AIBU to feel uneasy about my husband's comment during an argument?

What a horrible attitude hes got.hope you are wrong but being married for a visa isnt uncommon and thete ate men from certain countries that are practically taught to do it.

I bet he's Tunisian, or similar country.my Tunisian ex would say similar.He said he could stand on the street and in 1 hour get 1000 women.He too was very ungrateful for all the effort ( and expense) I put into his visa.i divorced him .i realised he had no respect for me, my family or country.it doesn't start like that.they are very loving and charming .but once it starts, it gets worse.

I really couldn’t forget that either.

Sori to say this but you've been used. Many a time I saw this in Turkey. Women been used. I wouldn't be supportive of him that's for Sure.. He's be out on his ear..

You seem to be holding the fact that you’ve helped him get to stay here over him by asking him to be grateful ( I don’t even jnderothe need to say this). He has then expressed that he wishes he found someone who would not hold this over him.
i don’t know why he’s the only one in the wrong here. He’s unlikely to have said what he said, if you hadn’t said what you said.
Plenty of people meet and get permanent residence because their spouses, because they love each other.
You sound like you have some insecurities there around whether he actually cares for you. You need to explore those.

I think he has shown his real feelings, you are a means to and end and I don't think its happily ever after waking hand in hand into the sunset.
If he now thinks you have the upper hand and it annoyes him it will only fester and get worse in his head and his comment will fester till you believe he is having an affair I would suggest he leaves your home and you have a break from each other to see how you feel

Honestly having seen and heard of foreign nationals (mainly those from the West Indies - as I'm ethnically West Indian) marrying specifically to get a visa, It would not surprise me if that's what he did. Only you know him (we don't) but he is rude to your family members who have helped him in the past, that would be a deal breaker for me regardless of what he meant by his comment.

I’d be asking for a full explanation and an apology from him .
Assuming it was all heat of the moment in the argument.

I think we can all see where this is going.

Usually, posters are jumping on by now and advising divorce. Usually, I do not approve of divorce because I think marriages are worth fighting for.

However, i do think that OP needs to talk to someone, either a marriage guidance counsellor or a counsellor, possibly her mum - who won't be surprised, or a close friend. Definitely she should be consulting a solicitor.

I think once he has a full visa he will dump OP and find someone else. If he can milk OP family and grab some inheritance first, so much the better.

Forewarned is Forearmed. Find out exactly what the legal situation is. I believe that it is illegal to marry just for a visa. He has used OP. I wouldn't even put it past him to be playing the field whilst he is still married.

Personally, I would be divorcing him, getting that visa cancelled and throwing him out of the country. Noone messes with me. Noone insults and takes advantage of my family.

Please listen to your gut OP. I was in a similar situation. My ex had literally nothing. He is a functioning alcoholic who used me and every other woman he met and abandoned me and our now adult daughter and has hardly seen her and now owns a grade II house by the coast. While I have CPTSD several medical issues ( even though I have always lived quite healthy ) and can no longer work. Ironically the more I gave up the more my health worsened. I honestly believe it’s trauma that has done this to me. Furthermore to add to add to my worries, I was recently prescribed statins by my gp for cholesterol but I developed side effects and now after blood tests and a CT scan. I’m also now waiting to see a liver specialist and I don’t even drink. Please, please listen to your red flags and run like hell from this manipulative waste of space who is clearly using you.

I would be telling him he’s not to disrespect my mother given he expects people to respect him.
Treat others as you would wish to be treated and you can’t go wrong.

You earn respect, it’s not yours by right!
Unfortunately in some cultures male children are treated like little gods.

Why didn’t you ask him what he meant?

The argument was obviously heated, and it seems like things were said on both sides that are easy to misinterpret (though they could equally have meant what they seemed to). But apart from that particular argument you sound genuinely, and it seems rightly, angry with him for his rudeness and attitudes. And now you are naturally wondering if he thinks about you in the same way as he thinks about your family and friends. And you have doubts about the way he deals with things and people when things don't go his way , and what it might mean for the future, especially given how he has cut his own family off. I'd be worried too.

@Plumtotsshe sounds extremely similar to my ex husband who also came over on a spouse visa. We married in his home country then 2 years later came back to the UK to live. He hated my family and my best friend although they did so much to help him and us. My friend bought a flat and rented it to us when we came back and also gave him a cash in hand job. My parents came and stayed for 6 weeks when I gave birth as he wouldn’t take any time from work. (They live abroad)6 months later I had to have a spinal op after a slipped disc. I literally couldn’t walk due to the pain and had a 6 month old baby. My mum came over again to help out while I recovered as he wouldn’t take time off work. He turned out to be narcissistic, misogynistic and abusive. I feel so lucky we had A DD, if it had been a boy he wouldn’t have been disappointed and would definitely have tried to turn him against me. Be very careful because he is unlikely to change.

It depends on the context. If he is dependent on the marriage to stay in the country he wants.... then is it possible you are leaning on him all the time and he feels that he is vulnerable and being exploited, not feeling he can stand up for himself for fear of deportation. He might be feeling really coerced and not answering back 99% of the time.

He is probably in a very vulnerable situation from his POV. Quite opressed?

To me it sounds like in the heat of the moment you telling him he should be more grateful was taken by him as you meaning he "owes" you because without you he couldn't be in the UK now.
So his response was to snap back that he could have found someone else - which is like saying that he is not beholden to you or your family.

We're all reactive in arguments as things heat up. In that moment he probably just didn't like it sounding like you hold all the cards so hit back where he could.

If you're otherwise happy OP, leave it be. But I am, like other posters, a bit concerned that he has mistreated your family and doesn't seem to see that as a problem.

The rest of the family didn’t even know about it because they warned her not to give him any more money considering some of his rude behaviours.

What are these rude behaviours to your mum? He's sounding deeply unpleasant and you sound very passive.

They do come across as if you think you’re better than him because you provided him with a visa.

This is exactly how is sounds to me when my husband says it to me as an immigrant whether he intends it that way or not

Personally, I couldn’t forget it. It doesn’t look like he regrets saying it either. It would be a dealbreaker for me.

Maybe I’m too tolerant but I don’t really think the comment is that bad. It’s just a fact, he likely would have met someone else if he hadn’t met you. And in the same vein, you likely would have met and married another man. I actually think your comments about how grateful he should be to your family are a bit condescending. They do come across as if you think you’re better than him because you provided him with a visa. I don’t think he is in the wrong here…

It’s a shit*y comment to make and definitely not something anyone would want to hear as they would absolutely interpret it the way you have. It is not a defense at all for him but as a UK citizen married and moved to the US, my husband has said a couple of times something along the lines of “you should be grateful “ …. Wanted to tear him a new one as a result and have said some hurtful things in return.

I didn’t choose him so I could live in the US, I chose him, and would move back to the UK in a heartbeat as that’s where my family are. Any comments about being grateful to him, his family or friends for any part of my, or our, situation are incredibly triggering that I would never have even given a second thought to previously. Many immigrants feel the same way. We make choices for the people we love and it’s frustrating when we’re told to be grateful as it can come across as if our lives would be terrible without the help and assistance of the non immigrant partner / family.

May not be the case here but it’s worth keeping in mind if usually a good husband etc that there are certain sensitivities a non immigrant would never even consider to be a touchy thing to say …. Especially when there may also be language and cultural differences thrown into the mix

I'm feeling very concerned that you, and your children, are quite vulnerable.
Can you find someone outside the situation (GP/Counsellor/Women's Aid/support group?) to talk over the details and get a perspective check?
Wishing you all the best ❤️

And how do those views align with a man relying on money from his mum-in-law?

I bet he absolutely resents it, but it is easier than sacrificing and saving.

And I bet your mum really doesn't like him, hides it, but he can tell.

Why would she give £3.5k to a man she doesn't like? Because she doesn't want to see you upset, OP, by having your child's father deported and you then following him to his country.

I’m sorry he said this. Unfortunately, it sounds like he meant it as it sounds. I would be very wary.

It's the phrasing. Is he a native English speaker (or would understand the difference): "I would have met someone else / ended up with someone else" vs "I would have 'found' + 'another woman'". (another woman = generic)

It betrays the root of his thought processing i.e. where his intentions toward you really lay. If he'd been imagining himself in a relationship with someone else, and then formulated a thought to share with you, it would have been pulled from a different pool of phrases and vocab. That's my two cents. And only applies where someone's language skills are sufficient for them to be pulling phrases like this based on historical association. If not native / super fluent, ask what he meant by that. Share your concerns. If you're not comfortable doing that then this isn't a healthy relationship.