# Cheating wife officially registers husband dead - only one problem.



## badmemory (Jul 31, 2012)

I hope he gets his revenge. Lol.


BUCHAREST, Romania — Constantin Reliu learned in January that he was dead.

After more than 20 years of working as a cook in Turkey, the 63-year-old returned home to Romania to discover that his wife had had him officially registered as dead.

He has since been living a legalistic nightmare of trying to prove to authorities that he is, in fact, alive. He faced a major setback Thursday when a court in the northeastern city of Vaslui refused to overturn his death certificate because his request was filed "too late."

Constantin Reliu poses for a portrait at his home on March 16, 2018 in the eastern town of Barlad. Adrian Arnautu / AFP - Getty Images
The decision, the court said, is final.

"I am a living ghost," Reliu told The Associated Press in a phone interview Friday from his home in Barlad, northeastern Romania.

"I am officially dead, although I'm alive," he said. "I have no income and because I am listed as dead, I can't do anything."

During the interview, Reliu was deeply emotional, starting off by saying "I think I am going to cry" and going on to voice rage and a desire for revenge against his wife, who now lives in Italy.

"I am not sure whether I am divorced or not," he said. "I am not sure whether she is married to someone else or not. Nobody will tell me."

*Reliu explained that he first went to work in Turkey in 1992 and returned in 1995 to the first big shock of his marriage — his wife's infidelity. In 1999, he decided to return to Turkey for good.
*
The AP was not able to locate his wife to hear her side of the story.

Last December Turkish authorities detained him over expired papers and in January deported him to Romania.

Upon landing at Bucharest airport, he was informed by border officials that he had been officially declared dead and underwent six hours of questioning and tests.

They measured the distance between his eyes to see if it corresponded to an old passport photograph; they asked him questions about his home town, such as where the town hall was; they checked his fingerprints.

"They decided that it was me!" he said.

But authorities in Barlad were less convinced. He spent weeks trying to persuade them to issue him papers so that he officially "existed," he said. When that failed, he asked them to overturn the ruling on his death certificate, issued in 2016, which also ended in failure Thursday on procedural grounds.

Reliu said he would like to file a fresh lawsuit but has no money and suffers from diabetes, which makes everything more difficult.

He also said he has been banned for life from returning to Turkey but would like to write to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to appeal the decision.


----------



## sokillme (Jun 10, 2016)

He should go rob a bank. If he is dead how can they prosecute?


----------



## badmemory (Jul 31, 2012)

I'm not advocating violence, but it seems to me that if he's legally dead, he could get away with some "stuff".


----------



## TAMAT (Jun 20, 2015)

Such a metaphor

I think cheating wives frequently have a fantasy that their inconvenient husbands will die.

They become emotionally and sexually dead to their husbands. 

So from the wifes perspective her husband was dead in all but a biological sense.

Tamat


----------



## MattMatt (May 19, 2012)

Hmmm. What's the rest of this story, I wonder?


----------



## bandit.45 (Feb 8, 2012)

He ran away like a little b!tch when his wife cheated and then he stayed gone. I can only surmise he made no attempt to contact any family or friends during his self-imposed exile. 

I don't feel sorry for him. I really don't.


----------



## bandit.45 (Feb 8, 2012)

MattMatt said:


> Hmmm. What's the rest of this story, I wonder?


He’ll live in a box under a bridge eating dry falafel for the rest of his life


----------



## Bluesclues (Mar 30, 2016)

bandit.45 said:


> He ran away like a little b!tch when his wife cheated and then he stayed gone. I can only surmise he made no attempt to contact any family or friends during his self-imposed exile.
> 
> I don't feel sorry for him. I really don't.


He ran away like a ***** for three years BEFORE she cheated. He wasn’t off deployed for his country, or doing a job he couldn’t do at home to support his family - he was a cook. They don’t cook in his home country? He abondoned his wife, probably kids too, and thought he could just pop back in? You think he was a faithful husband sending money home? Not. 

I don’t feel bad for him either. What a ****.


----------



## RWB (Feb 6, 2010)

sokillme said:


> He should do rob a bank. If he is dead how can they prosecute?


One problem... there's no Money to rob in Romania. That place is living under a bridge broke.


----------



## MJJEAN (Jun 26, 2015)

So, this guy leaves his wife and home country for 3 years, comes back, finds she "cheated", leaves again for almost 20 years, and only comes home because his papers expired and he was deported. Then he has the nerve to get upset that, after an absence of near 2 DECADES he was declared dead? Yeah, no. I don't feel sorry for this guy, either.


----------



## badmemory (Jul 31, 2012)

MJJEAN said:


> So, this guy leaves his wife and home country for 3 years, comes back, finds she "cheated", leaves again for almost 20 years, and only comes home because his papers expired and he was deported. Then he has the nerve to get upset that, after an absence of near 2 DECADES he was declared dead? Yeah, no. I don't feel sorry for this guy, either.


Yeah, what we don't know is why she had him declared dead instead of divorcing him. Perhaps they have weird laws there and she had no choice, maybe it was payback. But I agree, I don't feel too sorry for him.


----------



## manfromlamancha (Jul 4, 2013)

This is Rumania we are talking about folks. Probably easier to declare someone dead than divorce there. He is lucky somone didn't sell the country while he was away.


----------



## bandit.45 (Feb 8, 2012)

Romania is a beautiful country. Think of a whole country that looks like the Smoky Mountains but with taller mountains. Forests, lakes, waterfalls, peppered with beautiful medieval villages... and wildlife abounding. I met a guy who went on a hunting vacation to Romania and he didn't want to come home. Add to that, they probably have the most beautiful women on the planet. 

There is a reason the Russians wanted it for use as their holiday getaway location. And they want it back.


----------



## arbitrator (Feb 13, 2012)

badmemory said:


> I'm not advocating violence, but it seems to me that if he's legally dead, he could get away with some "stuff".


*Like not paying taxes, perhaps?*


----------



## MJJEAN (Jun 26, 2015)

badmemory said:


> Yeah, what we don't know is why she had him declared dead instead of divorcing him. Perhaps they have weird laws there and she had no choice, maybe it was payback. But I agree, I don't feel too sorry for him.


If he disappeared and she hadn't heard from him in years she probably couldn't file for divorce. In most countries a divorce filing requires notifying the other party. Which you can't do if you cannot locate them. So...

She also might have legit believed him to be dead. If a man disappears on his wife (and maybe children) for well over a decade, his residency/employment papers from his last known country of residence are allowed to expire, and he cannot be located, well..death is a reasonable conclusion. Whatever the case, she had enough evidence of his possible death to convince a court he was likely deceased.


----------

