He is legally married…what do you mean what’s the big deal.
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Exactly; thank you.
It’s also illegal.
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Honestly, I’m 33 years old. I’d like to learn from my past mistakes and move on with my life. Maybe later find someone to have a meaningful relationship with and try marriage again the right way this time. Have kids and so on. In other words; live a normal life. Regardless, I need to handle this first. I’m not looking to break laws, just get my life back.
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I mean, the wife has disappeared so he is de facto single although he’s de jure not.
I don’t see any issue with him living as if single/not married
It still doesn’t make it legal though and definitely not a permanent solution. Also in Taiwan, you can go to jail for adultery. If I was to get into a relationship with a girl and suddenly my wife appeared out of nowhere and decided to press charges, I’d be in a lot of trouble.
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I forgot to mention a pretty big detail. About a week or two after my wife left, she contacted me via skype and said to me that we needed to get a divorce and that she would contact me in the next few days. That was the last time I heard from her. Skype doesn’t even keep history that far back so I can’t show it to anyone. Once again; I would have kept all this if I had known this would become a 4 year ordeal. I’m seriously regretting it now.
Maybe you can get someone from her family, even if it takes a while, to acknowledge how long it has been since she left. If you can find her, confront her directly with a recording device and get her to acknowledge how long it has been since you’ve seen her. To find her, which you’ll need to do anyway, you can create a bunch of FB accounts and start friending every friend and family member. Don’t engage, just friend them. Once you’ve friended several mutual friends, friend her. If she doesn’t accept, try again later with another account.
This isn’t legal advice and I’m not a lawyer. Also, I assume that every account that posts some story right after being created is fake, but it’s an interesting exercise.
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She has pretty much no internet presence (at least that I can find). Trust me, that would be the first thing I would look for. It’s extremely frustrating.
I’m sorry you feel that way but sometimes people create accounts seeking help.
Sorry, I probably didn’t word that right. I’m not calling you a liar, and I’d probably do the same if I didn’t want any personal information about me out there. I just meant people do create new accounts to write what amounts to interactive fiction and I don’t usually get invested. But your story doesn’t sound too outlandish.
Even if she doesn’t have much of an internet presence, you can still get some info by getting close to any friends, but if you’re not a native Chinese speaker you’re very limited. I really think your best bet at this point is to hire even a cheap lawyer and just work through it, but start with the free advice people mentioned above. You may find you need to wait another year and you can use to time to locate her so you don’t have to pay a lawyer to hunt her down. Just stay calm and don’t make any trouble for her or her family or you may end up coming out the worse for it.
And investigate processing a divorce in the US, as someone mentioned. That seems much easier and I think I read recently it’s possible.
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Have you any local male friends, preferably older?
They may help in hiring a private investigator to find address of her parents or siblings. If have address, politely engage with them together with your Taiwanese older male friend and see how they could help bring situation to a conclusion.
This is only off the top of my mind.
Edit: I say male, because you don’t want to have any thoughts of female in her family’s mind if/when you find them. Plus, a very much older man can help with the respect/‘face’ issue.
Do you have any of her information? If you got her name, fathers and mothers name and or roc Id number, I believe she would be easily found if she updated her ID to her address using either the ROC Or drivers license. Both need an address.
Many countries allow you to motion to the judge about your case if you can prove you did a thorough search.
Ask a lawyer, a divorce lawyer. Not any lawyer, make sure it’s a divorce lawyer. If they’re worth anything they should be able to tell you right away what is the process. Your case isn’t something new, happens all the time. They should know if they specialize in that field.
Consultations are usually free. Some might charge but thats up to you. Id get a free consultation for this, maybe not if i’m being sued and need the best.
Find a divorce lawyer, they will know right off the bat what the process is. This wouldn’t be something out of the ordinary for them. If a lawyer can’t explain the process right away, don’t hire them.
I promise you a divorce lawyer that specializes in that area will know and won’t be the first time they been through this.
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I don’t know what is the actual court standard, but I think the 4 years are not a requirement but the lawyer might just want to know as much details of the circumstances since your wife was missing.
Fair enough. Thanks for taking the time to offer advice, I really appreciate it. The thing that makes this so frustratingly difficult is; she was kind of a loner. She didn’t have any friends and stayed disconnected with her family. I never really got to know her family much during these five years because she refused to ever meet with them. She didn’t really do anything, especially as the years progressed and practically never left the house. The relationship was pretty messy, I got married when I was too young to know any better and I’ve learned from my mistakes. Now just trying to put everything in order.
I hope you’re right. I’m dreading having a lawyer tell me to wait it out another two years.
Not really since you’re not married with the new relation though I think it would be fine
I wouldn’t mind paying for a consultation as long as it was within reason (8k is a little too much) and they convinced me enough that they knew what they were doing.
Makes sense. Any recommendations? I will be going in for the LAF free consultations on Monday.
Nope, not in Taiwan. Unless they took down the law. This is one of the few places where if you are caught cheating, the spouse can actually choose to press charges and put you behind bars. It’s pretty messed up.
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Just dating is fine, isn’t it? I assume he is a good Christian and does not do it outside of the marital bed
It sounds like she has no compelling reason to stay married to you, other than as a nuisance, and that may dissolve with the right motivation. You can start threatening a civil suit for damages (legal fees or psychological damage) to her and/or her family. You probably don’t want to go ahead with it, but the threat of a lawsuit in a litigious land might be motivation enough to comply. You just need to get her to cooperate to an amicable divorce so you don’t have to wait any longer for the 3 or 4 years of abandonment to apply. I would start by communicating to everyone who knows her that it’s divorce time and please get the message to her. If they don’t comply, you can threaten. Again, that’s a pin you don’t want to pull, so if you don’t get it settled that way, you’re just going to have to get a lawyer and pay whatever he asks to get it done.