EXCLUSIVE
A 48-year-old man who says he is in a relationship with his grandfather’s 104-year-old widow admits they have never had sex and don’t even share a bedroom.
Estonian lawyer Mart Soeson is seeking to remain in on the basis that Elfriedie Riit is his de facto partner, after his permanent residency visa application was rejected.
The Department of Home Affairs does not accept the couple’s love story is legitimate and Mr Soeson has been forced to prove his romantic devotion to Ms Riit is real.
Mr Soeson was grilled for three hours about the nature of the couple’s relationship – and their half-century age gap – during a hearing at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal late last month.
Daily Mail revealed Mr Soeson and Ms Riit’s remarkable love affair earlier in February but this was the first time he had to swear an oath to tell the truth about their union.
A 48-year-old man who says he is in a relationship with his grandfather’s 104-year-old widow concedes they have never had sex and don’t even share a bedroom. Mart Soeson is pictured pushing his girlfriend Elfriede Riit in a wheelchair to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal
Ms Riit, who turned 104 on February 24, was not present but had attended the tribunal in a wheelchair when the matter was first listed for hearing in January.
On that occasion she had been too distressed and disoriented to take part in proceedings.
When the tribunal hearing resumed on February 22, Mr Soeson unsuccessfully sought to have media excluded from covering the case because Ms Riit felt it had already attracted too much attention.
‘I was talking last night with Elfriede and she determined it was not appropriate to discuss in public,’ Mr Soeson said. ‘She asked not to allow it.
‘It’s a personal affair for her. She doesn’t want to be like a celebrity.’
Estonian lawyer Mart Soeson is seeking to remain in on the basis that Elfriedie Riit is his legitimate de facto partner after his permanent residency visa application was rejected
Mr Soeson sat opposite tribunal member David Barker who took him through each concern Home Affairs had expressed when it originally denied his visa.
Mr Barker said the law did not require the pair to be having sex for their relationship to be recognised but asked Mr Soeson to confirm there had never been any sexual intimacy between them.
‘Yes, none,’ he said.
‘We have intimacy – holding hands, hugs, kissing. We have a spiritual and intellectual relationship. We have a strong emotional connection to each other.’
Last month. Mr Soeson he had sidestepped the same question about the couple’s sex life when interviewed by Daily Mail .
Mr Soeson met Ms Riit in early 1996 when he came to to study advanced English and she invited him to stay with her.
Ms Riit knew of Mr Soeson as the grandson of her late husband Alfred, who like her had fled Estonia after World War II when it had been annexed by the USSR.
Mr Soeson eventually returned to Estonia but repeatedly came back to in following years to see Ms Riit and their bond gradually grew.
He says his relationship with Ms Riit became romantic in January 2013 when he was 37 and she was 92.
Mr Soeson says his relationship with Ms Riit became romantic in January 2013 when he was 37 and she was 92. She is pictured in 1957 aged 30
‘What started out as a wholesome bond I had with my late grandfather’s widow slowly but surely turned into a very meaningful and loving relationship,’ Mr Soeson previously told Daily Mail .
Mr Soeson quit his legal career in Estonia and according to him commenced a de facto relationship with Ms Riit in September 2018 when she was 98 and he was 43.
They lived together at Ms Riit’s Bankstown home until she was forced to move into an aged care facility on doctor’s orders in September 2022.
At the tribunal, Mr Barker told Mr Soeson he would need to demonstrate he and Ms Riit had a mutual commitment to a shared life together – to the exclusion of others – in order to obtain a partner visa.
He said Home Affairs had not been satisfied Mr Soeson and Ms Riit were in a genuine de facto relationship when his visa was knocked back in December 2018.
One of the problems with that application had been that Mr Soeson had sometimes referred to himself as Ms Riit’s grandson when dealing with government agencies.
‘We have intimacy – holding hands, hugs, kissing,’ Mr Soeson says. ‘We have a spiritual and intellectual relationship. We have a strong emotional connection to each other’
Mr Barker asked why when Mr Soeson flew into in October 2013 he had told immigration officials he was visiting his grandmother.
‘I felt discrimination, maybe that’s why,’ he said. ‘I felt scared that they will discriminate. On that, we have had such experiences.’
On other occasions, people who encountered Mr Soeson and Ms Riit had assumed she was his grandmother rather than thinking they might be in a relationship.
‘It happens quite often, assuming that,’ Mr Soeson said.
‘I didn’t view her as my grandmother. I’ve never called her “grandmother”. There was no grandson-grandmother relationship.’
Asked if he had been concerned how observers might view the couple’s age difference, Mr Soeson said they didn’t care what others thought about them.
‘I didn’t think about her age and she didn’t think about me age,’ he said. ‘She saw me like I saw her. What I saw was her soul, which was young.’
The Department of Home Affairs does not accept the couple’s love story is true and Mr Soeson has been forced to give evidence on oath to prove his feelings for Ms Riit are genuine. They are pictured on Ms Riit’s 97th birthday
Mr Soeson said Ms Riit had been first to declare her love but the feeling was mutual.
‘She said many times that she wanted someone by her side,’ Mr Soeson told the tribunal. ‘She was a widow. She was lonely and helpless.’
Mr Soeson described his relationship with Ms Riit as ‘like a normal couple’.
In the early years they enjoyed gardening together and cooking meals for each other.
Ms Riit liked porridge and bacon and scrambled eggs for breakfast. Mr Soeson’s favourite meals included chicken soup and avocado chicken.
Mr Barker observed that sex was an important part of most couple’s lives and asked Mr Soeson if he and Ms Riit had ever discussed not being physically intimate.
‘We didn’t talk about it,’ he said. ‘We never thought about this, to be in sexual relationship.’
The couple did not share a bedroom because Ms Riit’s snoring disturbed Mr Soeson, who worked part-time as a painter.
Ms Riit would also wake screaming from nightmares about World War II and the brutal Soviet occupation of Estonia.
‘She said many times that she wanted someone by her side,’ Mr Soeson told the tribunal. ‘She was a widow. She was lonely and helpless’
Mr Barker noted that apart from three witnesses Mr Soeson intended to call, there was limited independent evidence available about the nature of his relationship with Ms Riit.
‘We don’t have many mutual friends,’ Mr Soeson said. ‘Most of her friends are dead and due to her nature she is a recluse person.
‘Even before I met her she was recluse. She liked to stay at home, not to socialise with the people.’
Ms Riit suffers from Alzheimer’s disease and has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder with depressive symptoms. She has hearing and vision impairment.
Mr Barker said when Ms Riit attended the tribunal last month she ‘did not appear oriented in time or place’ and was ‘quite distressed’ by her surroundings.
Mr Soeson said despite Ms Riit’s physical and cognitive decline, ‘the conversation between us flows effortlessly’.
‘I know when she can’t hear properly then I check her hearing aids or I repeat what I want to say,’ he told Mr Barker.
Ms Riit suffers from Alzheimer’s disease and has been diagnosed with bipolar disorder with depressive symptoms. She has hearing and vision impairment. Mr Soeson is pictured lifting Ms Riit out of a Maxi Cab and into a wheelchair
Until Ms Riit went into aged care the couple had shared expenses, with her covering the cost of groceries and Mr Soeson paying utility bills. These days he pays for her medicine.
‘We pool my income and her pension to cover all our living expenses,’ Mr Soeson told Mr Barker.
Mr Soeson hoped Ms Riit would one day be able to rejoin him at Bankstown, when she was ‘fit and healthy’.
‘That’s my desire to have her back, that it’s just a temporary thing,’ Mr Soeson said.
As for marriage, Mr Soeson said he and Ms Riit saw no benefit in the institution.
‘We talk about this,’ he said. ‘And she said de facto partner is the same as a marriage. It’s equal.
‘She said there was no need to marry because it was the same. She’s a modern person.’
The hearing was adjourned to a date to be fixed.
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