WA Divorce - Could I Take My Daughter To Live Overseas ?

[v.k.sh]

Hi. I'm a mum, student and wife. I’m married for two years and live with my husband and my two year old daughter. Unfortunately, my relationship with my husband is not going that well. Actually, we never had a great relationship since the beginning, but I'm always pushing and lying to myself "its OK, because I love my daughter and don't want her to grow without her parents". But in the last year, the relationship with my husband is going just down. I have no respect and no support from him. I always get called different names (like really really naughty and animal names).

Unfortunately, I'm not working so I don't have no income. I'm studying and my father is paying from overseas for me. Lately, it's getting really difficult for me to continue with my studies, because always when he gets angry he won’t look after our daughter or will finish late work so I can't go to school that day. I'm thinking so much to find the right solution. I can't do all this anymore and I'm so scared to talk with him about divorce, because he probably will take my daughter away from me.

I'm scared because If I get divorce how am I going to live without support and no one? All my family lives overseas. I would like to go back with my daughter but don't know if that's the right thing. What are my right in all this topic (divorce)? All I want is be together with my daughter and live in a normal and happy environment.

 

[AllForHer]

"All I want is to be together with my daughter and live in a normal and happy environment".

This is what YOU want, but what would your daughter want? Even if you don't love your husband, your daughter loves her father, and she will not thank you for moving her overseas so that any connections she has to him is entirely severed by your actions.

However, let's address the legal issues here.

Australia is a signatory to the Hague Convention, which basically turns the unilateral movement of a child overseas by one parent into the criminal act of abduction. If the father pursued action to recover the child, he would probably be funded in doing so, and it would be a costly and long exercise for you. A 'normal and happy environment' will be a long way off for you, your daughter or her father.

So I advise leaving your husband in the most polite way possible and then approaching the issue of your divorce like a reasonable person, which means mediation, communication and settlement. I do not advise abducting your child. To do so would be highly detrimental to your daughter.

Hope this provides some clarity for you.