I have a separate question and hope someone can help me.

I have been legally married to a Turkish man for 18 years, but lived apart for most of it because he left me and our children and returned to Turkey. He married again there & has other children, but because he never divorced me,I am still his legal wife. Our marriage took place in my country Mexico where we lived & I think that it never got registered in Turkey, our children are not registered in Turkey either.

My question is that I have not been able to divorce him because lawyers have asked for a lot of money which I don't have, so I sugested to my husband that I would get a divorce without lawyers if he agrees to give me and our children a divorce settlement. I asked for this many times, but he always ignored me in the past, now he is saying that he will give me something for the children, but that he does not have to give ME anything because he has been living with the other wife longer, he also said that Turkish courts will ignore my case because they only recognize Muslim weddings. He said the courts will ask me why I did not divorce him before and will rule against me and not make him pay me anything, is he right?. I did not marry again so I think the courts should ask him why he did not divorce & not ask me that question, he broke the law, not me. I struggled alone to raise our children all these years while he gave himself freedom to do whatever he wanted, surely the courts will recognize this, or not?. He gives his Turkish children a priviledged life and I want him to start doing the same for our children.

So I just want to know if i have any rights. We were married in civil court in 1990, he left us in 1993. I did not ask for divorce before because I did not have enough money, he did not ask for divorce because he did not want to pay me anything and because he thought I would never ask for divorce. Given he abandoned the marriage & family the way he did, I am thinking/hoping that the Turkish courts will see me as the legal wife & count every year we have been legally married & not just the 3 years he stayed with us before he disappeared. tesekkur ederim.