cricket1again

Something else my ex husband did which was unforgiveable. He left in the October suddenly and refused to have any contact with me or discuss anything. I never heard from him.
He soon realised that leaving the house wasn't the smartest thing to do so on the advice of his lawyer, he took out a DVO against me.
I'd never heard of one of these so when I told my lawyer she said OH MY GOD. You must do the same. Why I asked? She replied because this is how husbands get their wives kicked out of the home so they can back in.
How could he do that I asked?
Because with a DVO he can turn up at the house and if it states, which it will, that you must not go near him within 100 metres, you will be in breach. He can then phone the police, says he lives in the house and have you thrown out. You must counter this by getting your own DVO against him.

I did and my lawyer was right. He did turn up at the house with a friend asking me to leave while he went inside to get some things. It was his intention to lock me out then with him on the inside, he would have called the police, showed them the DVO and I would have been out on the street with nowhere to go.
This was all part of his and his slimy lawyers tactics to force me into signing a much lower property settlement.

I presented my own DVO and he his plan backfired thanks to my lawyer.

After this, I was looking forward to Christmas because my daughter who I had not seen for 2 years, was coming from the UK with her boyfriend. I had planned to meet her at the airport and give her the biggest welcome.
She was due to land on the 22nd December 2005 and i was so excited.
Days before this my ex husband suddenly turned up at the house and announced that he was moving back in to have a 'family Christmas'.
I could not believe his arrogance. This was after he'd been sleeping with other women, going out and talking to people on internet dating sites.

On top of that, he deliberately spoiled my plans to meet my daughter at the airport by insisting that he drive and that he is part of the welcoming committee. She is my daughter from a previous marriage, not even related to him, so this was all part of his plan to wear me down.
I could not face sitting next to him in the car so I stayed at home and waited for my daughter to arrive. On meeting her at the airport, he told her that I had been far too busy to meet her and that he offered to take me but I refused to go.He made it sound like I couldn't be bothered.
She wasn't very happy with me when we did meet up.
He'd got in first with twisting the truth.

He provoked and treated me like dirt all the way upto Christmas and on Christmas Eve afternoon, I slapped him across his shoulder after he pushed me into the swimming pool hurting my back and splitting my finger open.
I'm size 8 and weigh 55 kilos, he's over 6 feet and is an elephant.

I went inside and soon after I was stunned to see the police had arrived. They then arrested me for assault. He'd planned it all. He'd planned to force a reaction, then to call the police as part of his campaign to make me sign the agreement to accept much less of the joint property settlement.
On Christmas Eve at 10.30 pm I was led away by 2 police officers who kept apologising to me because they could see what was happening, in front of both my adult children who were stood crying in the street begging the police not to take their mum away.
The police were very good. They had seen it before and told me not to worry. Although they had to arrest me, they would try not to keep too long. As they pointed out, because I wasn't their normal clientele, they put me in a cell away from the hookers and drug addicts. Lucky me.

They kept me 4 hours (usually it;s bed and breakfast). And then they let me go. My son had given me $50 to get a taxi and I arrived home to an empty house at 3.30 on Christmas Day shattered and totally devastated at what my evil ex husband had done.

It was the worst Christmas of my life.

Anyway, when I get home to England, you can bet there will most definately be a book. I never gave in and I stuck out and got 50% of the assets despite everything.

ezzie

All that's happened to you is just about identical to what happened to my friend. Yes, hubby was Australian, but more importantly, he was an absolute arsehole. His dad is very well known in this country and respected and known within a particular religion. No one from his family lifted a finger to help my friend or her lovely children. They have MILLIONS! He used to be a friend of mine too; it was quite amazing to see the utterly ruthless side of him. Unfortunately, there were only a few who got to see this, everyone else turned against her, he did a damned good job of twisting events. Initially, after he walked out, he started to go to counselling with her over a period of months. When he finally said he was moving back, my friend was overjoyed - at the time he said he'd be returning (she'd decorated the place romantically etc) she opened the door to find the police there to arrest her for assault (she'd slapped his face 4 months earlier when he left, saying he'd never loved her and she was so ugly, she'd be lonely the rest of her life'). That was just the start of some quite unbelievable events. She fought hard though and hung on in there. He took her for nearly every penny but she set up in a new, tiny apartment, one daughter became school captain, the other did blindingly brilliantly in the HSC and her lovely son was a tower of strength for her. It was all starting to look up for her, but the stess had taken its toll and they found her riddled with cancer. He may as well have stuck a knife in her - he even would sneak into the hospital at night to taunt her ...no, not joking here! However, just to provide some balance, her brother-in-law is a truly lovely (and Australian) chap and together with her sister is now raising the children as their own. There are some absolute rats in the world and they're often the biggest bloody charmers out.

cricket1again

That's dreadfully sad Ezzie. I feel very lucky but I still lock all the doors and feel unsafe and I still can't quite get rid of him.
Today for example, I got an email from my bank in England saying I could not transfer funds from my own personal bank account to pay off a small overdraft on the remaining joint account. The reason being because of the marital split/dispute.
I'm sure they've made a mistake because I must be able to transfer funds out of my personal account.
But, the main issue is I need my ex husband to write and close the joint account which he obviously won't do.That still connects him to me.

The worse thing for me was I never saw it coming. I had no idea that he'd plotted, schemed and had begun undermining me to my friends and family. I never saw or knew about his controlling side until I looked back in hindsight and remembered small things like he had a complete aversion to the kitchen but had to choose the dishwasher.
He also got rid of anybody who he felt threatened his position at work. I remember this much.

I'd lost a little girl tragically in 2001 and I had been coping but very down for a while. He had used this as an excuse to suggest to my friends and family that i needed mental help. Having planted all these seeds in the minds of people who were close to me, he almost succeeded in getting my children to get me mentally assessed in the hope that he could get enduring power of attorney to get control of all the finances. He'd lied and lied and lied and because his lies were so much easier to believe than my truths (a typical trait of control freaks), I had found it so hard getting my children to believe anything I said because they knew I had been depressed and a bit vacant over losing a child (who wouldn't be) but not to the extent where I needed mental sectioning.

I have perhaps done the wrong thing but when I realised my children wanted to still regard him as a family member, I couldn't handle it. I gave them an ultimatum and said him or me. Totally the wrong thing to do but it's mostly what we've fallen out over. They think I was unfair. That's how sickenly plausible he is.
I think it will change when I move back home. I think the whole thing was much bigger than they could understand and even now they still can't see through him.

So sorry for your friend though. How very sad. I hope the book I intend writing will inspire a lot of people on how to get out of such situations.

deadcat

That is quite a horrible story. On the upside, there is such a thing as karma, and he will end up getting what he deserves!

Cheetah7

This story is heartbreaking as are the others posted on here.

It makes the usual and if I may say so the 'Aus is better than the UK' and the 'Uk is better than Oz' arguments seem rather pathetic.

Everyone has the right to enjoy where they live in whatever country that they choose.

It doesn't mean that they are in the 'honeymoon' period or they have rose tints on.

These posts should make everyone realise that one persons idea of a wonderful place to live could be hell for another.

The UK has its good points and bad points and so does Australia as with any country in the world.

We should not ever belittle someones experience because it is just that - THEIR experience.

Personally my loved ones have been victims of crime in the UK and I get annoyed when people say 'Well Ive lived there/visited there and I wasnt stabbed/mugged' or being told 'You lived in the wrong place'.

The same goes for Australia - it may well be the paradise/Utopia for some peole and that is fine - it doesn't mean it is for other people.

We all have our own story to tell, behind our closed doors we have our own issues.

People don't always post the full story of why they don't like where they live and probably don't mean to generalise.

It is hard to see the positives of anything when one aspect of it is so dreadful that you can't see the wood for the trees.

Let's all have a bit of compassion with what others are going through, I myself have been guilty when I laughed at the 'missing Tesco' threads etc, because I myself can't understand missing it (always hated shopping and been rather crap at it!). But this thread has really made me think about how quickly things can go wrong.

I really hope that everyone who is going through such awful times can get out of their situation.

In the meantime, lets accept that Australia is hugely different to the UK and for some, these differences are too much to cope with and when your domestic situation is in crisis, these very differences that you once thought were OK, could really go against you.

cricket1again

This is really for Deadcat. I don't blame Australia or Australian men for what happened to me.

I do think UK men are largely more courteous than Australian men but that's really my own observation of men in general. You might think English women are much more boring then Aussie women and hopefully we'd accept your opinion and even laugh about it.
I DO NOT think that my ex husband did what he did because he is Australian and this is perhaps where the thread has got confused.

My ex husband, regardless of his nationality, has shown himself to be extremely insecure and shallow and unfortunately he has learned how to recruit other people into sympathising with his victim mentality and plausibility. This is what controlling people do.
This is about who he is, rather than where he comes from. I haven't spent much time relating his crime against me to his nationality and background because when I met him, he was the softest spoken, most easygoing, unAustralian person I'd ever met. He didn't even drink beer or show any bravado. In fact he was very shy.
He kept his true character very hidden most of the time. It wasn't until he got back on home turf that I saw another side to him emerge.

He was however incredibly secrective and this is how he managed to avoid suspicion. He was easily led and from working with some much younger Aussie male colleagues, I saw him develop a smug arrogance and his whole attitude towards women, me especially, was rude, shocking, offensive and intolerable and totally different to what I'd been used to England.
I do believe this came from his work.

It's well known that often moving countries leads to marriage splits because it is very stressful and sometimes, some people just don't handle the culture change.
But, there are the more devasting plotters and schemers, both women and men, who have a different agenda completely.
Even my own law firm said they'd never met anyone more vile and vicious to deal with than my ex husband. He had his family support, a job and money so he sat back waiting for me to crumble.

I didn't and although you might think part of my posts have been about criticising the lack I have found in some Australian men, they have been more about telling people what happened and how I survived the ordeal so that they too can perhaps be a little more careful, not to give up all their power and sacrifice everything just to keep their partner happy.

Thank God I had the sense to keep $5,000 in a seperate account because that's what kept me in food. It lasted me a year.

SNH

I haven't read this whole thread, but I started on page one and thought I might post a reply to defend the country of my birth (Australia).

But then I realised I agree with most of the negative points!!


I think what can't be fully explained to people until they've tried out Australia is just how different it is going to be.
And one of those major differences is the 'cultural void'.

Every country has its own culture, but I think people from Europe often don't realise how much they will miss the history, tradition, theatre and arts and all the rest. When it comes down to it, that huge chunk of European lifestyle simply does not exist in Australia.

Additionally, the isolation is hard to understand until you're down in Australia feeling it. And it's not just the distance between you and your family and friends. It is also the distance between you and, well, ANYWHERE else!!


I have lived an expat life for my entire adulthood - in Europe and Asia, and soon in North America. While Australia will in some respects always be 'home', I do not feel any particular attachment to the place.

I have heard more than one tourist come back from Australia and comment it is, "beautiful, but soulless." And I suppose that's exactly how I feel about my homeland.


Now, that's not to say a lot of people won't love living there - it might be exactly the place they are looking for. Perhaps I might have felt that way too, but coming from a family of European refugees I never really felt like I particularly fitted into Australian society.


There truly is nothing more annoying than the arrogance you can find in Australia though. One slightly negative comment and people will attack you for being 'un-Australian' (the country's most infuriating and overused term).

Well, slightly more annoying is the population's determination to know nothing about the rest of the world. Take last night's news, for instance. The first ten minutes were about a football player and the fans' opinions of him. In the middle we had a story about a millionaire, then a story about homeless people being given free makeovers (like that's going to solve all their problems). Then the final third of the news had more football, followed by Australia's weather (there's never any mention of anywhere else).

cricket1again

I think it must be very hard for you reading a lot of negatives about Australia and I admire you for commenting in the way that you have.

As you point out, the main difference is the social and cultural gap but it's worth remembering that Australia is only 200 years old and is still growing into it's own identity. One of the biggest dilemmas that Australians have always had is that they are still trying to work out who they are.

There is little written history before the 19th century, they have tried to bury it and they do not want to be remembered by it. After the 19th century, they had their own mini war of independance and wanted to cut their ties with England preferring instead to look towards America for cultural influence and an identity.
But this hasn't worked either because the US too, is relatively a young country with a different kind of social character and cultural history.

Australia still has no real identity and until it has one, it probably will feel rootless and souless. It's trying though and as the population grows, over the next few hundred years it will probably evolve into a unique nation.
It usually takes the immigrants, as it has with the US, to drive it into the next century.

Notts_bloke

You seemed to have summed my thoughts about living in Oz in one post. Congrats.

Out of interest where are you living at the mo?

cricket1again

A lot of Australians that leave Oz and live abroad say the same as SNH. I think it's very brave and magnanimous of them.

asprilla

I think that the perception of a cultural void is largely in the eye of the beholder.

Lenmil

Spot on. Going to NZ and Oz did that to me too.

Mike_Dawson1234

Well said, all very constructive , I'm impressed.