When Your Marriage Goes Wrong Abroad

When your marriage is in trouble in a new city, you don’t know where to turn for comfort or assistance. Laws governing divorce differ around the world, but the necessity for you to know your rights crosses all borders.

Infidelity abroad is frequent and is very often the man’s. According to Jeremy Morley, a British lawyer and founder of www.international-divorce.com, “The new location is far more exotic than ‘home,’ which may have become mundane; his daily routine is often refreshingly different; his work is more interesting and, as a result, he feels more interesting and alive than before; and he feels special because he receives unusual attention, especially from women.”

“But in the evenings, when he returns to his home in the new city, he finds the same wife and kids and the same old issues, as well as some new ones related to overseas adjustment. His wife does not treat him like the interesting, youthful, and special person he felt like at work. Instead, she’s been dealing with the kids who have no friends, hate the new school, and can’t stand the food. Or she’s bored and meets no one except some other wives who are also depressed. She can’t wait for her husband to come home so that she can complain to him and have him share in some of the household chores. The contrast is stark, so he prefers to spend time at the office, and that eventually leads to an affair.”

“The frequency of extramarital affairs depends on opportunity”, says Dr. John Gottman, author of The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. A hotel room on a business trip, a short-term assignment, or any other work arrangement that keeps a husband away from his family can certainly provide ample opportunity.

Among other considerations, if a woman has to leave a marriage abroad, she may have to start over financially without marketable, up-to-date skills, in addition to no longer having a home. 

Here are some practical steps you can take to protect yourself in case your marriage goes wrong.

• Hope for the best but plan for the worst. It may not be wise to sell a house before departure.
• It’s important to have money in your own name that you can access in an emergency, to cover things such as legal counsel or buying a ticket home.
• Make a postnuptial agreement that outlines a woman’s general rights and her husband’s obligations if the marriage breaks down. For a woman giving up her ability to make money, an agreement will provide some certainty before she leaves home that compensation will be forthcoming if things don’t work out. The contract could spell out the minimum amount of time and money a woman would get in financial support so she can retrain.
• Open all the envelopes and look at every document or piece of financial mail that arrives.
• Never rely on the company for help.

Women need to take responsibility for their own lives and not depend on a company or their husbands. There are no victims here. Men don’t even think about this stuff, never mind talk about it, so it’s going to be up to you.