Urgent Relationship help - wife wants to stay in Poland

I hope you bagged it and kept it.

Sounds like you're best off without her.

Thanks for the update Britboy. Very sorry to hear about 'the other man' but glad to know you've reached a conclusion. But now you know the real reason she didn't want to join you in the UK. Once you get over the initial relief of making a decision about ending your marriage, you may start reflecting on what's happened and start to feel quite angry so be prepared to go through that stage. It is kind of like a bereavement, shock, denial, anger, etc. Just try to put it behind you and keep focusing on moving forward into the future with your kids very much to the forefront of your thoughts.

Just a word of warning. Don't admit any fault on your part as grounds for divorce. She might want to use you being in the UK and refusing to live in Poland with her as grounds. If you admit fault you are liable to support her financially for the rest of her life, unless she remarries, so in theory she could live with a guy and still on paper be indefinitely entitled to your financial support. I know it's probably highly unlikely that would happen but it is the law at the present time to the best of my knowledge. You can divorce without any grounds, just as a mutual decision that the marriage is over, so go for that option.

Wishing you all the best.

@Harry
I did bag it and keep it.

@Atch
It does change things for me know. So i wonder if i put adultery instead of "irreconcilable differences" on divorce petition it will help my chances of a better deal?

Well, if you do that, her lawyer will probably advise her to say that her adultery was a result of you choosing to live apart from her so the whole thing can get very messy, tit for tat, blaming etc. Mentioning her adutlery in court will probably anger and embarrass her which won't help when trying to negotiate your contact with the children. So you'll have to weigh all that up. It's best to feel your way cautiously at this stage and see if she's prepared to be on good terms with you during negotiations. Don't make any hasty decisions.

@Atch

Ok thanks. I am dubious about putting anything in writing on whatsapp/email now.

Is it futile to try and get custody of the kids?

Do yourself and your lawyer a huge favor and cut off all communications with her. Do not speak or write to her or anybody else about this except for your lawyer. Do not respond to any communications from her, no matter how much you are tempted. Let your lawyer do all the talking, and butt the fcuk out. They have a job to do and the only thing you can do is damage. Don't send any money unless your lawyer tells you to.

As far as the kids are concerned, you need to talk to your lawyer about that. Nobody here can tell you anything useful.

About the watch, what you did is common theft, not "gathering evidence". You need to speak to your lawyer about that pronto.

Many a potentially pain-free divorce has been ruined by one or both of the parties not being able to keep their legally uniformed gobs shut. Trust your lawyer to do the groundwork for you, and don't interfere with his game. That's what you are paying them the big bucks to do.

@DominicB

Pretty good advice. Problem is I want to see my kids in the interim, and if i dont send money they'll be evicted, and my wife will probably stop all communication and i'll be estranged from them.

Bit harsh to call it theft - if someone left something on the floor that I paid for under the bed that I paid for then I would also bag it and stick it on eBay. Probably the other guy is married so I doubt he we will be pressing his claim !

Sadly Brtiboy, absolutely futile. There's no way that will happen, even if you lived in Poland.

@Dominic, I think you're looking at things from a very American perspective. Poland is not the USA and the legal system is completely different. Also if the OP doesn't have any contact with his wife he won't be able to even speak to his children for many months, let alone see them. That won't impress a Polish judge, especially with him being a 'foreigner'. They can quite easily interpret that as abandonment of a kind particulary if he also ends all financial support. However I do agree with you that he should certainly take legal advice.

@Britboy, you should be able to find a UK lawyer who has experience of Polish divorces. That's what you'll need. Find one as quickly as possible so that you can get advice as to what you should do regarding financial support etc whilst in the process of filing.

It is not theft, since he found the item in his own marital home and nobody else has presumably asserted ownership. Nor has he attempted in any way to deprive a claimant of ownership.

I suppose he could just pop down the local police station and report it as lost property.

"Where was it lost Sir"
"Under my wife's bed, next to a used rubber, two empty glasses of fine wine and some Belgian chocolates"
"F*ck off, Sir".

Talk to a lawyer first before doing anything. What might seem innocent to you can, and will, be used against you in a court of law. Your lawyer will advise you what to say and how to behave. You're paying him to keep yourself out of legal pitfalls. Until then, work with your bank to document every single penny you have sent to Poland.


It works the same in every legal system. American, British, Polish or Burkino Fasan: it's best to let your lawyer do the talking, and act only on strict accordance with their instruction. No lawyer on the planet wants their client to open their fat gob unless specifically instructed to do so.

Lawyers are the same the world over but the law isn't. For example in Ireland there is no such thing as community property so obviously divorce proceedings in Ireland would be very different to an American state where such a concept exists.

In Ireland, too, every single lawyer wants you to keep you fat gob shut and your hands in your pockets unless they specifically tell you exactly what to say or do and when to do so. In a court case, a client with loose lips is their own worst adversary.

I spoke to a polish lawyer. The gist of it was you can go down 2 routes: 1 where the court decides who is responsible for the breakdown of the marriage (which can take 2-3 years and expensive, or 2 where it is deemed both parties are guilty and it can be over in 1 meeting, assuming you can agree on other small details etc.

@BritboyByd

I hope you asked them about the repercussions of each alternative in terms of property, alimony, child support, visitation rights and custody.

No woman in Poland with a brain would agree to a mutual separation unless she was the richer of the two. In this case, she has nothing to gain by agreeing by mutual consent and everything to lose.

Don`t blame your wife. Advice of wife sometimes are wise. See, lady prefer to stay in Poland because feel safer there then elsewhere. I think that you have beautiful wife. Spot her better.

@delphiandomine

I don't think she has deep enough pockets to go through the legal situation for years. So she can string it out but the court will decide the outcome then. And then she has to "win", whereas in most divorces both parties are to blame.

She doesn't need to have deep pockets. The legal system is heavily biased against non-resident foreign men, and if you don't go in all guns blazing, you're at a huge risk of getting an unfavourable settlement. You need to essentially get someone strong enough to negotiate as small a settlement as possible, and from there, you need to decide what you'd like for the kids.

Also, be very careful. There's a 99% chance that she will try and strip you of your parental rights.

@delphiandomine

"There's a 99% chance that she will try and strip you of your parental rights." How is that possible?

You really, really, really need to talk long and hard with a good divorce lawyer. ASAP.

@BritboyByd

Surely you confronted her about this and told her it would be on the file?

Far be it from me to advise but I know under Irish law proof of adultery would be of benefit to you.

@DominicB

Bad advice. They're his kids. You have to be seen to try to be there surely.

When my parents got divorced, my mother(she's American but has a lot of issues and we don't talk) lied about everything, she had lost us our house, signed illegal papers for debts in me Da's name you name it she did it. She lied about him being aggressive and violent which he never was. She got an injunction against him while holding parties with all her alco mates in our house.

As well as anything else, when the injunction was inevitably lifted due to my mother's aunt realising what an unstable liar my mother was(the aunt happened to be a social worker) and turning up whining at my Dad's work, it came out how prejudiced against Fathers the local district court had been in a number of cases including my Dad's. I kid you not this was only 14 years ago.

I then looked forward to every visit to my Dad and my grandparents at weekends as it meant being brough to football games and being fed properly before he finally won custody back after a year.

Trust me, Child welfare is important and perception is everything with conservative Catholic judges if Polish judges are anything like Irish ones have been until very recently.

I can well believe prejudice against Fathers exists in conservative countries.

Read again. My advice was to cut off all communication until he speaks to his lawyer, not forever. And then to conduct all communication in accordance with his lawyers guidelines.

For what little it's worth BritBoy I hope everything works out - whether it's 1 year or 5 years from now.

You must feel quite betrayed at this, for many reasons I can imagine. It's really imperative to find the right person these days before you make them your wife &/or a mother.

The phrase is really 'parental authority'. It includes things like decisions regarding your childrens' education, religious upbringing etc. When you get divorced in Poland, the parents don't have equal parental authority. The non-custodial parent has a limited amount of parental authority. Sometimes ex-wives who want to cut the father out of the child's life as much as possible make it difficult for the father to see the child or have contact with them and then apply to the courts to have the father's already limited parental authority removed completely on the grounds that he takes no interest in the child. This is a well recognised problem which is a cause for concern and frequently written about by legal experts when discussing the need for reforms in Polish family law. One of the main problems for non-custodial parents (which is usually the father) is that there's no satisfactory system in place to enforce visitation rights. That makes it especially hard for fathers who live abroad.

The more I read about this the more uncomfortable I become. I just want to pay a reasonable amount and have access to my children, so I can have a relationship with them. But judging by the comments on this board, unless the wife doesn't get exactly what she wants then I'm doomed.

I think the sticking point will be level of alimony, if wife gets the money she wants, then everything is smooth going fwd. But unfortunately, she'll have to downgrade from the 10,000zl minimum she claims she needs.

A lot of us have seen nasty divorces, where people act even against their self interest just to stick it to the other party, and use the kids as weapons.

Hire a good lawyer, and trust them to do their job. They will have abundant experience in dealing with all the nastiness, and be able to get you the best outcome available to you with the least pain possible, that is, as long as you let them do their job without spoiling their game by opening your fat gob without their expressed permission. You might not get the bowl of peaches and cream you desire, but you can avoid the bowl of broken glass and thumb tacks.

Good luck!