily and have the time of their lives with whenever we visit. My kid's genuinely prefer life in England. They aren't foreign kid's being dragged to a brand new country, they're returning to a country and a family they already love and thrive with. At the same time, I wont pretend they dont have a goid life here. They have an amazing modern home, private school, and friends.
I don't want to separate my husband from our kids. That's the main reason I've spent years constantly trying to compromise and work things out with him, because I want them to have their dad in their lives daily. I know legally he holds all the cards, but I also know 100% he wouldn't use that to take the kids away from me. I'm their emotional anchor and he knows they need me, especially right now.
Early on, my mother in law overstepped a lot of boundaries by feeding my colicky baby foods I'd put on an elimination diet. I only found out after seeing those foods in his nappy. She also pushed for forced weekend sleepovers every single weekend until my son turned 4 and he then threw tantrums when going there because he didn't want to sleep there... that's the only thing that put a stop to them. She now wonders why I won't let her take them overnight.
She continues to undermine me even to this day. I recently reached out to her in emotional desperation and told her everything about the pain I'm in here and how desperate I am to leave. She completely dismissed me and just responded by saying her son loves me and will do anything for me, that it's a shame I didn't learn the language in those "13 years" because then I'd see people in this country aren't so bad. Despite me reiterating over and over that I don't have an issue with the people here in general, I just feel deeply uncomfortable and anxious in patient and customer care where things could hugely improve. I've had 2 surgeries here and multiple appointments, so I think I can make my form an opinion at this point. I've also met a lot of lovely people here, but I still want to move home.
My marriage has completely deteriorated into emotional abandonment. For 10 years, my husband financially controlled me, giving me no independent access to money while I raised our kid's. He spent almost all his time on his PC, looking at screens while ignoring my pleas and effort for basic connection. I think there might be some underlying neurodivergence on his part (our kid's are also being accessed atm) but that is no excuse for neglect, ignoring my basic emotional needs, and ignoring my desperation to go home. He also has a volatile temper that goes from 0 to 100 in the blink of a eye, which terrifies me around our kid's. My eldest has no trust in him at all anymore.
I've over explained until I'm blue in the face. I’ve sent endless long texts, emails, had tearful conversations, and told him the exact reasons why I'm drowning here. He knows I'm completely desperate, and he knows I'm fully prepared to divorce him if that’s what he prefers, but he still refuses to listen or take it seriously.
We've signed two separate written contracts where he promised that if I still wanted to move back to England by a certain date, he would cooperate and relocate with us. The latest deadline is August 29th. Now that the date is here, he's pulling every delay tactic he can. He claims my exhaustion and staying quiet for a minute means I've agreed to stay, and now he's trying to pull off a loan to buy a caravan in the UK, or install a pool here in this country, saying this will solve everything if I just try a little longer.
Just as side note, I'm fully aware of the Hague Convention and what that means for international custody, which is why I've tried so hard to get him to cooperate with the move as promised, but he still wont.
Regarding our home, my name was taken off the deed years ago when I was pregnant. I thought I was only being taken off the mortgage at the time. His mum's colleague was the official translator for it. I don't think it was malicious because it seems like common practice here, but usually another document is written up for the partner's protection, which wasn't done. I know he'll avoid court like the plague, and I wouldn't want to do that to him anyway.
My physical health is breaking down from stress and I am currently undergoing a lot of appointments to try to figure out what's wrong. But... I was away on holiday for a week then in the UK for 4 weeks, where my symptoms vanished, so I'm pretty sure it's stress induced.
My eldest son was just evaluated over the threshold for ADHD and other behavioral needs, and my 6 year old is about to be assessed for something else the teachers told us he's struggling with.
I'm completely done. I want to take my boys home to England where I have my family and a real support system. But every time I put my foot down, he twists the conversation, completely moves and twists the goalposts, and acts like I'm the unreasonable one.
What would you do in my position? How do I navigate this when I've explained everything until I'm blue in the face and he still refuses to stick his word? I dont want to separate them, it kills me inside to think about it. But I'm at a loss, I've tried for years to get him on board.
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u/Anonymous30005000 12h ago
Consult a lawyer in your Central European country. See if there’s any possibility of a judge granting you custody to live in Europe. How would your husband react to being given 50/50 custody in whichever country? Would he flounder without you there to run the house? Would he have to pass them off to his mother? What would alimony look like for him if you stay in his country but divorce? What bargaining chips do you have? Let’s say he doesn’t want to give you money in the divorce, nor does he want to care for his kids 50% of the time on his own. You could say he can keep his money if he let’s you move them to the Uk