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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

What kind of relationship is this?

613 replies

annaomar · 16/03/2014 01:16

I met my DH four years ago. He is Arabic, I am English. I do love him very much and he says he loves me but I think actions speak louder than words....... We married after about 6 months. We have never lived together - I see him, always at his home 2 or 3 times a week. Saturdays I sleep at his and maybe once a month during the week. He has always been more interested in his friends than in me - I assume this is an Arab man thing. He goes out to meet them to drink tea, play billiards, smoke shisha etc. he never tells me where he goes and he gets angry if I ask. I don't entirely trust him regarding other women - I don't have evidence, just a strong feeling which he laughs at. He stays up late and sleeps late so even on our days together we rarely go anywhere or do anything together. I often think he treats me with a sort of contempt but I also feel like I've lost perspective and don't know if I'm being over sensitive. I earn more than him and give him money - although what he does with it I don't know and he gets angry if I ask him. When we are together he is very loving - he gives me lots of hugs & kisses and he is very good at spotting if I've been upset by someone or had a bad day, so he's obviously paying attention somewhere along the line. At the same time though the relationship seems to be driven by what he wants. I spend lots of time thinking I should leave but I don't want to hurt him.

OP posts:
Lweji · 16/03/2014 09:57

Did he need the marriage for a visa?

You probably married at the registry office. I'd bet he doesn't consider it a proper wedding. Does his family know about it?

And you have to go to his...

I'd divorce him now.

SheherazadeSchadenfreude · 16/03/2014 10:02

How is this a marriage? Did he marry you for the right to remain in the country?

annaomar · 16/03/2014 11:21

I think everybody who has posted here is telling me what I already know but find hard to accept. I am in the UK but he still lives in a little arabic bubble and I do know his friends. I didn't mean to insult arabic men, its just that from my observations it is a very male dominated society with traditional role models which persist even when they are living in the UK. When we got married I had the same expectations as most people who get married - I thought we would live together, travel together etc. He has his own flat and I have mine, which he has never visited.

I think I have reached the place in my head where I know for my own sake I have to leave but I still have this big mental block, a small voice telling me I will be letting him down. He has no family in this country - he came here as an asylum seeker after a very horrible time (he has got a passport, it wasn't that he wanted from me.)

OP posts:
Logg1e · 16/03/2014 11:50

How are you letting him down? You are not taking away his right to live in a safe country. I think that he has let you down, and used you, repeatedly.

SheherazadeSchadenfreude · 16/03/2014 11:53

What Logg1e says.

This is not a relationship. It's barely a friendship.

BeforeAndAfter · 16/03/2014 12:00

If he needed to be with you because you enrich his life and make him happy then you would be living together and sharing your lives as man and wife. He doesn't need you for anything from what I can tell so you have nothing to feel guilty about.

You are now seeing him for who he is. Take a deep breath, go and get legal advice and go to the GUM clinic to get checked over. He's obviously screwing around and macho men tend to avoid condoms. Sorry if that's brutal.

Legal advice is vital as you need grounds for divorce. I suspect that as you don't live together as man and wife that may constitute unreasonable behaviour but only a divorce lawyer can confirm that. You will also need to understand any impact on assets if you own your flat.

bragmatic · 16/03/2014 12:02

Tell us about you. Are you a generally confident person? What sort of relationships have you had in the past? Has this man met your family and friends?

I am appalled at his treatment of you.

ImperialBlether · 16/03/2014 12:15

OP, you are being used. It sounds a really awful situation. He's not a husband in any sense at all.

CogitoErgoSometimes · 16/03/2014 12:16

How would you be letting him down? He has family in this country... you!!! And yet he has no interest in you whatsoever, preferring to keep his life and yours entirely separate, except when he needs a few quid

If there's a mental block, I think it's your delusion that he married you for love and wanted to make a life with you. Please see a lawyer and get yourself free.

annaomar · 16/03/2014 13:32

This sounds ridiculous but I feel distraught at the thought I would never see him again. I can't explain it - I know that this situation is bad for me. I am at his flat now and when I look around I see nothing belonging to me here - just my toothbrush. That's not an exaggeration, if I walked out of the door now there is only the toothbrush to show I was ever here. I have friends and family - they think I have a boyfriend that I see at weekends. I've kept the truth of the situation from them which means my relationship with them has become gradually more distant (see, really I do know what a shitty relationship this is). I hate myself for deceiving them and feel I can't turn to them for help because really and truly I am not the person they all love and think they know.

OP posts:
Logg1e · 16/03/2014 13:37

You are the person they love and know. You can turn to them for help.

Why didn't you tell them about your marriage?

ravenmum · 16/03/2014 13:38

It is not the Arabic traditional role model to never visit your wife in her home. That's just this man. Check whether you actually have a marriage certificate that is valid in the UK.

Lweji · 16/03/2014 13:41

I'd think they would want their wife under their sight should she stray. That is why I don't think he is taking this marriage seriously.
I wouldn't be surprised if he was already married in his home country.

How did you come to get married?

bragmatic · 16/03/2014 13:43

You can turn to them. You can. Pick a trusted family member or friend and confide in them. You will feel better. You can't go on like this.

You've invested in this relationship and you've been scammed. Don't throw good money after bad. You're worth more than this!

ravenmum · 16/03/2014 13:44

Don't beat yourself over the head about this. When it comes to the heart, the oldest and wisest of us make what turn out to be stupid mistakes. One glance at the papers confirms that. If your family are at all nice, hearing this story will make them forget any disagreements you've had. If your family are not nice then there are services set up to help you. All of us sometimes need others to point out the obvious and give us the moral support to do what we need.

Logg1e · 16/03/2014 13:44

Lweji I'd think they would want their wife under their sight should she stray.

What does that sentence even mean?

DippyDoohDahDay · 16/03/2014 13:50

So you are isolated from your family because if your relationship, another abuse tactic.
I married an asylum seeker, he had no one else in this country, but he still could not treat me and the dc in the right way...I am not responsible for his asylum reasons, the choices he made or where he goes from here, and neither are you. For what it's worth, I really loved and invested in him too, but if a man isn't sharing his life with you, there is nothing there at all.
It sounds like you are easily manipulated by him. Have you got many friends around who you can confide in? I made mistakes too, but my family accepted it and have been there since...you have not become a different person. And when you start giving yourself the respect that your h clearly does not, then you can find a decent life and be happy!!
Whatever he is getting out of his arrangement with you, you know it's not marriage. He probably will protest, anger/play victim , lone man in a foreign country, but you did not cause any of those things and you were wanting the marriage that he has not given you, not even remotely

Lweji · 16/03/2014 13:51

The machist culture is very much about controlling the wife. Men tend to be very jealous and protective of their women. If this was the case here, I'm surprised he doesn't seem bothered.

Wrapdress · 16/03/2014 13:52

I am thinking you aren't the only wife this man has.

ImperialBlether · 16/03/2014 13:54

This is the strangest situation. OP, you sound as though you're under his spell, as though intellectually you know it's a really awful situation but as though you feel you have no control over it.

Whose idea was it that your parents shouldn't know about your marriage?

Are you absolutely sure he has the right to be here if he's not married?

ravenmum · 16/03/2014 13:54

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8493660.stm

Logg1e · 16/03/2014 13:57

"Machist"??

expatinscotland · 16/03/2014 13:58

I think he is married to someone else, too, and used you to gain a visa.

Groovee · 16/03/2014 14:01

I think he's married to someone else!

ImperialBlether · 16/03/2014 14:01

Why do people think he has a wife? She's in his home at the moment. Do you mean a wife in another country?

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