‘There is no room for something extra’

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Now that her ex-husband not only leaves her to care for their daughters, but also neglects his financial obligation, Robine is really on her own.

Robine (41), divorced, mother of Sigrid (11) and Coralie (8):

“Whether Sigrid can change her room next summer, she asked last week. She is in group 8, and the transition to secondary education simply includes a teenage room. All right, honey, I muttered distractedly. She has to change anyway; the chances are slim that we will still be living here by then.

Bite on a piece of wood

Never before have I had financial problems. Even in my student days I didn’t have to bite the bullet, thanks to a lucrative part-time job in the hospitality industry and the survivor’s benefit of 300 euros per month; little comfort after my mother’s death a year earlier.

When I bumped into Charles a few years after graduating, we built on our financial foundations with no problem. Charles owned his own business and farmed well, earning a ton a year. My teaching profession would never make me rich, but at least there was a market for it.

Every reason to buy a beautiful house of five tons, with a matching mortgage and expenses. And there was room for at least three descendants—although that was more my desire than Charles’s. In hindsight, his lack of a desire to have children was red flag number one. I skillfully ignored the flags that followed. That he demanded every spare minute from me, could be sickly jealous of girlfriends and didn’t want a joint checking account. I was in love, and Charles seemed safe. A man who could take care of me after my mother died so young and my father was emotionally unavailable.

family life

We got married and had honeymoon years in our home. Sigrid was born and for Charles that was the jackpot for the outside world. Watched him get it done: big house, big car, nice wife and a kid too. He entrusted me.

Until Sigrid started to walk, started to say ‘no’ and with a growing will of her own, her father’s plans increasingly marred his eyes. I was already pregnant with Coralie when Charles exploded one night over something trivial and pushed Sigrid into the cold shower.

“Our family life became one big prison, and I silently reflected on a restart”

It was the start of more tantrums in the years that followed. He parked the children unceremoniously in the garden with the door closed – even when it was winter. Our French bulldog Smoel threw down the stairs when he snuck up against the rules. It exploded when I was working overtime with male colleagues who all wanted something from me, he was sure of that. Charles – plagued by a fierce separation anxiety due to a turbulent childhood – was impossible to talk to. He wanted no help, no reflection, no couples therapy. Our family life became one big prison, and I silently reflected on a restart for my children and me alone.

Also read: Not making a cent through my own stupid fault >

Close the money tap

“You can’t leave,” Charles said soberly on the day I announced our departure. “You can’t live without me, you don’t have a dime to make.” That last one was true. I didn’t earn enough to stay in our house – which was submerged in water, so I immediately parted with the divorce. I saved the rental apartment I found financially exactly when I also received child support; according to the legal calculations based on Charles’ income, more than a thousand euros every month. It sounded like apple pie.

I was on the lookout for his outbursts. Still, I encouraged that our daughters could at least continue to see their father every other weekend. But Charles thought otherwise. No sooner had I closed the door behind me than he had another, and never came to fetch the girls.

“Lawyers followed who suddenly demanded contact with the children”

We plodded on for five years. The older Sigrid and Coralie became, the more aware they became of their father’s absent behavior, and no longer wished to visit him themselves. I was allowed to proclaim the glad tidings. Lawyers followed. Who suddenly demanded contact with the children in the name of Charles. We held informal four interviews under the watchful eye of our lawyers. Let it come to a sitting twice. I suggested a start-up meeting so they could get used to him again. But Charles demanded half the time. Something the children no longer dared to do and I – with his outbursts of anger in the back of my mind – considered unsafe.

Those were hellish years. Each judge denied his requests. Until Charles decided to resign himself to that, and simply turned off the money for his daughters – against all alimony legislation.

The bottom in sight

I texted, called, wrote a plea after months of non-payment, but Charles didn’t answer. After four months, I went to the National Bureau for the Collection of Maintenance Contributions (LBIO). That government body is set up to collect overdue alimony. Charles turned out to get only a few hundred euros each month from his BV, his other income was not traceable. The LBIO sent Charles summons and bailiffs. But he didn’t pay a cent.

“We are now 9000 euros further behind in child support”

Meanwhile, I saw my savings account with my mother’s inheritance dwindle rapidly. If the bottom were in sight, I would no longer be able to pay the rent. Five months after my first contact with the LBIO, now 9,000 euros in arrears in child support, it finally investigated the seizure. After that, radio silence followed from that side as well.

Charles has been paying nothing for a year now and I borrow money from family to support my daughters in addition to the rent and to cover their father’s debt. There is no room for anything extra. I’m holding my breath for the costs in high school later. A laptop. Study trips. Luckily we don’t need much and I’m creative. The children’s winter coats came from Marktplaats this season.

move

Last week, exactly one year after Charles stopped paying, I received a message from the LBIO. He had sold his BV and transferred the proceeds to another company construction, which was not linked to him as a ‘natural legal person’. Conclusion: no one can.

There are other ways to seize his assets, but they will take months and more likely, years. My daughters and I won’t even make it financially until next month. There is no other option than moving to a much cheaper home, but the private rental sector is unaffordable and I am not eligible for urgency in social housing.

The only option left to us is to join forces with an equally single girlfriend with children, even if it means moving to the other side of the country and giving up my daughters everything she loves. Maybe that’s not so crazy after all. They may have lost their father, but they gain a whole family of roommates.”

This article can be found in Kek Mama 03-2022.

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