Residence permit and family ties

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Lula
Posts: 21
Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2017 1:22 pm

Residence permit and family ties

Post by Lula » Thu Aug 31, 2017 12:55 am

Hi,

I hope I"m at the correct place with this issue.
I moved to Finland a year and a half ago and 3 months later got married with a Finnish man, I am non-EU citizen. I have a profession, but so far I'm focused on language studies and don't work yet. The only reason I came here is to be with my husband, but he has a very bad drinking problem and his behavior when he is drunk makes me miserable every time he drinks. I thought I can live with it, I thought I will get used to it, but lately it's too much and I'm not sure if I can or even should take this anymore. There is no physical violence between us, however (and without going into details) the social service people said that this counts as a domestic violence. He refuses to get any kind of help, with the excuse of I don't understand the Finnish culture. Besides that he is a good guy and I love him very much. I hope he will get the help he needs and all this will become e relevant, but I also have to think about myself and what is good for me.
OK, sorry for poring my hart out here, here is the deal: I'm trying to decide what to do about all this situation. In case we will get separated or even divorce, how will it effect my residence permit? Its A permit valid for 4 years (until 2021) that I got based on family ties. I looked at migri site, but the information there is very robotic and not very clear about this issue. I was reading a lot of similar posts here in the forum, but couldn't find something similar to my situation. Does anybody knows what will happen to my residence status in case of separation or divorce when there is such a problem involved?
Any information will be appreciated, thanks in advance to anyone who will answer.

P.S Sorry if this post appeared more then once, there is a problem with my computer. Forum managers- feel free to delete the extras/



Residence permit and family ties

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Piet
Posts: 556
Joined: Thu Aug 13, 2015 3:45 pm
Location: Finland

Re: Residence permit and family ties

Post by Piet » Thu Aug 31, 2017 10:23 pm

I guess your husband believes in what a lot of foreigners say about Finns, they cannot stand alcohol and they are alcoholics (see the irony in that).

In other words, your husband uses the view of some foreigners on Finnish people as an excuse to have you stop addressing his alcohol (mis)use.
That is really a weak thing to say, that makes your husband a weak and pitiful man.

Letting him sleep in the "varasto" when he is drunk, might help, but in case you feel unsafe when he is drunk, call 112 and have him temporary removed from home.

The trap you are in now is indeed that you will probably lose your residence permit based on family ties when you divorce now, but that is only a worst case scenario. (you should ask betelgeuse for the specifics, that user on this forum has extensive knowledge of those things).
Of course you would want your husband to stop drinking, I think that any man should listen to his wife when she begs him to stop the (mis)use of alcohol and seek help to prevent it if he cannot do it on his own (again he might be too weak to do this himself).

On the other hand, being occasionally drunk is not so bad if your behaviour is not offending to your partner, (And I know that occasionally is not every weekend or even every first of the month after payday) but as said, you need to be strong to do that, some weak person will not have the self discipline to prevent such behaviour from occurring.
In other words, weak people should not drink at all. :beer_yum:

Myself I could enjoy a glass of whiskey 5cc (not the cheap stuff 8) ) easily for an hour and drink no more than 2, if you go to a general bar and offer any Finn around there the same expensive glass of whiskey, it will not even last 5 seconds :lol: (in Holland / Germany they call this "feeding/throwing pearls to the pigs").

I guess your task is to make clear to your husband that he really hurts you emotionally when he drinks, and if he would really love you he would not want that to happen....that will be your starting point, next step is family counselling i.e. "perheneovola" . Here both of you can talk about this issue under guidance of a psychologist, he about how nagging and irrelevant and stupid he thinks your concerns and feelings regarding drinking and getting drunk are, and you about how it emotionally wrecks you when he is behaving like that and showing no respect for your feelings. If he refuses, ask social office for your options again.

But in general, if he really loves you, he will at least join you to family counselling.

And to be true, yes most Finns I know (my friends included) can get very drunk, but the always behave to their lady, otherwise the lady kicks them out to sleep in the dog house outside :lol:
One of the reasons some Finnish men want a foreign wife is that Finnish women are considered very emancipated and strong of will, these Finnish men like yours are obvious weak and cannot handle such a women. You can let him read this post, maybe when he is smart and really loves you he will try too prove me otherwise and be strong and stop touching alcohol ever again, then your problem is solved.

Best of luck
If god would give us the source code, we could change the world
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rinso
Posts: 3949
Joined: Fri Aug 25, 2006 7:22 pm

Re: Residence permit and family ties

Post by rinso » Fri Sep 01, 2017 9:15 am

I moved to Finland a year and a half ago and 3 months later got married with a Finnish man, I am non-EU citizen. I have a profession, but so far I'm focused on language studies and don't work yet. The only reason I came here is to be with my husband, but he has a very bad drinking problem and his behavior when he is drunk makes me miserable every time he drinks. I thought I can live with it, I thought I will get used to it, but lately it's too much and I'm not sure if I can or even should take this anymore. There is no physical violence between us, however (and without going into details) the social service people said that this counts as a domestic violence. He refuses to get any kind of help, with the excuse of I don't understand the Finnish culture. Besides that he is a good guy and I love him very much. I hope he will get the help he needs and all this will become e relevant, but I also have to think about myself and what is good for me.
I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but your relation probably cannot be saved.
First; you could stand up for yourself (and you should) but that will create extra tension. He might then trigger a separation. If you don't stand up for yourself he'll walk over you all the time and you'll become more miserable.
Second; it is to optimistic to expect to cure his alcohol abuse, it rarely ever succeeds.
So you're in for a relation with lots of problems and full of stress or you have to explore other options.
A divorce indeed means that your residence permit can be revoked. You could try to delay the divorce till you have a permanent RP or till you find a job and get a RP based on work. But those options are not fully under your control. Or you might initiate a separation while you still have ties and contacts in your home country and can build your life there.
An other looming problem are children. The threshold for divorce becomes much higher when you have children. And when you finally divorce, he can (try to) prevent you taking your children back to your home country. So make a decision before you start a family.

I know this is a negative approach but in this forum we have seen many cases like this and none had a happy ending.
Good luck and wisdom.

Eveningstar
Posts: 6
Joined: Fri Sep 01, 2017 10:02 am

Re: Residence permit and family ties

Post by Eveningstar » Fri Sep 01, 2017 10:48 am

Lula, I'm so sorry what you are going through.

Being alcoholic is sickness that rarely (if ever) can be cured. An addict cannot see the problem himself. There are methods to stop drinking but the sickness remains. Someone said recently "You can live good life as an alcoholic. Just do not drink - ever". Social Service is right when saying you are exposed to domestic violance. To stay in this relationship until year 2021 sounds horrible to me.

I have been there myself, my ex husband is an addict altough not a Finn. Referring to earlier post here, I would be careful when throwing generic offending statements about Finnish people; in my opinion most of them are kind, well behaved and they know how to drink, and yes, they can appreciate expensive whiskey. My ex's best friend is (used to be) a Finn and he did great effort when trying to make my ex husband understand he has a drinking problem that will destroy his marriage.

Also the Finns I know are not weak at all for marrying a foreigner but pretty strong and successful to be frank. Beating up Lula for marrying this man won't help a bit. Maybe that post is supposed to sound funny but it is not so.

I do agree with others how to proceed though. If you love your husband give him an ultimatum to get counceling to stop drinking. Do not believe his promises but see yourself if he commits to it or not. In worst case I believe divorce is the only way to save yourself. Best of luck to you.

Lula
Posts: 21
Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2017 1:22 pm

Re: Residence permit and family ties

Post by Lula » Thu Sep 07, 2017 11:59 am

Thank you, everyone who answered. I know that with these things usually the end is not very nice, but I still try to be positive, hope for the best and think about what is best for me.
I read on migri that these issues are concidered case by case and in the event of divorce my rp 'my be revoked', 'not necceserily be renewd' and so on. What I meant to as is, if anybody know how is it usually handeled in my situation? Ever since I got to Finland I am trying to build myself a life here. Like all immigrants, I had to start my life from zero and I don't want to do that again...

P.S Please excuse any mistakes, I was writing from my phone.


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