To Lovingly Detach

[Arsene]

Thanks Bond,

I understand what you're saying but right now, based on my experience in this country and with who my W is becoming, it's just not a battle I choose to fight.

I look at my goal and where I am and this would go against my sitch at this point, and it might not even help my D8.

You may be right about setting those boundaries and perhaps I will at some point but for the time being, my situation is a bit too volatile and my being a non-entity in this country doesn't help me in any way either.

In fact, in two weeks, I'll have to ask W to sponsor me just to renew my visa to stay here as all the work I've got so far is under-the-table and the only other way I can stay is with a spousal sponsorship.

Besides that, she'll also be taking care of the lease for the house me and D8 are moving in next week. As an expat I can't lease a house under my name and landlords around here would rather deal with married couples than single expats. They imagine that we'd be bringing in loads of different girls every night.

Expat lawyers are very few and far between in this city (there aren't that many expats here) and my info with regards to custody comes from the one lawyer I saw and two psychologists who deal with marriage counseling.

I don't like this either mate but you have to understand, this is not the US or even close to the western world.

As an example, a few years back an angry mob surrounded the house of an expat because he had a bbq with a dozen guests and hadn't advised the neighbourhood chief. It's mad.

BTW, I just received 2 text messages from my W at 6 am, telling me that it looked like it was going to be much later than she'd thought. They were sent last night at 21:45.

I know that the kids should take precedent over the sitch but in my case, the two go hand in hand. I don't have the law to back me up if i think that W isn't being a good parent. My only chance at making sure my D8 has the best future possible is to try to save this relationship or at least to bring it back to where we can communicate without W going on the defensive and then counter attack.

Everything W does points towards MLC. She is no longer the kind-hearted, generous, thoughtful person she was 3 months ago but I'm convinced that that person is still inside. To you I might sound like I'm being walked all over (and often it feels that way to me as well) but I'm trying to balance a very delicate situation to stop it from going out of control.