Long time lurker first time poster.I am non EU spouse married to EU spouse working for an international orgainisation.My wife has filed for divorce in the swedish courts,she has also filed for sole custody for our 2 children.
A bit about me i am , i have been the house husband since we have been in geneva last 5 years.I have raised both our 2 children 4 years old and 9 months old baby.
I have no money to contact a lawyer.My question is will i be kicked out of switzerland as soon as the divorce go through since my permit is attached to me being married to her?Does it mean i will never be able to access my children?
Who can i go to for help in Geneva?I am very depressed and i think i will take my life away.
For a start, I strongly recommend you alter your profile. The repeated info looks more like a machine or someone playing around than a real person in distress. Often, new 'members' with profiles like that get themselves banned. First posts with 'urgent' or 'desperate' are suspect anyway. Sorry if it sounds brutal but that is Mod experience.
Having got that out of the way, Welcome to the Forum.
If you are a long-time lurker you will know where the Stickies with the helpful information are to be found. There are quite a few links there. Among others is this Thread .
Feeling depressed and thinking about taking your life away... are not very nice thoughts and will not help you in the fight for your children. On the contrary, I would say.
So...first priority is to get help for that. Surely you can go to Social Services to get help on that sense and some advice. La Commune would be my first contact point.
They might be able to advise where to get "benevole" / "voluntary" legal support.
Good luck, but above all... take care of yourself to be able to provide happiness to your children.
Being married to a nordic....the Swedes are very likely to give her custody, especially if she is moving back to Sweden. Having lived up there, I was very well acquainted with many men who were mostly prisoners of divorce with children who were not granted custody but wanted to be in their children's lives.
It gets complicated when you have a two-nationality marriage and are expats at the same time. Assuming by your message that she has filed for divorce in Sweden and that you are not an EU citizen, this is going to be rough for you. If you have the means, I'd suggest finding counsel that will try to find some sort of agreement that you can live near your children. I don't know all the details but....Nordics DO respect the role of the father and in that you can find some solace. If she's moving back to Sweden you will be granted some form of visa to stay in the country to be near your children.
You have my deepest sympathy as this is a very difficult situation, one I've witnessed too many times to count. Get a good lawyer, don't give up and, most importantly, try to keep the welfare of the kids at the front of the queue since they are the innocent bystanders in this unfortunate situation.
*hugs* and good luck. I hope it has a reasonable outcome.
Thank you very much.She will not be moving to sweden i the near future thats for sure.she has not lived in sweden for 15 years,We only got married in Sweden.She has been very abusive to me beating me up and all.I dont have any cash to contact a lawyer since i have no money i have been a house husband.
Sorry to hear that. I don't know what your legal options are or whose jurisdiction this falls under, but if she was first to file in Sweden, chances are, the Swedes will pull rank regardless of residence. You cannot be without a councillor though and I think you need to reach out to legal aid in both CH and Sweden since you do have rights as the father which do not diminish simply because you are not an EU citizen.
It's a complicated situation, one you need legal advise to navigate. I wish I had better advise for you but always keep hope that justice has a way of prevailing. Let your children know how much you love them as they will remember, even if your ex will not.
I always had respect for the dads who stayed in a country they no longer had a real reason to stay in other than for their children. I could fill a book, really, with stories about them. Hang in there and focus on how much you love your children. They will get you through.
Ok, you are married and live five years in Geneva. Why on earth can Swedish courts rule on the custody? Did you agree on anything without talking to a lawyer? That's naive at best. Get some professional help, start at the social service of your city, they will point you in the right directions.
Most importantly: Are you married for over five years? If you are a non-EU spouse of an EU person living in Switzerland for over five years and being married for over five years you can apply for a C-permit. That's for life - nobody can throw you out of the country once you got it.
Contact your embassy / consulate general, and get a lawyer. You don't need money to see a lawyer, find one that will send you a bill later...I'm sure you're not the first person to find themselves in a similar situation...
As Jrspet gave you some links, start there tomorrow on the telephone...start making those phone calls...Swiss law does protect the partner, and you are entitled to money to live on, whether it comes from her or from the government...
Money won't get you out of trouble. Support, Good Information, Patience and a Strong sense of what is best for you and your children, will be the key.
No, deportation is the least of his worries. But, if they were married in Sweden and she did a very smart thing of filing first in Sweden then she has a game edge in that the Swedish court will very likely take precedence. Of course, IANAL and this is sure to get complicated, but none of the countries involved will deport him since he has family ties. His worry should be on who gets the kids and how involved he will be if she is granted full custody. Keep in mind that in Sweden, women usually work and, so, a SAHD is not a shoo-in for custody.
She filed the divorce undercover,Divorcing in sweden is quite straight forward you just have to download the forms from the internet fill them and fire them away.You dont need your partners permission or signitory.BTW both our children were born in switzerland.
There is a possibly related thread here that might be interesting especially habitual residence case law ( EU ). Have you already been served with the petition papers ? You badly need to seek legal advice and prepare to battle it out for custody, care and control.
OP, I don't have much advise beside to find a lawyer. A father should never been seperate from his kids. Since you were the one who took care of them full time, I'll be surprise you lose the custody.
Sorry to hear about your situation and would do my best to help (been there and know how hard it is):
First, Check the nearest social assistance center ( Hospice General ) to where you live, just to secure you exit of marriage. Second, You should discuss with the hospice regarding the situation, most probably you'll be advised to contact either Centre Social Protestant or la Fondation Suisse du SSI or permanence juridique Genève You can discuss with the lawyer issuing a demand to the Tribunal de premiere instant to proceed with the divorce under Swiss law as you're both residents here since 5 years and your kids born here (I assume your kids had Swiss nationality), this should somehow freeze the process in Sweden if not cancel it totally, the lawyer will advice you exactly what to do. If you can prove you've been taking care f the kids as house husband and your wife is too busy with her career to take care of the kids, she will lose custody and you get kids + pension + rights to live in Switzerland If your permit is due to renew soon, go ahead with your C permit ASAP.
These are few points you have to go through, otherwise you can really be in a bad situation, don't wait and start to act immediately, most of the services above are free or very minimum fees.
You can start to go ahead and let us know here to guide you through more options as the situation develops, just make sure you're discreet about internal details on the internet and on EF, you never know how evil a person can turn to win a case in courts.
Good Luck and always feel positive, it takes sometime but when it's done it's over with.