Cultural differences stopping our friendship? Please advice.

[handsoffmycake]

Its a bit of a strange one. I just dont know what to do about this.

I became friends with a Saudi Arabian lady last year at my local sure start. She actually went out of her way to make friends with me and often invited me back to her house after group where we would chat and she would feed me endlessly! She was a really lovely lady.

Last November her husband who had been studying here finished his course and they moved back to Saudi Arabia. She was very sad about leaving, though happy she was going back to see family. Though she was the sweetest friendliest lady she did not have many friends from the Saudi community here - though she said she had tried and also said it was very hard to make friends in Saudi Arabia. She left and we were both very sad and said we would keep in touch via email.

To begin with she emailed regularly and normally. She works as a lecturer and has 2 boys to look after so when the emails slowed down I put it down to this though she started to not answer any of my chatty questions.

Now if I email her she replies very quickly but with very short lines that sound so sad. Just things like "I miss you all so much" and "Thankyou for friendship I miss you and your children"

I dont know what to do. Normally if this happened I would think maybe they didnt want to continue the friendship but she does always email me back and they sound so sad. My DH says maybe her emails are being checked and our friendship had been met with disapproval from her DH.

I know things are really strict in Saudi Arabia but I am sure I have never written anything "risky". Just friendly chat.

Does anyone know anything about life as a Saudi woman? AIBU in thinking she is not allowed to email me as before because of cultural differences? What should I do? I want to keep in touch with her. Should I email and ask if there is a problem? I dont want to get her into trouble.

Any advice gladly taken.

Life in Saudi Arabia is so vastly different to that in the UK that it's almost impossible to compare the two. It may well be that she is feeling a bit sad about leaving that life behind. There will be so many other pressures on her now that she is back within the family (her own extended family and her in-laws) as well as working and her own family.

I'm sure she still wants to be friends or you would have had a 'don't ever contact me again' type email from her or possibly her DH. I doubt that you've said or done anything to offend. Keep in touch with her, it may just be a phase that she is going through or the friendship may have run its natural course.

Good for you for trying to bridge the cultural divide. It's lovely to hear about.

Thankyou redundanttiara I do think she wants to be friends or else she would just stop emailing? I will continue to email her with chatty friendly emails and hope that maybe one day she will be able to do the same.

She is such a lovely sweet lady. I am still gutted she had to go home!

Can you say you in an email you are worried about her and she doesn't seem her usual chatty self? Do you ask her questions in your emails e.g. how her sons are doing etc?

TheyKnowEsperanto I did ask in an email if she was ok as she had not replied to me in a while that time. She just said she was well and family was well. I have emailed a few times since then and she just replies with "I miss you lots" etc.

I dont think she would email me and tell me she was NOT ok. Especially if as I suspect her emails are read by others.

Is she living in a nuclear family or with her extended family? If the latter, it may be someone with authority in the family doesn't approve of the friendship. But she is managing to reply by saying it would be rude not to reply - so she is told okay, but make it short. If this is the case, then she will be keeping in contact hoping that she will be less closely supervised in the future and can talk to you more openly.

Other reason could be that she just finds it too hard emotionally at this stage to talk about her life there. I know if something really upsets me I can't bear to talk to anyone about it. So I wouldn't want to talk about my everyday life if it really upset me. But I would want to keep in contact and would be up to talking about everyday life in the future.

Of course you don't know why her emails are so short. But if you want to keep in contact with her and she keeps replying, then I would continue to email her.

Thanks for reply lesley33 she lives wth nuclear family as far as I know.

I think it must have been so hard to leave UK and return to something that is so far removed from our own society.

I have just emailed her as usual in a friendly tone and though I would love to get a similar email back I will continue to email her regardless of her short replies.

I just hope my emails are not an intrusion and that they are still welcome.

Poor woman, sounds like she is very lonely Oh I hate this maybe someone with authority in the family was not happy with her emailing " do you mean she is being brow beaten by men with views from the dark ages cause that it what is is.
She is an adult and she should be allowed the freedom to speak to whom ever she wishes to, but sadly in a misogynistic country is not allowed to

Saudia Arabia is very oppressive to women.

I asked about extended family because if her DH was happy for her to go to a sure start centre in UK, I would have thought he would have been happy for her to email you - but maybe not. Maybe he thinks that now she is in saudi arabia she should behave in a different way and not interact with you.

I don't think emails are an intrusive form of communication anyway. If you were phoning her often and she wasn't talking much that would be totally different. But as long as she is replying i would continue to email her.

I've a Burmese friend married to a Brit who lives in KSA. Her emails to me are really guarded and I've learned not to email her anything that could be construed as provocotive or agitating.
They are read by others, not sure if it is routinely or randomly though.

Could you write to her rather than email and express your concerns? If there is anything wrong I doubt she'd put it in an email. But on the small off chance there IS something wrong she might feel more comfortable putting pen to paper iyswim?

Oh yes, an old fashioned letter, enclosing a funny article from your local rag about people she might know - or photos- or fabric swatch for the new curtains... Its all you can do really to maintain the friendship across so many miles. Chatty, innocent drivel. Invite her to stay!

RunAwayWife it's not necessarily the men who might be disapproving, the matriarchs can be more restrictive than the men. Having been bullied by their MIL or GMIL they then pass on the bullying to the next generation as they then have some semblance of power.

Agree completely with Arion - the matriarchs can much worse than the men, so can women of one's own generation (SILs for example) if they are jealous. And a husband who is relatively liberal outside the country may be heavily influenced by his female relatives once he is back in the home environment, and change the way he treats his wife as a result.

During the first years of my married life, when my SILs spent long periods with us (not in Saudi Arabia, but a different Arab country) I couldn't get a letter or a phone call without them wanting to know who was writing/calling. I felt as though I was under constant surveillance. I'd have thought email was less subject to such curiosity, but may be wrong.

Many thanks for all replies. I asked for her address once she was settled in a new apartment (they initially stayed with family) and I never got it. It was after this, come to think of it, that she began with very short emails.

It is so sad. She confided when she was here that the saudi community was not friendly. I couldnt understand why she had no friends she is young, very beautiful,perfect english,intelligent and so welcoming. Maybe its sour grapes?

I doubt it is sour grapes.
I think, to be frank, you will have to accept that this friendship is not going anywhere. You would find it very difficult to get a visa to visit if you wanted to.
We tried to get one to see our friends in Jeddah. We were refused.

I dont know what it could be kreecherlivesupstairs I guess when culture divides us so much we cannot always understand peoples reasoning.

Although it seems this friendship is not happening at this time I dont want to give up just yet and will just hope something changes.

Do you get a reason for refusal on a visa? I have never been abroad, have no idea about these things. I would have loved to have visited her one day.

Sour grapes on the part of others in the Saudi community sounds very likely. Don't cut the contact with her, she probably values your emails greatly even if she does not reply in detail - she may well be feeling very unhappy, and reluctant to confide by email, maybe out of a sense of duty to her own family. Just keep in touch (maybe less often than before, but still regularly), send her photos, whatever, and my guess is that it will make her day each time she hears from you. The knowledge that she was able to make friends when she lived abroad is probably very important to her, given that she is lonely in her own community. Later on, she may feel able to tell you more.

Reason for visa refusal was pretty straightforward. We weren't pilgrims, we weren't Muslim and we weren't looking to do business with anyone, nor were we visiting family.
When we lived in Oman we had planned to take a road trip through Saudi to Jordan and Syria.
I took DD along to the embassy to apply for visas. The man told me not to waste my time, money or effort. It was the right decision anyway, DH would have done all (12ish hours) driving through KSA. Laydeez aren't allowed to drive.

Agree it is just as or even more likely to be female family members being oppressive. OP sometimes even if a female member of the family such as MIL or SIL doesn't live with them, there can be the expectation that the wife will spend the whole or nearly the whole day with them either in her or her relatives house - more likely to be her relatives house.

I admit I knew little about Saudi Arabia before, now I read more and more. I am completely ok with keeping my emails non risky - I generally just talk about DC and day to day stuff nothing heavy.

How sad that we cannot visit these places easily. Anyone with any sense would not go there to cause any trouble.

I hope you are right LongWayRound and will keep emailing and hope at some point she will be able to respond in like.

I am really embarrassed at my ignorance, I had no idea that you couldn't visit Saudi easily

Don't be embarrassed Valium. Unless you are doing the Haj there is little reason to visit.
Our friends have as many weekends as they can away from there.

I don't know loads about Saudi Arabia but I do know that women have almost no freedom there. Not allowed to drive a car, for example and difficult to be out in public at all without a male relative. Know a female Saudi journalist who can't attend any press conferences or anything without a (male) escort. Without knowing anything at all about your friend and her situation it sounds to me as if the husband or possibly other family members may have become alarmed at the amount of contact she was having with western women like you and wants to reign her in. So, yes, its quite plausible that her email is being checked. She may also be self-censoring because she's unhappy in the marriage or whatever and doesn't want to invite a reprisal. Poor woman. It sounds like your friendship gave her a lot of support. If I were you I'd just keep in touch and keep it light and friendly. You may be a lifeline for her.