Do I belong here?

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-14-2006
Do I belong here?
5
Mon, 08-14-2006 - 11:22pm

Hello,
I haven't been here long and I'm not sure if I belong but would appreciate some feedback. I live in a middle eastern country and have been married more than 10 years to a local. I am in the US on vacation for the next couple weeks and finally have internet access, so I stumbled across this message board. After many years of unhappiness, this year I had a kind of a nervious breakdown, resulting in my suspicion that my husband is emotionally abusing me.

I've taken some of these online quizzes and bought a book by Beverly Engel (The Emotionally Abusive Relationship) and about 40-50% of what I read seems to describe my life. But in my husband's culture a lot of things described as abusive behaviors are considered normal.

Before we married I was a very successful student of foreign languages, I had a fellowhip all the way through a PhD, I had a lot of friends and was a generally happy person, I guess. I have always preferred to date foreign guys and my husb seemed like a great catch. Everyone still tells me that he is, and how lucky I am. We went away to grad school together and though he finished, I wasn't able to. He always says I just gave up, but that was never my style and I always have said that I couldn't handle being his wife and a successful grad student. He would get so mad if I didnt make dinner or the house was messy. He also never liked my friends, though he didnt prevent me from seeing them. And he didnt have many good friends of his own. He always wanted us to hang out together. Which I thought was great at the time...

After he finished, we moved around a lot for his jobs. Since he was the only person that could get "real jobs", of course we moved where he needed to go. Almost every year. We even moved to his country for a couple of years. It's hard for me to make friends and he rarely ever liked my friends so I would force him to make friends that HE liked from work and we would go out with them, otherwise we would never see anyone else. In the meantime, I tried to go back to school but something always came up. We moved or he said we didn't have enough money... eventually I got pregnant...

We moved back to his country a few years ago and now he is a manager in a very important and well known company. He doesn't have many friends and he expects me to stay home with him whenever he is in town. Until this year I never had a ladies night out. We have lots of money to go out together on the weekends but I have to tell him what I bought at the grocery store during the week and we never have enough money for me to go back to school. I work part time at illegal jobs because he won't allow me to get certified so I can get a work permit.

Today I was alone with my teenaged sisters and I casually asked them what they thought of my husb. I was very suprised to hear how negative their responses were. I thought they always saw him as a brother. They said they did in the beginning but they see how he has become nasty over the years, how he always vents on me, doesnt respect me, thinks he is always right, and just seems generally miserable.

This is a very very very general call for advice. I am not sure what to do and next week I will be going back to him. He's not an evil guy and he loves our child, very much. But... I'm pretty darn miserable with him. There's so much more I could write here but this is too long already. I wonder if I should leave him, but it never seems quite that bad. Sometimes he is really nasty then afterward he buys me things and is so nice again... The 2 weeks he was here with my family in the US, he behaved toward me like when we were dating, so sweet and so nice. If my sisters hadn't said what they said today, I would have thought I was imagining everything...

Anyway, this year for some reason I seem to be waking up. I have been doing some of the things suggested in Ms. Engel's book without knowing it about setting boundries, and though it seems to be driving him nuts, I needed to do those things or I would have gone insane. I have also done some things that were not so healthy, but again: I felt like I was about to crack up...

Not sure where to end this, and feeling a little silly right now... not sure what to do... I guess I'll just sign off now.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-16-2006
Sat, 08-19-2006 - 2:56am

I'm no expert on the different cultures of the world, but I am aware there are cultures where a woman's opinion isn't valued. Sounds like you're in a spot where you are controlled. The money, who you see, where you go. That's not fair. My abuser saw everyone outside of 'us' as a threat. Now, I just wondered if you've talked about this with him. Sure, on one hand he was born and raised in another country (if I understand this correctly) so he was brought up according to custom. On the other hand, he did live in the states and witnessed how life is here.

If you're unhappy, you should talk to him. Hopefully you are not afraid to talk to him about it. If you're afraid- another aspect has been unveiled to point that you are in an abusive relationship. And to be in another country!

Something will click eventually and will tell you if you've had enough, etc. You sound very unsure right now. I hope you make out ok.

Andrea

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-15-2004
Sun, 08-20-2006 - 12:54am

Being married to someone in their country, whose culture treats women poorly, has got to be very very hard. But i DONT think the advice to you shoudl be any different than to anyone else.


The *big* red flag I see is that your sisters have told you what they think. God bless them for telling you the TRUTH. You have every right .... your RIGHT ... to be happy & respected.


((hugs))

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iVillage Member
Registered: 08-14-2006
Sat, 08-26-2006 - 12:35pm

Thank you both for your kind replies. I have been back in his homeland for a few days now and on Wed night I did bring up the subject and I showed him the book I got. It went better than I expected, out of the 15 signs of being abused, he recognized totally that he does 4 all the time and sometimes he does another 3 from the list... I was impressed. Then he said that he didn't think he could change, and that maybe we should separate and I should go back to the states... So I emphasized to him how this is not something in his genes (his dad is a TOTAL control freak, very nasty piece of work) and that if he chooses, he can beat it...

I can see him processing things... he has been very nice to me lately except that he is prefacing many comments with "I don't want to sound like I'm controlling you but..." which is getting on my nerves...

The question is, can a leopard change his spots? He used to be a nice guy, so I would say he's already changed em once, right?

So is no one else on here married to a foreigner?

Thanks again, gals...

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-29-2005
Sat, 08-26-2006 - 3:05pm

Welcome, listener.

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-05-2004
Tue, 08-29-2006 - 10:51am

I always tell people that if you have to ask, yes, you do.

Your situation is complicated by cultural issues, but it's still basic emotional abuse. Contrary to popular belief (I assume you are in the Middle East) Islam does NOT condone spousal abuse, though, like the Bible, many people insist on twisting portions of the Koran to their own advantage. An abuser is an abuser is an abuser.

I'd recommend you start by checking out our board website, located at the top of the Start page. A lot of the hotlines and such are US-specific, but it can help you learn about the nature of abuse.

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