DP appears determined to feel an 'outsider' after 14 years

[NotPurpleRaptor]

DP and I met 20 years ago whilst I was living overseas. Our DD was born in DP's country of birth and is now eighteen. I returned to the UK in 2008, we had some difficulty getting DP a visa but finally he got one and joined us in the UK two years later. He is now a British citizen.

Even after all these years, DP's language is still always 'we' (people from his home country) and 'you' (people from the UK). He has no British friends and says this is because English isn't his language so it's difficult. He has been in the same back-breaking job for years because he refuses all promotions as he would have to talk to the public and contractors and he doesn't want to because, again, he maintains he doesn't want to talk to people in English as it isn't his language. He spends his time at home voice messaging friends and relatives from his birth country in his first language and watching films from his birth country. He has always refused for me to have friends round to the house or to go and visit my friends and relatives as a couple, because he doesn't want to speak English.

I've often thought that he's depressed but he disagrees. He's not introverted in his birth country - we lived there together for some years and he talks to everyone and has loads of friends. He goes back for a visit every two years for a month.

Our entire relationship together over twenty years, and his relationship with our DD, has been in English, DD and I don't speak his first language, so it's untrue that speaking English is technically difficult for him.

Now we're getting older he's becoming even more entrenched in his ways. He only wants to talk to people in his birth country. He may not be depressed but he certainly doesn't appear happy. I don't know how to help him. Suggestions welcome.

Is he saying he wants to ‘go home’? Did he really want to come in the first place?

this sounds like a profoundly unhappy long marriage for you both

you returned to the uk with your baby before sorting DH’s visa?

he had to wait 2 years to join his partner and baby?

you didn’t wait for him?

It doesn't sound like depression.

His DD is unlikely to judge his English so I can see why he is happy to speak it with you and with her but not with others.

I have unfond memories to French people correcting my French when I was in France and it really did make me not want to speak the language.

Do you speak his language? Are there meet ups in this country of people from his birth country you could socialise with?

His heart is not in the UK and I foresee him wanting to return to his home the closer he gets to retirement age.

It doesn’t mean he is depressed - the UK is just not home for him.

Can I just check I've not misunderstood this? You lived in dp's home country for a number of years and have a child with him, but have never learned his language, but part of the problem is his reluctance to speak English?

I can't believe you left without him having sorted out a visa and took your child away from him for 2 years that seems unnecessary cruel.

He doesn't sound depressed he just sounds like he didn't want to live in the UK and he had his hand forced.

I suspect he will want to retire to his home country, will that be an option?

He did very much want to come, it was the only way he could live with us as a family. There were issues with his family being shamed by our relationship. We couldn't all live together there once our DD was born. He would never have come had it not been for DD, he's very open about that, and DD is what keeps him here. She is financially dependent on both of us working for the next three years through her Uni course.

He sounds like an obstinate pain in the arse. He lives in the U.K. and won’t learn English properly, plus he won’t allow you to have friends and relatives in the house? Not sure why you’ve had such a hard time from previous posters.

I know a lot of people like this. It isn’t all that uncommon.

I was friends with a lovely lady from Portugal who married a Turkish man. He didn’t speak Portuguese and she didn’t speak Turkish. They conversed in English or French. I also know a lady married to a Nigerian man and they just speak English. I can’t remember her mother tongue but it isn’t English,

I think that irrespective of the rights and wrongs of this and of that once you are in a country and have a child there then you do need to embrace it to a certain degree if only for acceptance for the child. It sounds really difficult, @NotPurpleRaptor . How is the marriage generally?

It’s MN, the OP must be first roasted. I do wish people would cut it out.

Communicating in a second language is really hard, even after a long time, while I don’t regret that my husband isn’t also fluent in my first language, it would be so much easier if he was. He does speak it very well, but not fluently. Why don’t you and his child speak his language? How is translating every word you say before you say it not difficult? How many languages do you speak that means you can confidentally say speaking another is easy?

Are you saying you left him, and denied him his own child for two years, and denied your child their father for two years, rather than returning once his visa situation was more clear? For me that would have been unforgivable.

When I lived in the UK I only had one British friend, I’d had so many awful experiences of British people mocking me, or mimicking my accent that I just didn’t bother anymore as it led to redicule and xenophobia. Preventing guests however is extreme, unless he has previously been treated poorly by them.

He won't let you have friends round to the house? This is very controlling - it would be a deal breaker for me.

Sounds like you'd all be much happier if he went back home.

Yes. He wouldn't have got a visa at all otherwise, we tried getting him one so we could come together but it was refused. The only solution was for me to come to the UK, secure us a house, and get a job which earned the minimum income to get a spouse visa. I did all this, with a toddler, and the first visa application from the UK was still refused. I worked hard to build a life for us in those two years, worked with an immigration charity, appealed the visa decision and the appeal was accepted. I cried in court with happiness that day and DP cried in happiness when I rang him with the news.

He certainly can't dictate who you have in your joint home.

Are you saying you left him, and denied him his own child for two years, and denied your child their father for two years, rather than returning once his visa situation was more clear

No, she is not saying that.

I realise that may not have been clear from the first post but to me, the accusatory language used is out of order. There are ways to ask that aren’t so provocative and cruel.

Why did you decide to move to the UK? Was he on board with that decision?

It sounds a little bit like your DH is cutting off his nose to spite his face with his refusal to speak English or integrate into British society. On the other hand you don’t seem to have made the effort to learn his language. Imagine having to live your life entirely surrounded by his language and culture.

That sort of thing is fine if it is a choice. But if he feels forced into it it’s a different story.

Is there no local communities from his home country maybe if you don't live in a largely populated area could be harder but if he could meet others from his or a very similar culture could it help him at all to socialise more and maybe even network and see there is others who have settled here?

I'm curious. After 20 years he's still a DP not a DH?

Why? Was it one of you could never fully commit to the other?

I don't see this situation changing. He didn't want to come and he doesn't want to be here. The only reason he is because of his daughter.

So what happens next? Your daughter is going to have her own life. Where does she want to live long term? With his daughter grown up and seeing her much less, what incentive is there for your DH to stay in this country? He can easily come visit her occasionally.

Where does this leave you long term? Do you fit in, in his culture? It doesn't sound like you did - hence you moved to the UK rather than resolve your issues with the culture difference. Yet you expect him to do what you didn't.

It really doesn't doesn't sound like you have a long term future together once your daughter is fully financially independent and has her own life. She's the only thing that held your relationship together.

I think you need to seriously think about this and whether you both want to be unhappy living somewhere the other doesn't and vice versa.

I think you'll probably find the relationship has run it's course and you need to start planning for a future without him if I'm honest.

He's not going to change. He doesn't want to.

I'm not going to blame either of you. It sounds like a very sad situation and I feel sorry for you both. He's clearly not happy here. He hasn't settled and probably never will.
I can't see an any easy answer. Either he continues living here unhappily, or you all go and live in his country (which doesn't seem to be an option) or he returns alone. None of these options seems like happy options.

I think something similar happened to him at work, he's in a 'laddy' profession and I suspect that when he started, years ago, people made fun of his English and he just stopped talking. How very sad.I don't speak his language; when I lived there, people always wanted to speak English to me rather than their first language. Children are taught in English medium schools. So I never learned, and here DP rather likes to separate his life and I'm the UK part, so he didn't encourage me to learn. He didn't want DD learning his first language either.

I've suggested he join associations of people from his area that do exist locally, but he's never wanted to. We do go and visit his cousin's wife who lives in London sometimes, but London is several hours drive from us.

It's fine for him to watch films in his language, speak to friends and family from his home country. You can't expect him to stop doing that. Don't you speak his language?

It's not fine for him to not let you have friends round.

I don't speak his language; when I lived there, people always wanted to speak English to me rather than their first language.

But you could have learnt it if you wanted to.