Looking for advice and or legal advice for my mother. My mother and I moved to America about 12 years ago. My mother met my now step father, and we moved across the world to live with him. They are legally married in the US. I attended school in America, went to college, and now work full time as a full American Citizen. I speak perfect English, and make decent money. My mom on the other hand, never learned English, never worked, and has various health issues that complicate things. She is also not an American citizen. She has her green card. My step dad was always pretty good to us. At first, he and my mom had a good loving relationship. He was always very kind to me and I never had any issues with him. As I was approaching graduating college, things kind of changed. I could tell he was impatient for me to leave the house. He was distant, grumpy, sour, and sometimes rude to us. I was 22 and I was just trying to graduate and get a job and move out. I eventually did. However, the relationship between he and my mom never really recovered. He and her and now not close, and my mom and I suspected that he was seeing other women. I think it was a strange/unique situation where I, or my mom, didn't care that much, because he was still overall good to my mom. He housed her, fed her, wasn't physically abusive. Etc. He was absolutely distant and they didn't communicate well, but it was never truly bad. She depends on him financially so she never felt like there was much of a choice.
Moving forward, my step father found a new job in a neighboring city in the same state, and told my mom they would be moving soon. I thought it would be good for her to do so, for new experiences. Skip ahead a few weeks, and she asked him if he really planned on living with her, and he finally was truthful about what was expected for years that he didn't plan on living with her, was seeing another woman, and wanted a divorce. However, from what he says, he doesn't want to be an asshole and kick her to the streets. My mom has no money, doesn't speak English, probably can't work with health issues, and doesn't have a lot of social skills in America. My dad claims that he will allow her to live in the new apartment in the new city for an "extended period of time". But then they will be getting a divorce and she will need to move out. He is essentially giving her time to either move back to her home country, or find another man in America that will support her. This is all based on his word, but it seems like he is not going to leave her with no options. He says she can have all the furniture and whatever belongings she wants when she goes.
The question arises... What should she do? What are her options? we have no idea how much money my dad has. The house they are moving out of is in terrible shape, and needs 10s of thousands of dollars in work. I think it's either going to be sold at a large loss, or go into foreclosure. My boyfriend doesn't think that my mom should press the issue on money from my dad. He has basically allowed her to live a good life for 12 years now, which likely translates into 10s if not 100s of thousands of dollars in money that she didn't pay. We don't know if he even has any money, and the fear is that if he feels threatened he will kick her to the curb and basically her only option will be to go back to Russia. He could have 5k or 100k, we don't know. My question is... do you think she should get a lawyer to see if she has rights to half his money, does she have any rights to his money at all? She is not on the mortgage and has never paid for anything. She is not on any credit cards, she is not on any loans, or is in the financial picture at all. Is the best option just going with the flow and leaving that alone? Does she need a lawyer for divorce proceedings? Can she get one for free? Thank you
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/immigration/comments/orlhbv/immigrant_in_usa_divorce_nowhere_to_go_looking/