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Where did I go wrong or did I?


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On X-mas day I told my wife that I wanted a divorce, consequently it got ugly and now we are going through it. I will admit that I said this a few times in the past but I really never meant it. I was hurt and this was my way to let her know. We were married for 3.5 years and during this time it was a roller-coaster ride without brakes. We are 11 years apart in age, I have had many more life experiences than she has. Before we got married I let her know everything about me, good and bad. I told her what I wanted and where I wanted to go in life. This was made very clear to her as I had nothing to hide. In short, I was ready to get married. Because of her age, I was a little concerned and I made her aware of this. I wanted to know what she really wanted from me and out of life. In our many conversations, she agreed to everything I said and the direction she wanted to take, this cleared my doubts. She told me that she was ready to get married and so we did. We are of the same ethnic descent but we lived in two different countries. Before we got married, it all seemed good with her and her family. Once we got married the roller-coaster started to move. My several attempts to help orient and have her adapt to my city had failed and I suffered the pain. Only three months after we got married she left me and went back home, I didn't stop her. Then a month later she came back. I knew she missed her family, so I arranged to get some counselling, this also failed. After she came back, I helped her as always, to learn the language (sent her to school), kept her busy (missed time from work), gave her freedom to do as she pleased and she made new friends. When she started to work things started to ease a little. The only thing that did not change was that she would call her family everyday (long distance at my expense) and she would only talk to them about the bad things. Although, there really wasn't much bad to talk about, she and her family would make up anything. This use to bother me so much that I told to stop talking to her family about our "dirty laundry". I began to realize that our marriage wan't going to get any better any time soon, I would tell her how I felt and I use to ask her what she wanted from me, the answer was alway "I don't want anything", you don't love me. This use to piss me off!

In conclusion, am I right to say, that she wasn't ready for marriage, that she used me to get out of her home and prosper in a new country at my emotional and financial expense? Was our marriage a failure from the start?

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tattoomytoe

you sound like you hold a deep grudge against her.

 

Hello...this is probobly her first time from her family, all her friends, she doesn't know the language, and has to hang out with you day in and day out. i do not think you can empathize with her on these points.

 

if that is the roller coaster there, then it is a kiddie-coaster in my book.

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ThisGirlNameKD

tattoomytoe is right. By the way, I don't think it was her that wasn't ready for marriage, it was you that was ready. You've only been married for 3.5 years. I think it take that much time for someone to begin to feel alittle comfortable to a new environment when they've been use to the former for so long. I think you're asking for too much too soon. Moving to another country is a huge adjustment in itself. Being on your own away from your family is big adjustment, and marriage is definitely an adjustment. There was alot she had to adjust to and you didn't give her alot of time to do it.

 

When I got married, I moved to a new state. I had never lived away from my family before. When I moved to the new state, I was completely homesick. And that's just moving to another state! I was depressed because I wasn't around people I knew, frustrated because the new state was not as convenient to get around in as my old state, and I was from the north, which is totally different from living in the south. I had to learn to become a southerner. That's a different mentality. Everyone said I was cold and aloof because I wasn't outgoing and friendly like most southerners were. There were plenty of times I got on the phone and complained to my parents, and many times I just wanted to go back home. I know I put my husband through it, but eventually I started adjusting. I'm still not totally adjusted to the new state, and if my husband wanted to move, I'd have us packed before he could finish the sentence.

 

Just because she married you, doesn't mean she enjoys the new country or the new city she's in. She probably has issues with it. She probably doesn't like it, and she doesn't have to like it. She's probably resisting the change. It's not an easy one.

 

So even though you made yourself clear as to how you wanted things to go, you did not factor in the adjustment period she would have to go through.

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Thank you for your message. I wouldn't say I hold a grudge however, I will say that I was disappointed to see the truth unfold before my eyes. I was well aware of the possibility of her missing her family and that she would feel the way she did. I did my best to help her and went as far as to going back home with her to visit her family.

 

It was only fair to address the matter at the time as it was necessary to avoid building resentment. I may sound like I have no emotions but the truth is that she was well aware of what she was getting herself into. If she was not happy with me or with the marriage, she went about the wrong way.

 

Surprisingly enough, with time, she began to feel better but continued to avoid the "real issues". As I would explain my views about our marriage, she would often take offense.

 

At the end of the day, I would say that she did not realize what marriage is all about and that she obviously was not ready. She deceived me and herself just for the sake of getting out of her home and to make a self statement. She always said to me that she wanted a better life.

 

I guess what I am trying to get at is that her true colors have shown and it was time to deal with it.

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tattoomytoe

i guess she just didn't really comprehend "your ideas of Marriage".

 

But shouldn't it Be BOTH your ideas of marriage....or are you one of those king-of-the-castle-what-i-say-goes type of guys?

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I believe that I'm not one of "those". However, under the circumstances, I had to take the lead role of responsibility (paying bills etc..)

 

With respect to having the same ideas of marriage, we both agreed.

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overseas2004

Hi

 

I am European ethnic origin and I really badly wanted to marry someone of the same ethnic origin as I was. So I decided to write to you about it because I even went back to my home country where I was born since I felt I had less in common with American guys.

 

In any event I found that this was troublesome. I was raised in the US and I had some things in common with my home folk like religion and ethnic identity. But my American experience also made it hard for me to cope with their little idiosincracies

 

Part of what you may be going through with your wife is that she misses home, she misses her family. You have to understand that uprooting her and bringing her to the US is a huge culture shock for her. And it is going to take a lot for her to adjust. The american way of life compared to the European for instance is a drastic shock because people in Europe go out more, they are more social. In america we just work and she may find this transition difficult.

 

By the way I also represented a woman who married a Russian man and moved to the States with him. I represented her in divorce court and the bottom line problem was that she just could not get adjusted to life in the US.

 

So you may want to cut her some slack for this. But you also have other problems. Communication being a major one.

 

I also think it was not nice of you to threaten her with divorce.

 

But seeing that you have a lot of trouble going through all this you should find yourself a support network and its good you came to this site. I will send you a PM with my e-mail if you want to talk about it more. But believe me I have been there with my homies.... So I know what its all about.

 

Take care

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Hi overseas2004,

 

Thank you for your message, you have raised very good points. Believe me, I Love my wife and never wanted to hurt her. I really had to evaluate our relationship and put my feelings aside.

 

My decision was made based on the reality and logical explanation for the reasons why our marriage could not get better. It takes two to tango in any relationship.

 

During my marriage I lost myself and as a result I had a difficult time trying to find balance. Our relationship was only focused on what my wife needed and this in turn had neglected my feelings. I felt hopeless and worthless, especially when my wife would tell me that I didn't love her and that I showed no affection. This really hurt me.

 

I use to tell her how I felt and when I did, she would not listen. When I didn't talk to her, she would give me the cold shoulder and push my buttons by acting like a child.

 

I use to feel that other than my role as a husband, I was her father, brother, sister, psychologist and ATM machine.

 

We both worked but only I would pay all the bills, including her telephone calls. She would buy clothes, shoes, go to the estitician and spa. Believe me, I tried to talk to her about this and it always lead to arguments. What really bothered me was that she would send gifts and money back home, I had no problem with this if she was an equal contributor to our marriage. Correct me if I am wrong, when two people get married, doesn't the marriage come first before anything or anybody else?

 

In my situation, it was clearly one sided and that I was not part of the marriage. My thoughts, feelings, opinions and responsibilities were always in the best interest of the marriage, I had not outside influences, including my family to harm my marriage. Instead, my wife's family, as far as they were, always interfered excluding me to boot. They would only talk negatively about everything. Instead of encouraging my wife, as I did, they would tell that they missed her and that life for them was not the same without her.

 

Her family and her had no problem pushing for us to have children however. At this point and time I made a serious decision, no children. She was not ready for marriage and children and I obviously was not ready emotionally. I was being responsible when I decided this. I would not let my selfishness get the best of me and to think if we did have children....Thank you God!

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ThisGirlNameKD

Whether she is 11 years younger than you or 11 years older than you, no one is completely prepared for marriage. No one knows how to automatically be a wife or a husband. Those roles are learn over a period of time, maybe even years. You may have an idea of what you wanted married life to be, and based your hopes, dreams, plans and everything around those ideas.

 

You sound idealistic, and because things are not going the way you want them to or dreamed they would, you're building resentment. Things would never be exactly how you want them to turn out when it comes to marriage. That's being realistic, but it's takes mature to accept that and make it work.

 

Whether you get a divorce from her and marry someone else, it's going to be the same thing. You're not going to get everything you want, and things are not going to go exactly as you plan no matter how many times you go over it before you get married.

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