201999999999999 (end) .....
This year saw the end of my marriage.
I am amazed to say that it is only through the trial of divorce that I really got to know what the person I spent the past twenty eight years with was really capable of, and what his true motivations were. We should do boot camps before we get married to know what the other person is really made of. You only get to know people under stress and duress.
Incredible really, how is this even possible? I had some hints over the years, but it was worse than I thought at the end. My lawyer said it happens all the time, you think you know the person but you don't. Good lesson of humility for sure.
(this even led me, partly since it was also an old dream of mine, to study Psychological Sciences at Uni online from June onward. This has been a delightful, self-paced activity, from home)
I always prefer to face truth whatever the price.
Although I did all I could to save this marriage at the time, marriage counsellor, you name it, before I got the full picture, I finally realised that
'there was only that much I could do ... alone'.
(my psychologist's remark - I consulted between August last year until June this year, in order to keep clarity of thoughts during separation time)
... and I also found out that loneliness is worse at two ...
There was only a ghost of a person there at the end, a person already drifting away ... He said
'I want to be happy before I get old'
To which I replied: 'so do I'
but what he really meant was that he wanted to forfeit his parental responsibilities and be happy at my expenses, and this is what I will never forgive.
Most importantly, I now definitely know this was not the right person for me, and growing old is not something anyone wants to do with the wrong person. As the old saying goes: growing old is not for sissies, there will be for sure hard time ahead, and you want serious back-up for that and also, precious times to cherish all the more that time gets scarce.
The nastiness during the divorce process was a disappointment, including financial pressure, deliberately making things go slow until I have no money left to defend myself, bullying me with four lawyers on mediation day (yes, 4 because he asked for a second one to come at the last minute, raising the whole game to a new level of aggressivity, so my lawyer said we had to do the same with 9k spent on a single day, and this left no money at all to go to the tribunal).
After all this wait, he had it mindlessly scheduled the day before my daughter's birthday. This ordeal came at astronomical expenses at a time when I did not even have enough for car repair, depleting our life savings (cash), having to hire an international lawyer at short notice in preparation of this meeting as he was going after my parents' assets, having to borrow money from friends for that, facing unpaid bills, mortgages running on investment properties since we had to paid half each until settlement, having to sell (myself one investment property since the real estate agent could not find a buyer in time) to pay the lawyers fees at the wrong time, and the cherry on the cake steeling my bike (lol), etc.
I even told him, whatever the lawyers or other people say, you are facing your own conscience. I asked him how he would feel if I did the same if one of his parents passed away during the divorce, and that I claimed this part of inheritance in the common pool of assets.
Even this did not spark any conscience.
Who was he, or what had he become?
I had the impression I was facing a complete stranger.
He thought this should make him avoid splitting his superannuation that way. His super was worth more than the house and he thought it was unfair we should split our super, so he went after my parents' money. He did not think twice about the unfairness that comes with the 'caring' partner having no super. At least, my dad had made sure that my mum had a equal super to his by contributing into it equally all over their lives. I did not realise he would be entrenched in a 50s mindset because he was educated and Westerner.
This was another world, another mindset.
Who says I would not have been able to save as much super if I had been able to work at potential?
After all, I held two master degrees in two different languages, spoke three languages, and I had an established career in France and my own apartment before I met him. I had been brought up to stand up for myself, with companies sponsoring me to sell their products in America when I was 21, and had been holding well paid jobs before I left for Australia, but I broke from this mindset when I met him.
I thought rightfully to my mind to this day that I should embrace dependence of some kind to bring up my children properly, better than my parents who were working 9-8pm six days a week, since I could.
Nevertheless, I always held a job except for the year my daughter was born, working part time at the French consulate for a while, then in import-export, travel, translating, interpreting and IT but he had the lawyers believe that I had been a homemaker. I had actually worked fulltime until 2016, but my children were always prioritised.
Despite the law being on my side for the super split, a fact well established in the Western world at least, I could see that even the lawyers had not quite absorbed it. After all, they themselves had high superannuation and probably would not want to split it with their spouses; they would more likely recognise themselves in his profile, not the carer's.
My mother's assets entered the pool of assets equation. Yet, I would not be able to access her part of the inheritance while my dad would still be alive.
Pathetic.
In the meanwhile, my daughter was still being very unwell, admitted twice in pain management wards for a week. He only took care of her when it suited him, just like he took what suited him in our house, leaving me all the rest to dispose of myself. He would usually take her on Friday night, hence keeping his full capacity to work. Oscar went to 'live the life' with him, but this is more understandable at his age, and was asked to pay him a rent of 170Aud per week, I was horrified.
In the meanwhile, my daughter was still being very unwell, admitted twice in pain management wards for a week. He only took care of her when it suited him, just like he took what suited him in our house, leaving me all the rest to dispose of myself. He would usually take her on Friday night, hence keeping his full capacity to work. Oscar went to 'live the life' with him, but this is more understandable at his age, and was asked to pay him a rent of 170Aud per week, I was horrified.
In the Anglo-Saxon system, after a child turns 18, he is on his own. Where I come from, in case of divorce, young adults are still taken care of financially by their parents until they graduate. This was a blow. Again, I thought I had married an educated man... the lawyer said Josie would have to take him in front of the judge, how could she? It is not just people behaving badly, there are seriously deficient structural issues.
My now P/T job since 2016 was holding on a thread since I could no longer come to the office on Mondays, the day Paul used to work from home but that he stopped indulging.
Fortunately for me, covid normalised working from home (WFH) for everyone, and my employer supported me. Of this I am very grateful.
During that time, he went to research camp in July with his Phd students on an idyllic property we had been together as a family, then to the UK for 3 weeks in the middle of the divorce procedure in August to a conference in Brighton, to see friends in London, and parents in Devon, etc... He could not wait to 'live the life' while I was working 20h a week and more, in addition to minding my daughter, with no maintenance for her, neither for me, and in August, she was admitted in pain management for a week while he was in the UK.
I held on, putting my seating belt on the road of financial hardship, no more hairdresser (I tried to die it myself, it had been a disaster :), private health care access highly compromised (since I could not pay the gap fees), had to forfeit my scheduled foot surgery and dental procedure, contemplated weeks of miso soups... and yes, the miserable 120Aud a fortnight of government funded carer allowance for looking after someone 20h a week at least, turned out to be of great help after all. Before that, I used to think it was only paying for hospital parking fees but when you have not much, every dollar counts ...
Common assets were frozen and the current system let him get away with it ... 8 months!
He did it because he could
The only way to access any maintenance was to go to court.
Not only were the courts full (over four months wait at the time) and expensive (ten of thousands of dollars in my case), but since I was technically still owner of an investment property (the transfer of property to him had not occurred yet), there was not going to be much welfare help from the government.
I still found myself tied up to unpaid investment property bills and my residential home encumbered by an investment property title after the Consent Order deadline. I tried to make him sign the mortgage release document, but he wouldn't do it for months for unknown reasons, so no possibility to sell the house if needed. No possibility to rent anywhere either on a part-time salary for two.
My dad had asked me how business and financially literate my future husband was when I presented him. I said he was an academic, so this was not his forte, and I dismissed the relevance of this attribute in a marriage. Now I realise that my father was right. Not only, I ended up having to sell the apartment alone, and sort out all hanging financial matters during the divorce, but he had not even admitted to himself that the house and the investment properties had been paid by my side of the family though inheritance and the sell of my two bedrooms apartments in Paris when I met him. My husband had not even computed this FACT. I felt strong because I could substantiate this claim in front of the lawyers with all the transactions transfers receipts, and the two remaining investment properties were paying themselves off if you knew how to manage them and claim the right deductions, but at the end, only a judge can enforce the law and mediation procedures are only for gentlemen.
A Consent Order is a agreement on property split, drawn by the respective lawyers, in order to avoid going to court, and that it what most people do to avoid courts and what we did. This, in itself, is already very expensive when properties are involved as you can see.
My only avenue was to call the lawyers again to have the consent order enforced by a tribunal, so that he should pay the bills, and release the mortgage on the property but I had no money left to do that. Even when I asked to modify the consent order which stated falsely that he had been born on Australia and that his parents had helped us financially, pure lie or error I hope, the lawyer said: every time you ask for a modification, or that you call us or send an email, we charge you. I had it modified but all the divorce money drained that way. I was amazed that every single claim I had made had been checked, double-checked, triple checked with evidences, and that he could get away with such lies on an official document.
Divorce is still a luxury option for many people, sadly.
Left with no other avenue at that point, I rang the general number for Legal Aid. I was entitled to one hour only since I owned property. It was good though. I had been lucky to get a really good lawyer. Sometimes, you get young lawyers who need experience but are not very knowledgeable, or excellent ones who want to give back to the community, so it is really a luck of the draw. I got lucky, but it was only an hour, so this was not going to take me out of trouble, she was telling me what I should do, go to court, but I could not do it without money.
My take on this is that we don't want charity, we want rights and we want accessible rights.
As for Women Legal Aid helpline ( a section of Legal Aid website), I heard ... the number you have called is not connected ... I am sure that you think, surely not, it is not possible in 2020 after the #metoo movement; well, all I have to say is 'wake up Queensland!'. I managed to find them ringing their admin number and reported the problem; they gave me another number to reach women legal aid helplines, I was put on hold for an hour, all that to speak to a person who said she had no legal qualification and wanted to check out my name and my husband's name 'for cross references' (?) before I could say anything. When I asked her why and what she would want to cross references with, she said 'it was the procedure' but no explanation. I declined to give the names blindly, it did not seem quite right.
So, I was stuck.
The consequences of a dysfunctional system is that there are a lot of fifty something women, who looked after their children well all their lives, to now find themselves in the streets of metropolises in Australia for that very reason, for the big hypocrisy behind it. By age fifty, they have not accumulated enough retirement benefits, neither have enough paid work capacity. They don't have access to legal aid because they have assets over $166,750, often in their house that they need if they have children to host. They will need to sell the house shortly, and the money will last four or five years. Then, they have to live on $282.85 a week. They won't be able to look after themselves properly, will not be able to afford proper grooming or medical care, their social network will slowly dwindle, their moral go down. Unless they enjoy solid extensive family support, they will get sick and/or end up in the streets.
Then, there is the big superannuation hypocrisy. Despite the law ruling for a Superannuation split at the time of divorce after such a long marriage, men still don't want to share what they regard 'their' superannuation, neither do they contribute towards their spouse super during their lifetime to make up for the non paid work.
(because they can get away with it)
They think they earned it so it should be theirs, but they don't acknowledge that the 'caring' is work, and that no super is paid during that time. Super is associated to 'proper work', oh yeah? As most carer would know, a carer's work is not the easiest. Going back to work after looking after a baby seems like a holiday, most people know it 'now'.
Caring is, in reality, undervalued despite what people say, men don't want to do it. It
often comes at the high cost of personal sacrifice that no one acknowledges, not even the partner, as it is much more convenient for him/her that way, and women do it, because someone has to take the responsibility at the end.
Many backward or opportunistic men don't acknowledge their partners career sacrifices. In my humble opinion, this, especially, should be highly compensated in case of breach of trust in a divorce situation because it is the most painful point.
Furthermore, there is a need to recentre the debate a bit more. I would like to hear a bit more about children's rights, children's rights to be looked after decently by both parents.
Most of the feminist discourse is about working for women, but I don't agree with this protestant rhetoric of redemption through work, which leads to working senseless hours for stagnant wages at the cost of children and family's minimal functional well-being for men or women.
Most of the feminist discourse is about working for women, but I don't agree with this protestant rhetoric of redemption through work, which leads to working senseless hours for stagnant wages at the cost of children and family's minimal functional well-being for men or women.
Arbeit machts es nicht frei.
The system had let me down, the system let down women who care for their children first at the expense of their professional advancement. You are as good as you can work for the consumer machinery and pay taxes.
When will caring time will be considered valuable time?
It comes down to economics, to how we comprehend money. What does money even mean? Fundamentally, money is what we make out of it, it shows our values, what is expensive is what is rare, what we value. The rarer a product or service is, the more valued.
So why do you pay a secretary more than a baby sitter and why do you check your secretary references and resume while you may call a baby sitter you barely know before you go to the restaurant?
Looking after children is not easy, believe me, and yes, knowledge, aptitude, intelligence, physical resilience and managerial skills are required as well.
Divorce: I went through it, I passed it, and I am fine.
His despicable behaviour was actually a present in disguise: I am now completely FREE of regrets.
If anything useful is to be learned: always do a marriage financial agreement before marriage vows in order to protect your assets that you had before the marriage and your potential assets that you might inherit from your parents. Greed is extremely powerful. Lawyers and so called well minded people around him will tell him he/she can.
On mediation day, I was told that even if I engaged in courts proceedings, my parents future inheritance could still be considered as part of the marriage assets pool, that it would depend on the judge, a 50/50 percent chance, that it would even depend on which case preceded mine! I doubled checked with my former accountant, he agreed.
Legal aid lawyer said it would not, and this was in agreement with a former 'of Counsel' advice.
Advice was conflicted.
Finding out would mean a two years wait, all of my elderly father's assets evaluated and scrutinised in depth with translations, and tens of thousands of dollars spent. My lawyer advised against it, warning about physical and mental health impact as well. My lawyer said I had enough to deal with at it was.
Furthermore, I did not even have the family support to engage in trial expenses.
At the end, after the consent order was signed, I lodged myself the final documents at the Commonwealth Courts to lessen expenses. He did not do anything, the slower the procedures, the better for him. There was not much else that could be done.
The Courts probably barely looked at that document submitted online, nor was it a very smart system, because, from now, the state would have to pay an allowance/pension for me and my daughter (since I have very limited working capacity looking full time after her) that my ex husband should have been most likely made liable for, should we have had access to courts or if someone had read the consent order properly. The bottom line is that he is also exploiting the system not just me, and that tax payers are paying what he owes to me and his daughter.
The only responsibility he accepted (only two days before the signature with a lot of pressure from my lawyers) was to pay for my daughter's medical expenses
(note she has now a state medical concession card, so it is next to nil expenses for him).
Somehow, I prefer to depend on the state than such a person, but ideally, if you ask me .... ideally .... he should be forced to give the money to the state and the state would give it back to me
no one wants charity from someone who has harmed you
You think the person you marry
will never do such a thing
think twice
Of course, when you marry, you want it to last forever and you think the person you choose would be incapable of going after your family and personal assets. To some extents, you are right to think like that. What is wrong is how greed can bring the worst out of people everywhere.
Likewise, anonymity makes people take less responsibilities than if they were acting in tight-knit communities, my ex-husband did not have to face my family and obey cultural norms; this can be a down side of being a migrant (although family interference does not always play up for the best, usually, they at least intend to protect their loved ones).
Do not trust a man who says he loves his children; most people will say they do, but look at what he does; does he truly look after them or does he look after them at convenient times for him only, at the expense of his partners' career prospects or self development opportunities, does he take them on holiday with him or does he go on holidays by himself most of the time, does he present them to people, does he talk to them meaningfully, provide for them financially or other ways, will he have what it takes when things are tough.
Of course, when you marry, you want it to last forever and you think the person you choose would be incapable of going after your family and personal assets. To some extents, you are right to think like that. What is wrong is how greed can bring the worst out of people everywhere.
Likewise, anonymity makes people take less responsibilities than if they were acting in tight-knit communities, my ex-husband did not have to face my family and obey cultural norms; this can be a down side of being a migrant (although family interference does not always play up for the best, usually, they at least intend to protect their loved ones).
Do not trust a man who says he loves his children; most people will say they do, but look at what he does; does he truly look after them or does he look after them at convenient times for him only, at the expense of his partners' career prospects or self development opportunities, does he take them on holiday with him or does he go on holidays by himself most of the time, does he present them to people, does he talk to them meaningfully, provide for them financially or other ways, will he have what it takes when things are tough.
More generally, is he sometimes at least able to look after others before self.
Enough of all that now... It is in the past. No matter how long we get it wrong, it is never too late to redress and quite clearly, I am in a better place right now.
Enough of all that now... It is in the past. No matter how long we get it wrong, it is never too late to redress and quite clearly, I am in a better place right now.
Why do I say all this? because the reason why abuse is being perpetuated is because people shut up. It is only when there will be enough voices raised that people in my situation will be heard.
What else happened this year?
I have to be honest, it was all about waiting that this damn thing would be formalised while assets frozen and living under duress for eight months ... it took forever but it could have taken even longer if I had wanted to take it to Court.
.......00000011112020202020 2020 (new beg)....
I am now much more peaceful, thanks God, I am sleeping better, I managed to keep my job so far, complemented my incomes with freelance work and community interpreting since I have to provide for myself and my dependant child on my own with very limited help from the government mostly aimed at my daughter.
I am off on a cruise for New Year with my daughter to celebrate her university successes this year
and....enjoy the Southern Skies and Seas.
and....enjoy the Southern Skies and Seas.
Actually, I am off tomorrow :)
