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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

thinking about divorce 1 month after the wedding...

116 replies

whitestar13 · 11/12/2019 12:54

I really need help and your opinions about this, am I being unreasonable of thinking of getting a divorce just 1 month after our wedding?
i will try to explain it shortly: I've just moved to an other country because of my husband (we are not the same nationality), I gave up my job in order to be toghether. We decided mutually that i would come to live with him because of the better ecnomic possibilities for both of us. I left behind friends and family, and a very sunny place to be toghether. I never questioned this decision as I knew that in the long run we would have a better life here. So i started to do everything in order to integrate myself better in this new placw, from January i will start language courses, to learn the local language, I joined the gym, the local library.... and I've been here less then two weeks now. What i am trying to say is that I am nt sitting at home in front of the telly, but I am going out, doing the shopping, cooking making order and rearranging the flat as my husband is not the best to keep things in order, to put it nicely....
My problem is this, since almost the first day that i arrived he has been pushing me to get a job... Don'tmisunderstand me, I intend to go back to work because staying at home makes me feel very depressed, but i haven't been able yet to close all my businesses in my country of origin... I still have to travel back and bring my stuff here ( I just arrived with one luggage), I have to translate most of my documents, I have to close my flat where I am still paying rent, etc. Not to mention that everybody says to me that if i don't speak the local language I won't be able to have a decent job, just manual work, and since I am university educated this doesn't seem like a good solution. You don't have to think that we are in extrem need of money, I have something saved up, and my husband is a dentist.... I don't evenknow how to say this, I am so sad, we just had a major arguement about this subject, I hoped that he would understand that i needed time to integrate and to finish things in my old country and start this intensive language course ( 3 times per week, 4 hours per day) before i will start to look for a job. We haven't even been to a honeymoon yet, I was asking him when he will want to go, because this is also something to know before i start to look for a job, but he is always very vague about it... in the meantime he is also pushing for us to have a baby, even though I told him i would prefer to wait for some month with it, until things settle down little bit and be less chaotic... I just feel like he wants everything now and on his own terms and doesn't care at all about my needs. Just like with the wedding; i wanted a small one, but we ended up having a big that I had to organise ....
So i just told him that i needed time until the end of Febuary, to finish wih everything (packing and transfering, with which by the way he is not helping at all) and also to start the language course in January ( i couldn't find one that starts sooner, obviously everybody is getting ready for Xmas now) so at least I will be able to write in my C:V that i am learning the language...
So my question is, am I unreasonable for saying tht i will start to look for a job after the end of Febuary? (and believe me, we are not starving, he is earning around 6-7000 euro per month).
So we just had a huge argument about it, where he gratiously agreed on 'giving me time', whereas I feel I shouldn't even ask for it... I got very angry and I told him I want a divorce, to which he replyed that ii's ok for him...
Just as a side note I have to tell, that I never asked anything from him, nor money, nor nothing, I paid for all my travelling (even when we wnt to visit his family) and the biggest present I got from him was a parfume....
Until now it was all ok for me, but this recent behaviour of him makes me very sad. I thought that marriage was about loving and sharing. I gave up everything for him and he can't accept that I need some time to get used of my new surroundings.... the lowest point was when I complained about the disorder he makes every time ( I have to pick up his clothes from the floor) and him saying that anyhow I live here and I am using HIS water... so what's the fuss about...
Any answer would be appreciated, I feel very sad and lonely...

OP posts:
aveenos · 11/12/2019 19:32

spits

OP is in a country where she doesn't speak the language. Feb is nothing. If she is only starting the language course in Jan, I doubt she will be fluent by Feb.

Op, have you not discussed these things in advance?

but either way, I would run. very fast. Good luck Flowers

Loopytiles · 11/12/2019 19:37

A year is not long at all: you don’t know him well.

If you had a child or children with him and later split up, you could well end up trapped in his country.

“ I knew that in the long run we would have a better life here”: why did you think that?

CanIHaveADrink · 11/12/2019 19:55

Please please do not have a child with him.

I have been/am the wife who moved country to live with my H in his own country. Once you have a child, you are stuck in that country, regardless of your earning potential, your family away etc....

I 5ink he is showing his true colours and either he starts behaving less like a twat or yes I would be looking at a divorce.

CanIHaveADrink · 11/12/2019 19:58

@Spitsandspots, have you ever tried to look for a job when yiu dint speak the language at all?
Or do you expect the OP to take whatever comes, not have the opportunity to learn said language, and live under the rule of her DH, even though they easily live in his wage only?

I have to say I really wonder why he is pushing so hard for you to work whilst at the same time pushing you to get pregnant (which again will make it much harder for you to get a job). It’s like he is setting you up to fail.

HamAndPineapple · 11/12/2019 19:59

If you have a flat and a business in your home country, why would life be better in the UK? It depends. It sounds like you're successful in your own right already, and you are bilingual already? A native language and English? Gearing up to learn another language?

I would go home OP

I don't want to out myself here (again, sigh!) but having a child with an abusive man is a real ball and chain forever. I now have to worry about my x emotionally manipulating my daughter.

HamAndPineapple · 11/12/2019 20:00

Also, habitual domicile etc... (Hague Convention). If you have a child here, he would have the right to prevent you from returning with the child to your home country, so you'd be stuck in the UK without any family.

HamAndPineapple · 11/12/2019 20:05

@whitestar13 don't use up your savings. PUt them in an account in your home country. I wouldn't have been able to escape if I hadn't done this. I had 1.900 euro in an account in my home country and it meant I was able to escape. Not much but it made it possible. He tried to have me ordered back to the UK. You couldn't make it up.

Niki93 · 11/12/2019 20:10

He sounds likes he’s subliminally controlling you, whilst convincing you that these bug choices to marry, move, change lifestyle etc was a ‘mutual’ choice. But you’re not happy so it isn’t mutual. Red flags for me, sounds like this relationship has potential to go into emotionally coercively bullying grounds. Do not allow him to pressure you into anything you dont want to do. If i were you, ig do back home and take some time to think if this is actually what you want. One year isnt a long time to really get to know someones true colours...

Italiangreyhound · 11/12/2019 20:12

I agree with Bluerussian
"In your position I would return to my home country and to my flat. You've only been married 'five minutes' and may have grounds for an annulment which would be better than divorce.

Please prioritise your peace of mind over what your family will say."

However your husband may realise he is being unreasonable and try to address that if you leave. Just let him know that you will go - and make arrangements to go.

Good luck and I'm sorry it is turning out like it is.

Janicejaniceahmfallin · 11/12/2019 20:14

I’m so sorry you’re in this situation, whitestar; it sounds awful.

It also sounds like you may have rushed into something in order to fulfil a bunch of other people’s ideas of what your life should be like. I appreciate that you may wish to have children and possibly feel that time is running out for you. But having a baby in a foreign country with a man you don’t seem to truly know (and who doesn’t seem to love you at all) is really not the answer.

Don’t be sad and lonely, love. Go home, where you have friends and family and businesses and a place of your own and a life. To give up all these things would be a big ask even if your relationship was spectacularly happy, but to willingly lose them for the sake of the situation you’re now in is madness. Flowers

Loveliveexplore · 11/12/2019 20:16

It's hard when you move abroad you need to give yourself time to adjust. Take it from me, I moved to my husbands country and have now been here 3 years and absolutely love it. But the first year was a transition. Also give yourself time in your relantionship. The first year of marriage you are really learning about eachother and learning how to communicate.. It will get better. Don't give up yet.. Deep breath in relax and give yourself time.

Italiangreyhound · 11/12/2019 20:17

Sorry that was all from Bluerussian who I agree with.

onalongsabbatical · 11/12/2019 20:19

HamAndPineapple I think OP is somewhere else, not the UK.

Troels · 11/12/2019 20:25

Book a ticket home, pay for lots of extra luggage, buy some extra suitcases and go home. You still have a flat and work to go to.
Write this up and horrible mistake. You can divorce from home once you settle back.
It's supposed to be the honeymoon period where you are all over each other and lovey dovey and bending over backwards to show how much you care. It appears he didn't get that memo.

Cacklingmags · 11/12/2019 20:50

He sounds like a horrible man. He is disrespectful to you so soon after the wedding, imagine what he would be like if you were pregnant and trapped. Go home. Put this one down to experience (a nasty one).

Skittlesandbeer · 11/12/2019 20:56

How about you go back home this week, instantly, telling everyone including him that you need to hit the reset button on this marriage?

Be honest with everyone about the fact that you never agreed to get full time work immediately, be his house slave and all the rest. That you both need to do some serious thinking, and discussions, that should have been done before the wedding. That weddings and dreams of babies are one thing, but the realities of figuring out how to live with each other forever is another.

You’ll get far more clear serious conversations about the possible futures if you go back to your flat. Let him remember life without you.

Use the embarrassment he will feel, about not making you welcome in your new life. He has far more to be embarrassed about than you.

Go back, see what happens. He could come good. If he doesn’t and you decide to end the marriage, you will make that decision on firm ground among your loved ones. Good luck.

whitestar13 · 11/12/2019 21:31

Guys... you have been an absolute lifesaver for me today...
Firstlet me thank you all for your amazing messages, they gave me power to carry on and to I made up my mind about the whole situation...
I waited for my husband to come home and tried to calmly discusse with him the situation. So he refuses to take resposability for anything, he continuous to say that he wants what is best for us and he can see that I am depressed by staying at home (but it-s not only that, it- also about leaving my friends and family behind), and he downright refuse to acknowledge what he said about tha water ... I guess I must have been dreaming it, right?!
So I just bought my ticket back home, and also told him that if he thnks that it is so easy to restart a life in a new country (since he has been belitteling my efforts)he can join me there, since it is actually the counrty where he studied for ten years he won't have a problem finding a job. Of course he would earn less.
So now he has to decide .
I won't give up my flat.
To answer to ome of the questions, we are not in the UK, but in a country closed to you that actually I like very much, because people are very nice and helpful here, just as in the UK, by the way.
So actually this is a place that I like and I wouldn't have mind staying here. He is from middle eastern background but as i said studied many years in my country. We speak English beetween us, and no, I didn't think I hit the jackpot because he is a dentist, I just thought (or so it seemed) that we have very much in common and that I finally found the right guy... I speak fluently 3 languages, so to learn the local would have been my 4th one. I am good with languages that's why I was pretty confident that within a few month I would be able to achieve a good level...
Guys really, thank you to all of you for your answers, I am going back home and hopefully it will help me to think more clearly and also get some advice....

OP posts:
BlouseAndSkirt · 11/12/2019 21:39

Good for you, WhiteStar, and the best of luck to you!

You are newly married and you moved to be with him, this is the time that a man who cared for you would be so happy to have you with him and do anything g to support you. The minute you were married: he is horrible.

Travel home, don’t look back! Bon voyage!

BlueSuffragette · 11/12/2019 21:51

Well done OP. If he loves you he can prove it now. If not then go for an annulment of the marriage (you never had sex with him in that month after the wedding, right????!!!) That way you may be able to move on much quicker than waiting for divorce.

Ihavehadenoughalready · 11/12/2019 21:55

Your second thoughts are not unreasonable.

I do think you should not be ashamed to return home and get a divorce, and be glad you are not having a baby with such a self-absorbed dictator.

Yesmate · 11/12/2019 22:07

Good for you OP. Good luck.

scubadive · 11/12/2019 22:10

Goodness leave now, if you feel like this after 1 month, there is no future,

He is being very unreasonable and controlling.

Italiangreyhound · 11/12/2019 22:27

Thank you for the update, all the very best with your plans.

Thanks
Therarestone · 11/12/2019 22:49

I'm worried for you. So many red flags.

Therarestone · 11/12/2019 22:51

Ah just caught up, good for you. All the best for the future