Suffered spousal abuse, and now feeling lost.

[username2300]

Some background info:

• I am a born US citizen.
• Wife is a born Canadian citizen.
  
• We had a long distance relationship for years.
  
• My wife and I got married in Toronto, in April 2017.
• We applied for Family Class sponsorship.
• I got PR status and landed in Canada, August 2018.
• We lived in Toronto together, for about the next 6 months.
• I received my PR card, SIN, and Health card.

Now the current issue:

• My wife had some emotional issues, which resulted in her lashing out at me a couple times in our six months living together.
  
• Around February 2019, it was revealed she was having an affair with a coworker.
• From that point on, she became extremely emotionally volatile, verbally abusive, and even threatened suicide. She insisted that I allow her to date this new guy on the side.
• She insisted that I shouldn't leave, and offered to lie to the CIC about our relationship to keep me in the country.
  
• She also attempted to sexually assault me, but I was able to push her off.
• She withheld all of my money in her own personal bank account, all the money I saved up and brought to Canada for us to build a life together.
• She refused to stop seeing the guy and messaging him daily, and seemed to have no remorse.
• I told her that I want a divorce.
  
• She began telling all of our mutual friends that I was the one abusing her.
• I didn't feel safe, or know who I could trust, so I packed all my things and left for the United States to live with my parents around March 2019
  
• I told the Border Officer that I was staying with my parents for a while, so I can figure out what to do with our marriage. I did not have intentions to leave Canada permanently at the time, just needed to be around people I could trust and clear my head.

Back in America:

• I literally left Canada with less than $100, as my wife withheld finances from me, and was not co-operative in settling things in person.
• I find out my wife is publicly spreading information about me on Twitter that I manipulated and abused her. I called out the BS, and then told her to stop spreading lies, and to never contact me or my family again.
  
• I started a basic industrial job right away, as I needed funds to figure out what to do.
• I am extremely depressed and shaken, and struggled to maintain composure at work.
• I no longer work there because I frequented the bathroom to cry too often to keep up productivity.
  
• I was able to save maybe a little less than $2000 USD.
• My USA passport happened to expire last month (august 2019).
• My wife is now contacting me via email asking if I paid the "visa abandonment fee" at the border. I did not have intentions to live in the USA permanently at the time, so I did not pay any fees or anything of the sort.

So where I'm at right now, I have a few questions:

1. Is my PR status still valid, since I haven't been living in Canada since March? For example, if I wanted to move back to Canada and stay with a friend while sorting out legal matters?
   
2. What is this "visa abandonment fee" that my wife is talking about, and is it my responsibility to pay it? I would assume that since she is the sponsor, it would be up to her to pay those kinds of fees.
3. I've found that divorce in Toronto is really expensive, and I just do not have the funds to even start that process. Is there a lawyer I can talk to about my situation that is cheap/free? I don't even know where to start.
4. What would be the best grounds for divorce? I have reason to believe my wife is very mentally unstable, and would not be above making up fake rape or violence allegations against me.
5. Given that she is very unstable, I feel like divorce on grounds of infidelity would only enrage her, and make her drag out the process just to make me suffer -- she did already attempt to sexually assault me, so I have no reason to believe she cares about hurting others or not.
6. She is Facebook official relationships status with her new boyfriend, merely weeks after I left our home. I would figure that this alone would probably be grounds enough for divorce, right?
   
7. Beyond that, she has been very careful to not leave tracks. I don't have any concrete proof of her lashing out, her lies, or her attempted suicide and sexual assault. I did talk to a therapist a local community health center about these issues though, and they confirmed that they would give a report that we talked about these issues if I needed that information for legal reasons.
8. Is there anything that I need to report to CIC about my current situation? I would like to report what my wife has done and why I left the country... but if it makes divorce any harder, I want to avoid that.

I really don't know what to do, or where to begin. My situation is so specific, I have felt so entirely alone about it. None of my friends or family understand, and I don't even know where to begin about getting psychological/emotional help.

In short, I want to divorce my wife as quickly as possible, with as little damage to my finances as possible. And I'm not sure how to do that, as I now live outside of Canada.

I would like to just have a solid talk about my legal options, but I don't have a lot of money, and my wife has already taken thousands of dollars from me.

 

[scylla]

Some background info:

• I am a born US citizen.
• Wife is a born Canadian citizen.
  
• We had a long distance relationship for years.
  
• My wife and I got married in Toronto, in April 2017.
• We applied for Family Class sponsorship.
• I got PR status and landed in Canada, August 2018.
• We lived in Toronto together, for about the next 6 months.
• I received my PR card, SIN, and Health card.

Now the current issue:

• My wife had some emotional issues, which resulted in her lashing out at me a couple times in our six months living together.
  
• Around February 2019, it was revealed she was having an affair with a coworker.
• From that point on, she became extremely emotionally volatile, verbally abusive, and even threatened suicide. She insisted that I allow her to date this new guy on the side.
• She insisted that I shouldn't leave, and offered to lie to the CIC about our relationship to keep me in the country.
  
• She also attempted to sexually assault me, but I was able to push her off.
• She withheld all of my money in her own personal bank account, all the money I saved up and brought to Canada for us to build a life together.
• She refused to stop seeing the guy and messaging him daily, and seemed to have no remorse.
• I told her that I want a divorce.
  
• She began telling all of our mutual friends that I was the one abusing her.
• I didn't feel safe, or know who I could trust, so I packed all my things and left for the United States to live with my parents around March 2019
  
• I told the Border Officer that I was staying with my parents for a while, so I can figure out what to do with our marriage. I did not have intentions to leave Canada permanently at the time, just needed to be around people I could trust and clear my head.

Back in America:

• I literally left Canada with less than $100, as my wife withheld finances from me, and was not co-operative in settling things in person.
• I find out my wife is publicly spreading information about me on Twitter that I manipulated and abused her. I called out the BS, and then told her to stop spreading lies, and to never contact me or my family again.
  
• I started a basic industrial job right away, as I needed funds to figure out what to do.
• I am extremely depressed and shaken, and struggled to maintain composure at work.
• I no longer work there because I frequented the bathroom to cry too often to keep up productivity.
  
• I was able to save maybe a little less than $2000 USD.
• My USA passport happened to expire last month (august 2019).
• My wife is now contacting me via email asking if I paid the "visa abandonment fee" at the border. I did not have intentions to live in the USA permanently at the time, so I did not pay any fees or anything of the sort.

So where I'm at right now, I have a few questions:

1. Is my PR status still valid, since I haven't been living in Canada since March? For example, if I wanted to move back to Canada and stay with a friend while sorting out legal matters?
   
2. What is this "visa abandonment fee" that my wife is talking about, and is it my responsibility to pay it? I would assume that since she is the sponsor, it would be up to her to pay those kinds of fees.
3. I've found that divorce in Toronto is really expensive, and I just do not have the funds to even start that process. Is there a lawyer I can talk to about my situation that is cheap/free? I don't even know where to start.
4. What would be the best grounds for divorce? I have reason to believe my wife is very mentally unstable, and would not be above making up fake rape or violence allegations against me.
5. Given that she is very unstable, I feel like divorce on grounds of infidelity would only enrage her, and make her drag out the process just to make me suffer -- she did already attempt to sexually assault me, so I have no reason to believe she cares about hurting others or not.
6. She is Facebook official relationships status with her new boyfriend, merely weeks after I left our home. I would figure that this alone would probably be grounds enough for divorce, right?
   
7. Beyond that, she has been very careful to not leave tracks. I don't have any concrete proof of her lashing out, her lies, or her attempted suicide and sexual assault. I did talk to a therapist a local community health center about these issues though, and they confirmed that they would give a report that we talked about these issues if I needed that information for legal reasons.
8. Is there anything that I need to report to CIC about my current situation? I would like to report what my wife has done and why I left the country... but if it makes divorce any harder, I want to avoid that.

I really don't know what to do, or where to begin. My situation is so specific, I have felt so entirely alone about it. None of my friends or family understand, and I don't even know where to begin about getting psychological/emotional help.

In short, I want to divorce my wife as quickly as possible, with as little damage to my finances as possible. And I'm not sure how to do that, as I now live outside of Canada.

I would like to just have a solid talk about my legal options, but I don't have a lot of money, and my wife has already taken thousands of dollars from me.

1. Yes - it's certainly still valid. Yes - you can certainly return and live with a friend. Provided you live in Canada for 2 out of every 5 years, you will meet the PR residency requirement and your PR status will be yours to keep.
2. There is no such thing. She is lying to you / making things up.
3. Can't help you. But I would definitely recommend working with a good lawyer.
4-7. These aren't immigration questions. These are family law questions. You need to be working with a good family lawyer on these matters. Note that you need to separate for a year before you will be able to divorce.
8. There's nothing you need to report to CIC.

 

[canuck78]

Would also discourage you from being alone with her. You should file for divorce as soon as possible to freeze any joint accounts.

 

[username2300]

1. Yes - it's certainly still valid. Yes - you can certainly return and live with a friend. Provided you live in Canada for 2 out of every 5 years, you will meet the PR residency requirement and your PR status will be yours to keep.
2. There is no such thing. She is lying to you / making things up.
3. Can't help you. But I would definitely recommend working with a good lawyer.
4-7. These aren't immigration questions. These are family law questions. You need to be working with a good family lawyer on these matters. Note that you need to separate for a year before you will be able to divorce.
8. There's nothing you need to report to CIC.

Thank you for this straight forward info.

About the "abandonment fee" I had a feeling she was making this up, as I wasn't able to find anything on here, google, or the CIC website about it.

And for the quesions 4-7 about a Family Lawyer, is there a way for me to do this from the USA? Would I be able to talk with them over Skype? And if so, do you (or anyone else reading here) know of a good family lawyer that deals with these sorts of issues? And yeah, I was made aware that I needed to separate for 1 year before filing divorce, as I was able to talk with some legal aid while I was still living in Toronto.

Again, thank you so much.

 

[scylla]

Thank you for this straight forward info.

About the "abandonment fee" I had a feeling she was making this up, as I wasn't able to find anything on here, google, or the CIC website about it.

And for the quesions 4-7 about a Family Lawyer, is there a way for me to do this from the USA? Would I be able to talk with them over Skype? And if so, do you (or anyone else reading here) know of a good family lawyer that deals with these sorts of issues? And yeah, I was made aware that I needed to separate for 1 year before filing divorce, as I was able to talk with some legal aid while I was still living in Toronto.

Again, thank you so much.

I've never worked with a Family Lawyer and don't have one to recommend. Hopefully someone else can. I'm sure calls can be done remotely.

Good luck.

 

[username2300]

Would also discourage you from being alone with her. You should file for divorce as soon as possible to freeze any joint accounts.

Yeah... I am aware of that now. All of the crazy stuff happened in the span of 3 weeks, and was just so disorienting, I didn't know what to do. I would not stay in the same room with her now, and am currently thousands of miles away.

As for joint accounts, I closed our joint bank account and pulled the $60 odd dollars out of it. She had already put the rest of my funds into her own personal bank account before then, which I didn't have access to. Beyond that, we had no joint property or anything, other than the furniture at the apartment. But that's trivial stuff to me.

 

[StephanH]

I would also report her to the police for spreading all kinds of stuff about you on social media, I hope you copied all of that. She also robbed you from all of your money and I hope you also have proof of that, you need to report her, she sounds like a really mean human. She was obviously abusive and this should be reported, lets hope everything turns out well for you... She has also abused her power she had over you, don't let her win... pay back is a B****. Take care.

 

[username2300]

I've never worked with a Family Lawyer and don't have one to recommend. Hopefully someone else can. I'm sure calls can be done remotely.

Good luck.

Thank you, I'll see what I can do.

 

[StephanH]

I wanted to add, as a PR, I think you are entitled to free legal services, try looking into this.

 

[username2300]

I would also report her to the police for spreading all kinds of shit about you on social media, I hope you copied all of that. She also robbed you from all of your money and I hope you also have proof of that, you need to report her, she sounds like a really mean human. She was obviously abusive and this should be reported, lets hope everything turns out well for you... She is also abused her power she had over you, don't let her win... pay back is a B****. Take care.

I may have a screenshot of some of it, but the posts are all deleted now. The posts were passive-aggressive and vague enough that they would seem "innocent" to people not in the know. And beyond that, it would just be he-said she-said, my word against hers. Those kinds of cases usually don't go anywhere. Besides that, I know that she would fight it, and claim that everything I said was a lie. She's already done that.

And as far as "robbed" me of my money, that's also probably hard to pursue. Before I arrived in the country, I had taken my savings out in US cash. At a later date, after landing in Canada, we deposited it into her personal checking account (converted to CAD) for safe keeping until we had the time to go setup a joint account. When we did setup a joint account, I asked her to please transfer my amount to our joint account for shared bills. But she refused and convinced me it was "easier" to keep it in her account to pay rent for some reason. At that time, I wasn't happy about it, but ultimately still trusted her.

In reality she didn't rob me, I gave that money voluntarily, and she later withheld it from me -- at that time though she hadn't given me any reason not to trust her. It was a dumb thing for me to do, but again, we had an agreement that the funds would be shared, and I could ask for money at any time.

And since we are married, and property is jointly held, I don't know the legality of it all. Its probably legal, but what she did is still shitty and goes against our verbal agreement. But again, I wouldn't know how to prove that on paper or anything.

So again, I'm aware that what she's doing is not very nice... but its probably all legal, and she's very good at playing victim and covering her tracks. I'm not sure exactly what I am supposed to report.

If I reported her for abuse, I know for fact she would likely make up a claim (say that I raped her or something) and report that, putting me in a worse situation. And courts don't take kindly to that kind of thing. I really just don't want to piss her off, because she's unstable and vindictive -- a side of her I had never seen until it was too late.

 

[username2300]

I wanted to add, as a PR, I think you are entitled to free legal services, try looking into this.

Someone had mentioned that to me in person as well, but I couldn't find any information expanding on it. Do you know?

Where and how exactly am I to go to receive these free legal services?

I did go to the courthouse, the family law building, and another legal aid building. None of them really helped me, and just pushed me around, telling me to go to the other buildings.

I was able to get some info on what a Separation Agreement is and how to do that, but it requires that my wife is willing to agree and cooperate on anything. Which I doubt is gonna happen.

 

[Jnicole45]

IRCC has a whole page about what you can do if you're suffering spousal abuse, especially at the hands of your sponsor. Not sure how much exactly will be helpful, but it's a decent place to start.

For a lawyer, try Legal Aid Ontario first, at least if they can't help you I'd hope they could direct you somewhere that actually could.

Also, as far as dealing with someone this potentially unstable goes, I'm sure you've heard all this advice before but I'd like to give it just in case: do not contact them unless you absolutely have to. If you must, only do it in writing (email is best, it's too easy to fake text message time stamps), and if she attempts to contact you, try to get her to do it in writing (don't answer calls, wait for her to text you). If you know anyone who would be on your side in this situation who may have seen her posts, heard her say any of these things to or about you, or whom you may have talked to about the situation, keep a list of their names, your lawyer might want/need it later (I've never been through divorce proceedings before but in the event she tries to contest things and you have to bring up and prove her abuse, it's handy to have witnesses).

 

[Jnicole45]

Also, since you landed in August of 2018, she's financially responsible for you in Canad until August of 2021(3 years from the date of landing) even if you get divorced. Which means if you have to go on social assistance (welfare) in Canada before her undertaking as a sponsor is up, she has to pay back the government for that. I don't know how useful that information is to you, but it could be a bargaining chip in the divorce/separation.

 

[username2300]

IRCC has a whole page about what you can do if you're suffering spousal abuse, especially at the hands of your sponsor. Not sure how much exactly will be helpful, but it's a decent place to start.

For a lawyer, try Legal Aid Ontario first, at least if they can't help you I'd hope they could direct you somewhere that actually could.

Also, as far as dealing with someone this potentially unstable goes, I'm sure you've heard all this advice before but I'd like to give it just in case: do not contact them unless you absolutely have to. If you must, only do it in writing (email is best, it's too easy to fake text message time stamps), and if she attempts to contact you, try to get her to do it in writing (don't answer calls, wait for her to text you). If you know anyone who would be on your side in this situation who may have seen her posts, heard her say any of these things to or about you, or whom you may have talked to about the situation, keep a list of their names, your lawyer might want/need it later (I've never been through divorce proceedings before but in the event she tries to contest things and you have to bring up and prove her abuse, it's handy to have witnesses).

Thank you, I will look into those options.

She has been sending me emails trying to get a hold of me, and I have so far been ignoring them. I have her blocked on all other social media, and she doesn't have my new phone number. So that's covered at least.

As far as anyone "on my side" I don't know who I could turn to. That's largely why I left Canada entirely. I reached out to one person there who I thought was a friend, and asked if I could stay on his couch for a while. He immediately jumped to the conclusion that I had somehow hit my wife and was trying to get away. So I just kinda dropped that person. He told me he would contact me later, and never did. I haven't spoken to him in months.

One other friend I told her about everything, and she seemed to understand, but also just kinda stopped contacting me. I wouldn't doubt that my wife told her a very different story about me and what happened.

All things considered, I only lived there 6 months, and didn't really make my own friend circle. So everyone I knew there I met through her or her friends. They all knew her years before me, and so they took her side.

Beyond that, the guy she is with now was the closest person I had to a friend there... so I'm feeling extra hurt and betrayed.

There's one person who I can maybe trust, but I just honestly don't know.

Besides all that, my wife was very careful to only lash out at me in private where no one could see. She made me promise not to tell anyone about her suicide attempt too, so I didn't. I was scared she might do it, and so I just held that in. Me and her are the only ones who know about that day, and she would deny it ever happened. She is also very good at crafting a public persona, and puts on a good face in front of everyone else. It's a tricky situation.

 

[username2300]

Also, since you landed in August of 2018, she's financially responsible for you in Canad until August of 2021(3 years from the date of landing) even if you get divorced. Which means if you have to go on social assistance (welfare) in Canada before her undertaking as a sponsor is up, she has to pay back the government for that. I don't know how useful that information is to you, but it could be a bargaining chip in the divorce/separation.

I was aware of her responsibility to me financially, and I did talk about this with the community health counselor I spoke to. I was afraid that if I stayed in Canada and did get social assistance, it would only result in her frequently contacting me and harassing me... or escalate to worse.

On the contrary, I was afraid that if I stayed in Canada on social assistance, and CIC contacted her about paying the bill... she would use that as "reason" to start false rape or abuse allegations, and get me arrested.

I really don't trust her to be reasonable, in any sense of the word, and wouldn't put it past her to do those things. This was a large factor in leaving Canada. Because I did not want it to escalate to Restraining Orders, or showing up at my new apartment, trying to intimidate me to leave. I had to just get far far away, as quickly as possible.