please read the following and be warned

My life with the Swiss. A personal account of my life within a Swiss family. June 2008

Switzerland is a beautiful well run country and for many the ideal life but for many others there is an undercurrent of hostility and out right prejudice if you don’t completely conform.

I met my Swiss partner in the Pig and Parrot on Kew station, September the 11th 1987. He was a strange , mysterious, quiet, detached young man 21 yrs old and the only man at an all female get together. In my mind I convinced myself he was deep.
He was the brother of slightly wayward and wanton young Swiss girl who was sleeping with my old school friend at the time. She will play a major role in this story later. Suffice to say that at 13 she had a 19 yr old boyfriend and was allowed by her mother to stay overnight with him. Later her promiscuous behaviour caused many embarrassments and upsets but I`m getting ahead of myself.

Anyway, I began a relationship with this man. He was working illegally in London and often came up to Manchester to stay with me. His strange behaviour caused numerous problems from the start but I had fallen for him and couldn’t break away.
For instance he was very secretive and mean with money and once allowed a man to molest me saying that I should defend myself as the perpetrator may have a knife. He would be downright rude to people he took an instant dislike to. He had a couple of affairs. I know we weren’t married yet but it was a very serious relationship or I wouldn’t have stayed with him. After 3 yrs I found myself pregnant and he insisted I have a termination or never see him again. This information was relayed by telephone as he had returned to Switzerland shortly before. Unbeknownst to me he was sleeping with a work colleague.

New years eve 90/91 I decided to pay him a visit in Switzerland as he had left his fathers house –but not influence- and found a one roomed flat. I was excited to see him but found female cosmetics in the bathroom so it all fell pretty flat. I was never allowed to question him. I know I should have left but I came from a broken home myself and was desperate for some security.
Once here I found things very different to when he was in England. He worked long hours, sometimes all night and had no social life to speak of. If he went out I was never invited and at the weekend he would be up and out and back with the days loaf and beer before anyone else as he hated people and being jostled. It got so that we hardly ever went out together and when I asked for German lessons so I could be more self sufficient he refused saying he couldn’t afford them. I was not really welcomed by his family though they were not close anyway. He had no respect for his mother or sister and lived in fear of his fathers disapproval. All in all they were a fairly dysfunctional family who got by on one visit together a year and a lot of fake politeness. I didn’t really mind as it was the antithesis of my family who know everything about everyone, bicker and interfere and advise on things unasked.

Somehow we got married in 92. (It was a double wedding with his sister who had gone to Thailand with one man and come back with another. She had only known him around 6 months. It was over just as quickly.) I had decided I was leaving for good if things didn’t improve and he didn’t want me to so he proposed in a fashion.

Married life was a little better as I seemed to get a bit more respect from his family and I began to invite them for Christmas at our place as we were never invited anywhere else. I felt a bit more like a daughter in law. A proper family. My mother always came to Switzerland so my husbands father could be with us and not left alone as his daughter was often busy and he was no longer married to the mother. Not that he was grateful for all the effort.

When I got pregnant again my husband was accepting this time and we had our beautiful baby girl in 94 and later our son in 97. I thought it strange that no one ever helped or wanted to babysit. I was left completely alone and became quite depressed. His family babysat only twice up to this day and regularly forgot the childrens birthdays. They never forgot their own though and when I threatened to protest at their treatment of the children my husband banned me and they began having their annual get together without me in a restaurant or at his fathers. Obviously no questions were asked by his family, they seemed quite happy with the arrangement.
Between my pregnancies there was one particularly upsetting event. My husbands best friend is a lesbian who later became my sons godmother but while I was pregnant with my son she asked my husband to father her child and without a second thought he agreed to do it. This woman constantly interfered in our married life, going out with him, making him do jobs and later in my story fixing him up with her recently deserted sister for whom he left home. In the end I made such a fuss about the baby they wanted to have that it didn’t go ahead but please believe me it wasn’t out of malice it was because he had made me abort one of our children. I was hurt beyond words.
Talking about it was forbidden. I needed some help and guidance but every time I tried to broach any unpalatable topic with him or his family I was treated with disrespect and disdain. I was told they felt pity for my over emotional state. Even if I walked my children to kindergarten I was called over protective, ridiculous. The children were 4 at the time.

I found myself exhausted and drained. No one to talk to, terrible German because my husband had stopped me learning it when I had the time, living in a 3rd floor flat having to carry up 2 children and the shopping every day as there was no lift while his father lived alone in a 3 story house with a lovely garden which we weren’t even invited round to use.

One day feeling very brave I explained to his father that I wasn’t coping and that the children were missing out on playing in a garden and he replied that they didn’t know any better so it wouldn’t hurt them . In the end my emotion proved too embarrassing for him and maybe guilt got the better of him because he offered to give us a small amount of money, well small for a house deposit in Switzerland, to help buy our own home. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough for a home for 4 but he had also given his daughter the same amount and I found I beautiful house with 6 floors that we could easily afford together. It seemed like a good idea at the time and she was keen. I thought at last a family atmosphere for my children and a little garden and they couldn’t really forget their birthdays anymore could they? and imagined lovely Christmases and birthday parties. We were going to look after each others pets so we could go away at weekends. My children were older now, it was 2005 I think, but it still didn’t seem too late to try and get things right. Even granddad seemed quite proud of his magnanimity and the lovely place I had found. I felt we had a grudging respect for each other at last.
My husband and I felt new hope for a better life despite all our earlier problems. I was always determined to make our marriage work even though he was moody and difficult. We were thrilled. We were due to move in early 2005 or 6. I`m a bit wobbly on the year. And then disaster struck.
The sister asked if she could move in some man she had met on holiday. Another one. We had a lot of work to do on the house but she had her own set of apartments upstairs and it wasn’t up to us to tell her who to live with though everyone said it was too soon and what bad timing.
She barely ever turned up at the house to do any work. I designed her kitchen and bathroom and she just managed to turn up to choose fixtures and fittings. The new boyfriend brought around every low life and boozer to show off his lovely, brand new home thoroughly upsetting my husband and I who were doing all the work.
After we all moved in together this man who regularly drank 10 pints and drove and had committed GBH took a liking to my children. My daughter was a little older and avoided him but my son was in awe of him. A real man. A motorbike riding thug that gave him over 21 playstation games and started to teach him how to box after buying him gloves and a bag and installing himself in our attic. I begged my husband to put a stop to it, I tried to talk to his sister. They were both petrified of him. He was a large lump of meat. His presence was impossible to ignore. He regularly fell over drunk on the upstairs balcony and sent splintered glass raining down into the kids paddling pool. When he couldn’t be bothered to walk to the toilet he said he peed off the balcony-he was upstairs from us- and he couldn’t use an ashtray though he chain smoked and just threw all his ends into the garden. It didn’t matter that the pool was down there or I had spent hours tidying up. I tried to befriend him so that I could talk to him but all this resulted in was him trying it on with me.
One day I blew up and he raised his fists to me and this was the real beginning of the end. My husband hid behind me though I was being threatened by this idiot and after a few massive rows with him saying I just shouldn`t have become so involved, my husband went off and threatened to kill himself. Once he was missing overnight. I would call him hundreds of times but he didn’t answer yet in my hand I would have a letter saying he would be dead by the time he was found. I even called his father when he wasn’t talking to us to ask him to call the police and he did nothing. Not even talk to his son when he saw him again.

Our family was in bits yet his sister still sat upstairs with her thug partying every night. When I told her she ought to be ashamed of herself she and her mother , my childrens grandma, came down and tried to kick down my apartment door while I was alone inside with the children.
My husband hated his sister and mother at this point and there was no communication at all and then his father came up with a brilliant plan . He told my husband that if he left me they could get back to normal. For a while he did not speak to his father and was very angry with him but also torn and desperate for his approval. The children stopped going to see him too on the odd occasion they may have because the sister occasionally went with her thug. She began a program of trying to ingratiate herself with her father again which worked. I didn’t stand a chance. Despite the fact they had no relationship to speak of they clung together and ostracised the children and I.

In the end my husband was logging on to internet sites looking for prostitutes calling himself stiff peter or noddy boy and had obviously given up on me and the children spending every night in the pub so he didn’t have to be in the house. This went on for approximately half a year until one night when he was out with his lesbian friend she brought along her older sister who had just been dumped.

It was neediness at first sight for both of them. This was circa dec 2006. I knew nothing of this ofcourse until feb 2007 when I returned from a break with my mother to find a letter on the bed and the cupboards empty. In the kitchen was a legal form telling me to be at court for a separation in 2 weeks. He had been planning for a while and moved money and cashed in life insurance. I tried to be understanding. We had been through a lot. I didn’t know about the other woman yet but I begged my kids to see him. They were devastated and the one day my son agreed to see him my husband was furious as he was supposed to be with her and brought him back after 40 mins even though he hadn’t seen him for 3 weeks.
I discovered what he was really up to the first week of the easter school holidays when a bill arrived for his mobile phone showing he had sent over 700 sms to someone in the last month.
Ofcourse I rang the number to discover it was the sister of my childrens godmother who only lived around the corner. Her daughter went to the same school as my children.
Then the manure really hit the fan. I realised he was very serious indeed despite his many cries for help in the past. Because I had found him out and postponed the court date to try and get my case together he turned nasty. He sent the police round on a wild goose chase to check the children hadn’t been hurt by me. This was a ploy to blacken my character. He tried to get as much erroneous evidence as he could cobble together. Trying to record phone calls and provoking me. He began communicating with me only in swiss german and calling me by the wrong name. He cancelled everything like my phone contract and insurance and tv license to make life as difficult as possible. He drove past the house with her so my children saw him but when he met them in the street he actually ignored them causing unimaginable grief.. He let himself in when we were out now with the assistance of his sister upstairs with whom he was reunited. His girlfriend took out a restraining order against me as I objected to her always hanging around my house and when I spoke to her daughter she sent her ex round to intimidate me. All with my husbands help. The restraining order was not passed and in fact she has to stay away from my children now but this only infuriated my husband more.
I had begged my husband to communicate with me because of the children but at the separation he insisted that AKJS be involved. Social services that is. I thought it was all just to hurt me but his poor babies had to be psychiatrically assessed and pulled to bits. They were so distressed by the things he had done I had no idea what to do. I couldn’t believe he had this idea on his own and after much investigation discovered that his new woman worked at AKJS. And that her ex was a social worker and they were both helping him hurt me as much as possible. I cant explain why her ex was so keen to help them .Maybe he felt guilty about leaving her and wanted her to have someone. It strikes me as fairly sordid though.
When I reported her to AKJS for unprofessional conduct they moved our appointments to UPK so we were supposedly monitored with no bias. That’s a psychiatric clinic.
The children told everyone that asked that they never wanted to see him again but still they are pushed into therapy and special classes and I receive letters insinuating that I have a problem and I don’t give them the notes he sends. The children have received one book and one cd from him in over a year. Also a picture of himself that his sister thrust at my son after waiting for him in the hall of our shared house. They suggest the conflict is inter racial between my husband and I and infer I am the reason there is no contact. My husband has since stolen much of the money from the childrens accounts, changed his phone number so they cannot even berate him, moved house and seen his father die all without letting the children know yet somehow to the authorities I am the party at fault in their eyes. I am persecuted and hounded and held here a prisoner in this county with no help, no family and little money for anything but the basics. I was told if I left I would be arrested and my children would have to go into care if they wouldn’t go to their father. I am treated like a dog and the swiss law and authorities allow this and even encourage it. The AKJS must be in breach of something having an employee pervert the course of my separation and my husband and his family are certainly guilty of cruelty and neglect yet with little money for a massive case that I could easily lose I cannot fight it. But I would love to take this to court.

My husband is now a very rich man since his father died living in his large house with all the trappings of wealth while the children and I survive on 3000 sfr a mnth and we can have nothing as it is an inheritance. I have been with that man for over 20yrs and given up my family life and language and it seems my freedom to be with him and he can dump me penniless even though he is a millionare. This is not an exaggeration though much of it will be hidden. That’s a different story. I know approximately how much his father was worth and what his dying wishes were. He had been convicted of tax fraud before.
He does not have to divorce me until next year, I still may not get custody or be free to move, meanwhile I am not pursuing a career so I will not be able to support myself when he stops paying for the children. With no help and the school system here the children would be alone most of the time. Something he was quite happy about when it was mentioned at the lawyers but they did not want to be alone as he has a key to the house. He even with held the child support for 3 or 4 months after he was given the order to pay it. He has not once been reprimanded for anything he has done while I get persecuted when asking for help to translate a letter. A swiss, male lawyer told me he despised women like me who had too much influence over their children and he would not help me asking me to leave the premises.

So here I am trapped, poor, humiliated and belittled through no fault of my own. Well if loving someone too much to leave them is a fault then I suppose I am guilty. This is a man I didn’t even leave when he tried to throw me out of the car on the motorway going 160kmph all because the chocolate his dad had given the kids for the journey was melting and I said I would have preferred popcorn. I am a british citizen as are both my children and I am a prisoner in a supposedly humane and forward thinking country abused by the authorities and made a fool of by my husband and his family.
Is it right that I receive nothing for all the years of support I have given him? What is the greedy reasoning behind the swiss law that prevents wives receiving part of their husbands money?
I got nothing from him when I was with him. I never went to the hairdresser or dentist, only bought sale clothes and he made me stick all the shopping receipts in a little book so he could check them and this man is an architect!

On a different note his sister has another large man at her disposal upstairs and we are stuck in this house, my children and I watching the comings and goings and listening to the knockings and bouncings.

What can we do?

Holding as well... .

Leave. Go back to the UK. It will be difficult in the beginning, but better in the long run. You will be happy at last and your children will be too.

I am not really sure about what to say, but if you feel that some of your legal rights are violated, go talk to the british embassy. They'll know what to do.

what will i live on with 2 children? and he has a clause in the separation saying i cant go. they said i will be arrested. my life was here but it has been destroyed. i intend to send this to the consul and embassy and the press if i have too i was just testing it out here. i have done nothing wrong and why should i begin again with nothing in middle age.

Your story feels familiar unfortunately - I've seen similar things happening to too many women around me.

You do have rights and as has been suggested, talk to your embassy or talk to the different institutions in Zürich that helps women for free.

first i will say, i am sorry for your situation, but why oh why did you marry him after what he did to you he was/his a monster i know you was in love, and they say love is blind, but cheating on you, and how he treated you was out of order.

By law your husband will have to pay for the children until they are 18 years old.

Stay strong, and fight for your rights, and i hope 1 day you will meet a man that will treat you with the respect you deserve.

I'm not so sure sending such a letter will do any good. On the contrary I'm afraid. You would only put him on defensive and after all, he is the "local boy" and you are not. He will always get the benefit of doubt and you won't.

Seek professional help and fight for your rights that way is my advise.

With the utmost respect and without being glib, you could always write a book about it. It has been said that within us all lies a novel, this could be yours and it could be quite theraputic.

I'm sorry to hear about your predicament. It sounds terrible.

For the sake of your emotional and psychological health, I recommend looking into attending an Al-Anon meeting. The meetings are usually for spouses and relatives of alcoholics (which it sounds like your husband may be...or maybe a sex addict), but even if he isn't an addict, it's a good place to deal with a psychotic spouse (which it sounds like your husband most definitely is). You will find support and understanding, and possibly some very good practical advice and help (like child care). I guarantee that the meetings will help in some way, and they can probably make arrangements about what to do with your children during the meeting.

I notice that you live in Basel--there is an English-language meeting listed on this website: http://www.al-anon.ch/deutsch/kat17....20050702205915

Good luck, and I hope you work out all of your issues safely and you and your children can get past all of this horror.

local or not she needs to find a better lawyer first and for most,and if she wants to cross the border there are places on the rhein near Schaffhausen that are easily crossible,but first things first,find a new lawyer,embassy info. and get out of this dire situation she helped exacerbate by prolonging what she should have done in the first place-get away fromn this person and surroundings and take control of her life-now!
Make the CHOICE that makes IT happen!

perhaps a book on what what advice Not to give

you are all wonderful and supportive. for the sake of my kids i would like to remain, they have a great life but with the constant pressure from their father and akjs they often feel like running. my son in particular feels like a freak at school where due to the interference of social services he is watched very closely.
all we have in the uk is my mum now. they love her but i think i would end up looking after her too.

Mums go a long way in the child's life
whether she is alive or deceased

I think the first thing to do is to go to a lawyer and find out what exactly your rights are. Anything else (going abroad etc.) will only complicate things more.

Here's a list of english speaking lawyers in basel:

http://bern.usembassy.gov/basel3.html

I'm sure other EF members have been through a divorce in Switzerland, perhaps someone has a reccomendation.
On another level, I think the suggestion of al-anon is an excellent one: whether or not your husband is an addict, you may feel less alone if you are able to exchange your experiences and get some human support.

Best of luck to you.

I am quite shocked at this story.

TO be honest, I do not believe it.
Many divorces in CH, actually favours the woman, esp with children.
2 people I know, in fact 3, had to pay off so much of their salaries to their wives, that one of them (actually just yesterday) told me that he will tear up his swiss passport and move to Liechenstein, because the swiss law favours so heavily towards the woman. Swiss marriage.

So, sorry, I don't believe this story.

I am not being mean. I am just stating my opinion.

IN any case, if you are real in the story, a good lawyer will "get" your husband.
Language is NOT a problem.

Jojo your situation sounds very difficult and wrenching. It cannot be easy for you and the children. Surely after twenty years of marriage by law you are entitled to some settlement, and as one of the other posters wrote it seems as if he must pay something towards the upkeep of your children. You are going to have to be strong; and hopefully you can seek out a lawyer who will help you on some basis.

As awful as things are, perhaps in the long run it is better that things fell apart now, and not later. And it sounds as if you are better off without him. Hopefully things will begin to shift and your life will improve. Try to be positive about the small, good things in life, and also about yourself.

Why the hell would the op take so long to post a thread so long, and ask for advice, if it was not true, if you do not believe her story then why reply. She is asking for help, and advice, and all you can say is that you do not believe her story, well i think she has been through hell, and back. and needs support, i know for 1 i could never make up a story like that oh yes she pm-ed me so i know she is serious.

im sorry you dont believe me but why would i go to so much trouble to create a work of fiction. i havent got baron munchausens sydrome in some perverted form. all of this has been to court and all the legal papers exist. my husband has friends in high places. i know its hard to trust people and believe me thats a place im at myself right now but you have no legit reason to think i am lying. that is just another nail in my coffin thanks a lot!

Phew..

I cant say how sorry i am for you and your situation.

I wouldnt even want to be in the same country as him let alone the same area.

Yes, going back to the uk would be difficult at first but you would be safe and away from what seems constant pressure and stress.

What ever you decide to do i wish you all the luck and dont forget that we are here to help,listen or give advice (good or bad)whenever you need it.