Hello,
I would appreciate your advice on a most difficult situation I am going through. Thank you in advance.
I am contemplating divorcing my wife as our relationship has become so damaged that living with/talking to each other has become intolerable and is causing us and our respective families much heartache and health problems.
I'm a citizen of Australia (age 32) who married a girl from Andheri, Mumbai (age 29) on February 2014 under Hindu Marriate rites. We started living in Perth, Australia in January 2015 with my parents (who are also Australian citizens) and things have not gone well.
Without going to into too much detail:
We fight several times each day and just cannot get along. The fights are over very trivial issues such as not responding to messages quickly enough or not making her feel special by buying her things.
She has tortured me and my parents and made our house a very dark, depresing place to be (always rude to everyone, moody, provokes my parents, never helps out in any chores) and has openly insulted by mum.
Her contributions to the household are almost nothing. Me and dad work 10-12 hours each day to pay the bills and save for a better future while mum cooks for all of us and cleans and maintains the house every single day. My wife gets up late, surfs net for much of the afternoon, avoids talking to my parents purposely and then won't even perpare me food or keep our rooms neat and tidy by the time I'm back.
I provide generous financial support which she takes for granted. She doesn't work so of course I pay for many things happily but I hate wasting money on expensive items that aren't necessary, especially after wedding and given she doesn't work. But she always wants high-end brands for everything and abuses and guilt-trips me into buying them.
There has not been any violence involved in the relationship. My parents have spoken to her and yelled at her 2 or 3 times when she has done something wrong, such as when she's rude and calls my mum names or becomes too noisy. She claims that this is torture and has threatened to file a criminal case against them (in India).
She has damaged my career because our fights are so bad sometimes that I go to work very late some days and have missed or can't focus when I have important meetings. I have received a warning from work due to this and my prospects of promotion have gone way down.
I feel depressed and alone even when I'm with her because all she does is keep demanding things and talking about how other husbands are so much better than me.
We have spoken about the topic of divorce many times in the last few months and she has threatened that if we divorce, she'll use a lawyer who know how to extract big alimonies from husbands.
She blames me for all of above because I didn't buy a property of my own so her and I could live together without my parents when she migrated here. The reason for this though is because I wanted to save a bit more after the wedding because house prices have gone crazy here over the last several years, and I wanted to nicely show her properties and pick something in an area both her and I like so it becomes a mutual decision. But now I'm very scared to buy a property because I just don't trust her.
Right now she's gone back to India for a holiday and is demanding a place be ready by the time she's back or she won't return. I don't deserve such pressure and harassment for a girl who I've done everything for. We have also openly talked about divorce and she's said if there's no love it's best to break up now rather than later, which I agree with, but she seems keen on being nasty about the divorce and inflicting as much pain as possible on me and my family.
My questions are:
- What are my options for divorce without having to come back to India?
- What could she do regarding criminal proceedings from India?
- What are my family's options regarding the torture, pain, suffering and humiliation she has caused?
Thank you again and would appreciate any advice.
