Posted in The View From Here
The past year has brought about many changes. In August of 2005, my beloved mother-in-law passed away and my then-husband began a downhill slide. In October he walked out of his job of 13 years, stayed unemployed for four months (depleting our savings) and distancing himself from his family. We thought he'd be okay when he finished therapy and started to do freelance work for a toy company, making production films and other works for a group of ministers who owned and ran the company.Then he found a steady job in Gothenburg, 200 miles away. But the job turned out to be editing film for a large Swedish pornography distributor and the toy company dismissed him. How could they not? He moved to Gothenburg and "visited" us on the weekend, promising that this job was just a steppingstone (because he knew I was against it), that he would move us out to be with him as soon as we could afford it and everything would be "fine".
What I didn't know was that during the week, he was living as a single man while I was struggling alone to raise the girls and battling the local officials for the right to home school. After three months, we followed him to Gothenburg to find out that he had no intention of leaving his job. His single, 37yo supervisor had become his new best friend and he began working long hours and becoming secretive about "his" life.
In September, he called me from work to tell me he wanted a divorce. He stated that he didn't want to have the "burden and responsibility of a family" anymore and that he wanted to "go on with [his] life while [he] was still young enough to enjoy it". He told me he never wanted any more than his two eldest children (from his first marriage) and that he felt no responsibility toward us. He left us with no money, no job, living in a new and strange place with no one to turn to.
I had a meeting with a lawyer, who explained that in Sweden divorce is a no-fault action and even though he is legally required to pay maintenance until we are divorced, if he chooses not to there is no sense in going to court because it will cost me more in legal fees than I would get to live on. At that time, I also found out that he was receiving nearly twice as much salary as he told me he was getting and had been getting raises of clothing, money and a new laptop ($3000) disguised as "personal gifts" (which legally, I couldn't touch).
He chose not to provide for us, but God in His mercy worked the situation so that he HAD to pay the rent. A friend from the States offered to loan us the money to buy tickets to visit my family while the divorce was pending and he signed over custody of the girls to me. God has been with me and the girls through it all.
I don't know where we go from here - whether we'll settle in the States or go back to Europe to live (it's the only life the girls have known and the culture shock of being in the USA is incredible) - but I do know that God will continue to be with us no matter what. In the meantime, I am looking for work on both continents and we will go where I find a job. The girls are enjoying homeschooling without a hassel and getting to know their American family. Baruch haShem.
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