I met a beautiful woman through a dating website and we have now been together for two years - we will be getting married later this year. She has a 4 year old daughter who lives with her. Her ex-husband has no interest in his daughter or her welfare, but he is making life difficult for us by refusing to give permission for his daughter to leave the Ukraine unless I pay him money. We have spent many months with our lawyer trying to get his parental rights removed by the Court so that my wife to be and her daughter can come and live in the UK. We have nearly finished the legal process, but the ex-husband has now started intimidation tactics to try and get the legal action stopped (he broke into my fiancee's flat a few days ago and destroyed most of her belongings)
So, if you meet someone who has a child be prepared for a lot of problems. But if you meet the right person it is worth it!
Congratulations on your new family! And thanks for posting this valuable (but distressing) story. I wish your experience were very unusual, but I have the feeling that it isn't.
This also offers a hint to those men, who wonder why sincere women are looking for husbands outside of their home country.
I hope that other men who have experience bringing women with young children to their home country, will write their experiences on this thread. Thanks!
just make sure the papers are signed first - and have a legal document stating that you paid this man so he would release his obligation (which he never honored) to his child. then you will have no problems. just make sure you get a receipt and acknowledgment of the transaction. it sucks -- men selling their children in this fashion. if he was in america he would be in jail.
From reading this forum, I hear it is against the law and one could go to jail for not paying child support in Ukraine. Therefore, you can use this against him. I am not sure if you looked at it from this angle. You probably have because you have a lawyer.
Rocket,
I understand standing on principle, but on this 1 I'm Kirkland & Baron, pay the $.
Dansing - you have no children & we can always hope never. I raised 2 daughters despite being divorced. A father supplies sperm. A DAD is invested in every moment of a child's life despite circumstances. If I had been estranged to my children by circumstance, mother lived a single mother's hardship & all had opportunity for a better life, a real parent considers it. In my mind a father that abandons children for some sense of personal freedom or $ expense forfeits rights. And I speak from experience. I made arrangements for $ support for my daughters before we even got to court.
Rocket - consider in your mind what is best for your new family. Fighting this out in a court not in your homeland, not knowing the intricacies? A man that not only burglarized your fiance but violent as well. Or having your lawyer make the payment arrangements himself, in his office and bring your family to you ASAP? I'm betting the break in & destruction has you very uneasy and you came here exploring your options. Take any shortcut possible that leads to safety & serenity. I too have heard of what RB speaks of. Whatever it takes.
If I can ask you a question? Success stories are always welcome to us still seeking. How did you come to know your fiance? No details, just was it by a particular site, chance meeting....?
To answer your question, I met her through the fiance.com website. We wrote a few letters to each other, she gave me her telephone number and we started speaking regularly. I did a google search and found out that she was supposed to be a big time scammer but as we got on so well over the phone I went over to meet her - it is a strong belief of mine that you should not believe everything you read on the internet.
I asked her about the scamming allegations and she told me what I believe to be the truth - her ex-husband operated a number of scam websites. He persuaded/ forced her (and many others) to put their photos and profiles on his sites - he and his employees would then write to unsuspecting men and attempt to take as much money off them as possible. He would discourage the women on the website from giving their telephone numbers and all communication would be by letter.
Unsuspecting men would come to the Ukraine to see her or one of the other women on his scam sites and she would meet them as a prospective partner or act as interpreter (even though many could speak perfectly good English)- her ex-husband could then get additional money for arranging expensive travel,accommodation,interpreter fees etc.He forced her to do this even when she was pregnant with his child.
After the birth of her daughter four years ago she escaped from him and divorced him, and gave up the lifestyle she had been force to live.
In the two years I have known her I have met all her close family and travel regularly to the Ukraine to see her and her daughter. She has never asked me for money or holidays or made any attempt to scam me. I did however pay for her grandmothers funeral (voluntarily - I had met the grandmother and she was a lovely old lady)and her daughter's birthday party - her ex-husband did not even buy his daughter a birthday present.
Her ex-husband is still a big time scammer - I will not mention his name or the names of his dating websites or the administrator might ban me. My fiance and I have a constant battle as he keeps using her profile (without her permission)and it is a nightmare getting these profiles removed. We have managed to get her unauthorized profile removed from a number of dating websites (Jim's List has been a great help). There is one website still causing us problems and my solicitors are applying to the Courts to force the website to remove her unauthorized profile.
We are trying to get the ex-husband's parental rights removed simply because he is a very bad man, I am not trying to steal his daughter. If we fail we will still get married and we will in the Ukraine - I love the Country and most of the people are wonderful.
I'm in a similar situation as you. My fiancee has a 15 year old daughter. We initially contacted her former husband and he said no, he would not grant permission for his daughter to leave the country... she (my fiancee) then met with her former husband and his present wife and told them that when she left Ukraine "they" would have to take the child and support and raise the child. Her ex-husbands "wife" was furious at the fact that they would have to raise and pay for this child themselves... in a few minutes they agreed to sign away his parental rights in front of a notary to eliminate any financial burdon on themselves. Our next plan (in case this did not work) of action was; he never in 15 years paid any child support (typical of Ukrianian/Russian men)... we were going to take him to court and get all this back money he owed her and then use it to bribe him to sign the parenhtal rights paper.
Hi Mini Cooper
I am pleased everything worked out for you. The easy thing for me would have been to pay up but I have principles. It is wrong that a man should attempt sell his child or fail to support his child.
The point I was trying to make was a simple one - there are a number of scam marriage websites run mainly by greedy men with no morals. These despicable creatures con women (often their wives) into scamming on their behalf. Their only aim is to make money and it does not matter who they hurt. These men are nothing but pimps.
It is wrong that so many women are on anti-scam web sites. 9 times out of 10 the scam letters have not even been written by them. Even if these "scamming" women do meet up with men who buy them expensive clothes, perfume etc who will finish up with these items and sell them? The pimp of course. You may notice that most Ukrainian women (including the "scammers") do not have a large wardrobe of clothes.
My strong belief is that all marriage websites should subscibe to a code of practice to try and kick out the real scammers - the men or women behind scam websites or behind fake profiles.
In many cases, the child needs BOTH parents or they will be psychologically ruined. I am not a psychologist, but from personal experience and observation of others, this is probably true. It is hard on the kids when parents separate. But, when the woman takes the child out of the country, there will be little or no communication compared to before. Of course, there are other factors involved like if there is communication at all, or the age of the child. Mini Cooper's child will be an adult soon and the impact will probably be not as much as a younger kid.
Actually RB, it comes down to the quality of parenting by those caring for the children. The most important role model in a child's life is the same sex guardian, followed by the opposite sex guardian. Both are necessary for rounded psychological development, so you're right there.
Where a biological parent is missing, the level of effect on the child is dictated by the level of contact and quality of relationship they had before, along with how well the resulting situation is dealt with by the current guardians (including access to missing biological parents, and good communication, explanation and support for "why daddy doesn't want to see me").
In the majority of cases I read on here, the fathers were absent from the child's lives before the mothers move country, so the children will usually be glad to have any father-figure. As long as it's a 'good' man taking over this role, the child's welfare (including psychological welfare) will probably improve substantially.
OPTIONS;
1. Solicitors here are very different. There are solicitors in Ukraine that you can pay to turn a ''blind eye'' and will sign papers for you. If the father is not interested , he will be too late when he finds out !
Its too late for you now as you have already gone to court.
2. Pay him the money , but be careful, many take money and run out of office before signing papers. When you go to a solicitor office to exchange money (buy property etc) you go into a small room, without the solicitor, exchange the cash, then you go into the solicitors office to sign papers. Be careful.
3. Report his damage to Police and show court the Police papers, it will be harder for him now.
Of course, that is a better description, but it is much more complex. A person's upbringing is often times blamed for his success or failure, but there are failures who had good parents and successes who had lousy parents.
... just as there are people who never smoked or drank who died from lung cancer in their forties and those who drank and smoked their entire life and lived to be functional well into their nineties. I know each of this category.