How did you tell your spouse it was over
Via Skype.
24hrs after my sons and I landed in Miami:
Her: Where are you?
Me: We’re in the … UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!!!
Her: Aaaaagghh!!!!
The moment was priceless.
Then ensued the threats, screaming, tears, etc.
But except for the legal details, it was done.
Background:
Was living in Eastern Europe as an American expat married to a local woman.
Ex was abusing my elder of two sons who had just turned five. It was pretty bad stuff. When I wasn't around she took her frustrations with me out on my 5yr. old miniature carbon copy. He was an exact little version of me looks, personality, everything. But physically unable to defend himself from the tyrant she had become. Unable to break me through threats and tirades she turned her attention to my mini-me and was determined break the me in him. Besides beating and locking the kid in closets to try to accomplish this, she burned him with an iron on several occasions (she claimed it was accidental each time). She locked him out on the balcony in sub-zero temperatures causing the little guy to contract chronic bronchitis.
Seeing my emaciated boy with bruises welts, burns, and dark circles under his eyes made me realize I had to get him out of the situation at any cost. To hell with any business or life I had built there. Nothing was worth what was happening to my child. But I was far from home and had to do this thing right.
Hold tight little buddy … Daddy's got this.
Having gone to the local police previously I knew they really couldn't care less and didn't want to be bothered. They offered to interview my ex but said that making an arrest would be difficult without a direct admission of guilt as I did not have any witnesses and it would be my word against hers. An attorney later said that I was fortunate that they didn't investigate or she would have likely gotten a talking to at most by the police. She would have denied everything and probably have quickly moved out with the children, filed for divorce with counterclaims. Everything would thereafter be on her turf and terms.
Consulted a few local family attorneys re how to get custody and get the kid away from her due to the physical & mental torture.
A local attorney advised that men there do not get custody, much less a foreigner and especially an American. A man never stands a prayer of being awarded custody unless a woman were deemed by a court to be medically incapacitated & unable to care for herself or the children, a drug addict, convicted prostitute or sexual deviant.
According to an expert on international family law in New York I consulted, he explained that essentially it was a ‘tender years state’, not a best interest of the child state as far as child custody. Simply put, he confirmed, a woman could be an alcoholic bitch, beating and abusing the kids in a cockroach infested one room tenement and you could be George Soros the philanthropist and she'd still get to keep them. Go figure.
The best a man could hope for was a visitation order. Also, that visitation would be difficult to enforce should she decide not to honor it.
What about the abuse? Was told she'll deny it and make something up that will vilify you. Likely even bring a few others to cackle in support of the “herstory.” Hell she may even reverse the situation and have charges filed against you!
There was little hope of getting any kind of legal remedy as an expat father. I seemed to have hit a dead end. It had become a living nightmare.
The advice I received from local attorneys was to get my kids out of the country and to the U.S. It was a ray of hope. However it was far from a simple task, albeit the only fighting chance we had.
Getting children, especially small children across the border as an American was going to be a difficult undertaking. It had to get done.
I would need to set up an elaborate operation with falsified travel consent documents that were able to pass through exit controls and electronic verification to get my kids out successfully had there been a ‘ne exeat order' put in place at her behest.
Cost a bundle of money for those docs. Worth every penny in retrospect.
All would need to be done without rousing any suspicion under the watchful eye of the wife or mother-in-law, whom she moved in without my approval a year earlier, by saying she was coming to visit. She just never left. Any mention of it and there would be a fight.
I knew I'd have one chance only. If for any reason my plan failed, were somehow discovered or caught leaving it could potentially mean never seeing my kids again and facing hard time in a foreign prison.
Not to mention the life my children would have been relegated to if I were no longer around to protect them.
So six months of elaborate planning & letting her think she had me over a barrel is what it took to prep. Grinning and bearing every shit test and provocation she put out knowing that the day of reckoning was nigh.
Everything was set and planned for our escape. I worked out every detail I could think of to minimize any risks. Failure was unacceptable. The stakes were too high and there wouldn't be a second opportunity. Anything less than complete success would be devastating.
However, there is no such thing as a failsafe plan. There is always something that can go wrong. A seemingly minor issue or circumstance that unexpectedly arises can easily take you down. You can only reduce, but never completely eliminate, risk.
Then just two months before we were supposed to leave she upped the ante. Not knowing about my plans, she threatened to take the kids and leave unless I sold my house in the States (which was exclusively mine) and bought a mutual residence. It doesn't take a financial guru to see the writing on the wall as far as what her business plan was. The intentions were crystal clear.
Years before, I was toying with the idea of purchasing a property for “us” but as time went on she began showing her true colors and I quickly got the sense that I would likely get fleeced. Not happening.
Simple solution. I continued renting so as to ensure the most she could get was the last month's rent and some trinkets should things really go south. But no assets. Well mama-in-law started in earnest on the coaching, so I had to play it cool and drag things out long enough, to catch that one last flight. With my boys.
I knew that the risk was still too high that she might leave with the kids first, so I dangled the carrot. A big one. Real whopper.
Pretending to acquiesce, I told her to go ahead and find a good realtor as long as she promised to let up being so harsh on the kid. That I believed, would get the kid a little slack since she'd be on her best behavior until she got what she was after. I told her once we co-owned a property I believed it would be better for our relationship.
Hook, line and sinker.
She and mother-in-law were soooooo happy. They swallowed it. Rather, they thought I did. Knowing that once I bought the house they would then be able to get me out of the picture as we had been married long enough. She would likely get the majority of the interest in the property based on the local laws favoring women especially with there being small children in the household.
What they didn't understand or appreciate was the fact that they weren't dealing with a wide eyed pussy-whipped American that was on his back exposing a soft white underbelly. Rather some good old fashioned smoke and mirrors before the ball dropped was what was really going down.
D-day was approaching.
I told them two months in advance I was taking the boys out of the city on a retreat to a friend's country estate for a couple of days during the spring holidays. Boys only trip.
I already had our tickets purchased to Miami two months in advance, the paperwork was in order and we were ready to bug out.
Showtime.
The morning we were leaving I had to get the passports out of the safe in our bedroom walk in closet without her waking up along with changing the combination in case she tried to open it before we left the house. This could buy us time as I needed to have a somewhat plausible response rather than her finding an empty safe; A perplexed look along with it must be her entering the code incorrectly or an electronic malfunction … I'll get a locksmith to look at it when I get back after the weekend. Anything to just leverage enough time to at least be airborne.
We were running late to the airport as I couldn't exactly push too hard to hurry in the a.m. She had woken up late and I certainly wasn't about to behave as if we had a plane to catch. Didn't want to risk raising any suspicion or precipitate an argument or tantrum which could botch the whole thing. So many variables that could go wrong.
We didn't even risk taking a taxi as that could have raised a huge red flag if she were to look out the window by chance. So the Lexus had to be sacrificed and left at the airport for what would be our last ride in it. The car would remain on the roof of the parking garage at the airport for about a year until the government finally impounded it there.
We fought through traffic and arrived at the check-in counter about two minutes before the flight was supposed to close. There was a slight flight delay so turned out we were fine. Phew.
Now came security and customs checkpoints to get on our flight.
Although all of my paperwork was in order having rehearsed many possible scenarios over and again, lines of questioning and answers prepped, outwardly appearing cool calm and collected … my insides were like a bowl of jello on a roller coaster. Thinking about possible stones left unturned. Deep breath.
Following a visual scan all of the customs agents, I chose a young woman mid to late twenties whom I spotted waving goodbye and smiling to a family leaving with small children. Perfect.
She asked for our passports and where we were headed for the spring holidays.
Told her to visit my Mom in Florida and take the kids to Disney world. Easy enough. Next question : Why was my wife not traveling with us? I rolled my eyes letting out a bemoaning sigh while fumbling deliberately for paperwork with my toddler in my arms who was about to turn three in a week and said that my mother and wife can't stand each other much less be in the same room … and that the fallout of that situation was I now was to suffer through changing diapers for a week on my own if I wanted to take my kids to Disney.
Picture Jack Nicholson holding a toddler in one arm and simultaneaously looking for paperwork in a haphazard kind of way while attempting maintain a pleasant demeanor with a young attractive customs agent who was in complete control of the situation and deciding the fate of Disneyland. You'll have an accurate mental image of the scenario.
It worked perfectly.
The customs agent just about burst out laughing . Success.
After being disarmed by what appeared to her to be an inept, bumbling dad suffering the toils of nurturing two tikes on his own, she set us free.
Stamp. Stamp. Stamp. We were cleared to leave.
“Have a nice trip with your boys!” as she handed back our docs, never even asking for the notarized parental authorization forms which I had paid a small fortune to procure. Exhale.
We had gotten through exit controls and now we had to pray that the plane doesn't get turned around if the wife figured things out and the feds were quick enough to move on it and find our flight.
If an international flight is less than halfway to the destination it can be ordered to land or return to the point of origin.
Only other trouble spot could be with US customs once we land.
Well, we landed in Miami & I held my breath once again as we went through customs. This time we got a stern looking late fifties agent with a salt & pepper mustache. He was all business and looked like a lifer. He asked what the purpose of our trip was. Grandma & Disney. Poring over our documents with a poker faced expression and for what seemed like an eternity, he was intently reading something on his screen.
Uh-oh. There went my insides spinning into Jello roller coaster land again. Could he be reading notes to deny entry and detain us?
Until finally, the weight in the air was lifted and in a dry monotone voice he said, “Welcome to Miami. Enjoy your stay.”
We had made it. It just couldn't quite sink in yet. I still felt as if I almost expected to be stopped at any moment with an an “Excuse me, sir” from some unknown direction after almost half a year of living on the edge.
Once we got on the Skytrain, then saw the palm trees, their fronds slightly waving in the warm breeze and breathed in the humid tropical air, I knew that we were home safe in the good ol’ US of A … and I knew it was going to eventually be okay.
An international jurisdictional trial ensued for the family law case and $80k later we won.
That's another story though.
But that very moment when the ex wife and mother in law learned that we were out of their clutches and in the States …
Priceless.