Last week, Loren & Alexei: After The 90 Days viewers saw her parents snap during the Israel trip.
They are opposed to the idea of a move, and they’re not raising objections in a smart way. If anything, they’re pushing her away.
Both Marlene and Bryan have rubbed Alexei in particular the wrong way. He hasn’t loved hearing them treat his homeland like it’s uninhabitable or unworthy for his family.
However, according to one expert, Loren’s parents actually may have a point. Just one, but still.
Kathleen Martinez is an immigration attorney. If you follow 90 Day Fiance news to a comical degree, as we do, then her name is a familiar one.
She spoke to In Touch Weekly this week to offer her legal opinion on this whole mess with Loren, Alexei, Bryan, and Marlene.
If Loren were her client, she would recommend that she reconsider for the same reason that Bryan brought up: custody laws.
Simply put, any time that you decide where to move, you’re agreeing to a whole set of potentially very different rules on property, behavior, marriage, and child custody.
“Israel has some difficult custody laws,” Martinez characterized.
She added that “If Loren and Alexei would happen to get divorced there, Loren is using their laws and system so they will use Israel’s custody laws.”
Martinez went on to say: “Divorcing there and going through custody proceedings would not be advisable.”
That is, she added, “if she were my client.” Which Loren is not.
It’s not that Israel is some sort of lawless hellscape. Though there is much that one might say about other policies of the country, its laws about family and custody have pros and cons just like anywhere else.
Martinez explained that the legal system is very intricate, and custody rulings can be extremely situational.
“Israel employs the Tender Age Doctrine,” she noted, “which is a presumption that for children under 6 years old it’s in their best interest to be placed with the mother.”
That would seem to favor Loren in the case of a hypothetical divorce, right?
“However, it is possible to appeal this,” Kathleen Martinez then warned.
So, to be clear, it doesn’t sound like she’s saying that Loren would be throwing away her family if she moves to Israel.
Rather, she is just laying out that the uncertainty of the country’s custody laws and what outcome it would have for their family make this inadvisable. From her own personal legal perspective.
This notably falls in line with Bryan’s concerns.
He told his daughter that she needed to, at the very least, look into Israel’s custody laws before contemplating a move.
No one wants to imagine that their happy marriage will end, let alone on bad terms. But bitter divorces can happen, even to happy couples. Arguably, especially to happy couples.
But this is not the same thing as saying “hey, Bryan was right, pack it in.”
First and foremost, he went about saying all of this all wrong. He came across — to Loren and to viewers — as ignorant about various laws. Imagining that any country save yours has barbaric custody policies is not a great look.
And it sounded insulting. Nobody’s going to take you seriously when you talk like this.
The second big issue with all of this is that Bryan is not an immigration attorney who’s just weighing in for an article. He’s her father.
She’s hearing her dad say that her marriage might be doomed. That she can’t handle a move. And that her family will unravel. Obviously, that has to hurt.
Sometimes, even the wisest and most well-informed messages still need the right messenger.
Loren & Alexei Dispute Gets Legal Opinion: Wait, Are Her Parents Right??? was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip .
