What kind of relationship is this?

[annaomar]

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.

Very, VERY well done for not contacting him, Anna - that is NOT easy to keep to and real progress

So he says he hates you now, does he? And that's what this deeply unpleasant man reverts to as soon as things don't go exactly his way? I'd regard it as a favour to be honest, in that he's showing exactly what he is and it will all help to strengthen your resolve

Wonderful news too about the great support you're getting from the counsellor; just hope mine turns out to be as good when the appointments come through!!

Brilliant Anna! Well done! If you want to sit and cry, please do sit and cry.

It IS sad what has happened to you and you deserve to be kind enough to yourself to recognise this.

You will be better off without him, you really will. Please block him on WhatsApp, you don't need him to have direct access to you for any reason.

I am so glad you have a good counsellor.

Well done Anna. You've come so far from your first post. Keep going and as Hissy suggests, please block him on WhatsApp. Book some nice stuff into your diary in the coming months, days out, a holiday, stuff to look forward to. You're doing well.

That he hates you (supposedly - because that was a message for you, to make you feel bad) is about him, not you.

You are doing great, and if you feel like crying, then just get it out of your system. Have a good cry. Go on. As much as you want to. Then shake him off. :)

Oh Anna, he is a piece of work isn't he? That statement was entirely for your benefit, designed to get you off balance, uncertain, losing confidence, feeling hateful and unlovable. He expects you to contact him in tears, begging and pleading, so he can very kindly forgive you for treating him so shabbily and to extract a load of unreasonable promises from you, in return he will deign to see you once a week or so unless he's got something more important on.

Have a good cry. We are here patting your shoulder, offering tissues and tea.

Sell you story to Take a Break. You are not alone; many highly intelligent women( and men) get sucked in by such fraudsters.

I say sell your story to such magazines, as a means of warning further "victims", Would you honestly want someone else to be in your shoes?

you are doing so well. He is trying to make you feel guilty. He is only like a child who 'hates you' because you wont give them any sweets. If he can turn love on and off so quickly, what does that say about the depths of his feelings.

Once, before my ex came here to the UK an Egyptian friend's mother visited him and his family while travcelling over there. She told me he was no good, that he came from the worst kind of family, and that I was being used. She really meant well but I didnt want to believe her, I wanted to believe my fantasy of what we had, the big romance.

She had asked him what he loved about me, and the best he could come up with was 'she sends me money'. Thats it. All the flowery words meant nothing, and at the end of the day that really was the bottom line. He was happy enough to stay with me so long as I didnt ever question anything he did, didnt make any demands of him, and carried on financially taking all the responsibility. At the end of the day everything changed when I needed him for support. Once my money had gone and he realised that I was no longer the cash cow, he was quick to go. So called love switched off at the drop of a hat. If I had kept my eyes open I would have listened to the warning signs when I had travelled to see him in Egypt, and wouldnt have brought him over. The flags were waving like mad, but I so much wanted my fantasy, and what i had told others, to be true that I ignored them. He was always making money from me when I was there. Money was the be all and end all of it. He saw me as old and that I somehow should have been grateful to have him, but in reality he was a spoilt little boy who didnt see me as the intelligent, attractive, resourceful, 28 year old that I was. Even to this day he never realises what I managed to achieve, agaisnt all the odds, to get him here - it became a political wrangle which I won for him, but he was so stupid he didnt even know it. I just wish that I had put that much effort into something real.

The only good things are the councilling I inevitably had to have to put my life straight and see what madness had led to me being vulnerable to this kind of abusive manipulation (and I am glad you are getting that) and my beautiful DD, who I would never be without.

Nettletea, I recognise so much of what you describe.

I hoped so much that the replies that I received to my original question were over- cynical and would prove untrue but events are proving me wrong. I am sad because my time with O wasn't all bad especially in the beginning when there was a lot of fun and I had lots of hope and optimism. He came into my life like a breath of fresh air, I was swept off my feet. I don't want to believe that was all part of his plan, I don't want to believe that this person who had lit up my life and literally made me dance with joy was all along a cynical manipulator. That is too cruel. Bloody hell, I sound like someone who has read too many romantic novels

I'm sorry Anna, in the beginning the him being lovely bit was an act.

Men like him do this to hook their targets.

We spend the rest of our relationships chasing that 'hit' but we can't get it back because it was never real to begin with.

It's not US that are stupid for falling for it, it's them that are lying to us in the first place.

There's more complexity than this, and (god knows) I can talk for days on this, but the short cut is that you'll never get Mr Perfect back, because he was only pretending. He can't get that person back even if he tried now.

Anna, I too was the victim of a very manipulative man. It was a very long time ago and I think I should have listened to my friends and family, also his family . Looking back I see it for the ridiculous charade it really was. I had my own home and a well paid job, he was broke, jobless and needed somewhere to live, Saw him recently and I was shocked at how fat and ugly he has become.

I have to say O is very good looking and he uses it to good effect as part of his charm. I've often thought about how vain he is but that was something i could forgive. He's got male pattern baldness which causes him angst, although it actually suits him. He had a huge bad tempered sulk about 6 months ago when I said I wouldn't pay for a hair transplant! I hope he doesn't go fat and ugly but quite often our soul is reflected in our face, don't you think?

Well I don't think O has really got a soul. I wouldn't waste time worrying about his looks, I very much doubt he gives a shit about you, too busy hunting for his next prey.

Hi anna I havnt posted for a while, but Im pleased to see the path you have taken. This is so hard to make that adjustment from what you thought you had with this person to what you actually have.

Please stick with it, you have come so far from your first post. You have your counsellor who you seem to be getting on with (sometimes it can take two or three goes as they all use different methods).

Take your time but stay on this path. I agree about cutting contact you do not need him draining you or confusing you. you need the space to gain perspective.

Hi there, my lovely! How are you doing?

Anna, you couldn't be more correct about the soul being reflected in the face - it's also something that often gets ignored, or perhaps we just don't look hard enough?

I must confess I had a giggle over the hair transplant he expected you to fund, though; imagine what else you'd have been expected to pay for if you'd stayed with the waster

Sad as it is, Hissy is right about his behaviour being a well-honed skill, but you know what? This could actually be a real plus in the long run, as you'll develop better radar for it in future. You'll meet the wonderful partner you so richly deserve, and when you do your new feelings of self worth will mean you can make the very best of it all

Jux, I feel awful. Very sad that the person that I loved and counted on turned out to be uncaring. That I gave him so much - and I don't mean money, I mean love, time, care, energy, worry, concern etc. - and that he can now only get in touch to say he hates me. No asking how I am, what's wrong, what can we try and put right, what do we need to change. I still can't quite believe that the person I thought so loveable saw me all along as a victim to be manipulated and exploited.

Unfortunately men like O know exactly which buttons to push to worm themselves into their prey's affections. You are not the first, nor are you the last, to fall for it.

You are doing so well now, you have finally seen him for the con-man he is.

You are already rebuilding your life. You will be stronger and stronger.

O takes his strength from his victims, but as he ages and he loses his looks, he will end up a bitter chancer who passed by the truly good things in life as he doesn't know to enjoy a meaningful relationship. He's a loser.

Also, life with this type IS fun and lovely, so long as you are facilitating it all for them. They can be lots of fun and very charming.
We like to imagine that its easy to spot the type - an old fat middle aged lady, hanging round with a young dreadlocked rasta in jamaica, for example, we like to think it wasnt like that, because we were young and attractive ourselves, so it must have been love
And maybe in a naive way it WAS love, but only a love that was shallow and conditional - because these guys have no depth, no soul at all. Their upbringing is so radically different, so poor, so driven by exploitation and exploiting that their ability to form relationships based on anything more than what they can get out of it is so deeply hidden under layers of corruption, persecution and suspicion that its unlikely that it ever will surface. While they have any kinds of looks or charm they will use it to get what they need.
My ex was sent out at 4 to learn to 'work' the tourists by the pyramids. Learning how to talk to them, to dicover what they wanted, to learn how to read people and say what they wanted to hear. I knew that and as it was alien to me I felt sorry for him, protective towards the little boy caught up in a world of corruption that sees small children begging on the street. I fell for it completely, and the fact that we had something special. But I was one of several he had on the go, from different places. I was just the one who managed to come up with the visa for him.
Now he is here he is still the same though. He comes from the street and he lives from the street - its what he knows and where he feels comfortable - he has had many chances both with business and with partners to actually make something decent out of himself, but at the end his addiction to the seediest sides of society, along with EVERY ME man I have met through aquaintence (bar 2), brings them all back down to the guitter and they repeat the same mistakes, relive the same relationships, let down more and more decent honest lovely giving, trusting women, again and again and again.
They cannot help it, its just who they are. (note I am not talking all ME men, just all of this TYPE of ME men, I am sure there are some lovely ones out there, I just have never met them because of the friends and aquaintances I met were all married to European or Scandenavian girls under the same circumstances)

Nettletea, I am sorry to say that my experience of ME men is not much more favourable than yours. Some of O's friends are very exploitative towards women. I just thought he was different.

I've nothing new to add Anna, just want to send all my best wishes and hope you have a really happy weekend.

I used to hear the way that friends of my ex used to talk about the 'idiotic women' that brought them over.... Scathing and disgusted/reviled doesn't go close to the way they were thought of.

I used to hear what the taxi drivers in luxor thought about the 'stupid bitches' (plural) that they had 'on the go' at different times during the tourist season.

I also had to change my mobile number THREE TIMES when living there as it got guess-dialled by young lads who would ring and ring trying to bag themselves a forrin woman. Egyptians have NO boundaries when it comes to making a nuisance of themselves if they want to talk to you.

think 40-odd calls in 24 hours, think hammering on your door at anytime THEY want at immense volume. they have no compass, they only put their own needs first. manners and decency are in extremely short supply.

They get TAUGHT at school how much a tourist spends in their countries. They are encouraged to milk them for everything. Add to this the vile shit about women in general spouted in the mosques, the even viler shit spouted about infidels and forriners and then the culture shock they get when they come to this land and there in lies the naked flame to the touchpaper.

I lived in that hole for 3 years. I can honestly say that ALL the decent people I met WEREN'T locals.

My ex I met in London. His marriage was in the UK under different circumstances and he was married for 8 years. I met him 2 years after he'd split with her, and he'd been in the UK legally the whole time. He didn't have the typical story, but pretty much everyone else i met through him in London did.

He was still highly abusive toward me though.

I still can't quite believe that the person I thought so loveable saw me all along as a victim to be manipulated and exploited

I totally understand, Anna, and surely that's another good reason to limit as much as you can the amount of time you spend thinking of him - after all he's had more than enough from you already!!!

Yes it IS sad in a way that he'll end up as a lonely old loser, but he had his chance of a wonderful future with you and totally blew it ... you honestly couldn't have done more than you did

A friend of mine married an Egyptian man, who dumped his original fiance for her and had to pay .
He is lovely and it was a bit of a whirlwind romance.

The difference is he loves her and didn't need any money she had (she didn't) or her passport (she's not British either). His family were at the wedding, as well as her friends. He had and now has a very good job, and his a medical doctor. They received us friends at their home.

Just saying that not all are bastards.

Anna, I know/ understand/empathise with what you are going through. For what it's worth , you must tell yourself that you are worthy of the love of a decent man, It will happen, you have learned the hard way. Your eyes are open now, you are no fool. This awful experience has enlightened you and it is doubtful you will fall prey to such a person in the future. I lost two years of my life to someone similar to your EX. I think you really need to invest some time to indulging yourself. Have a holiday alone, get a new hairdo, buy a gorgeous dress. Look in a week you've save over £150 . Start loving yourself; tell yourself your attractive, I tell you there will be no shortage of lovely single blokes beating a path to your door. If any of them seem to good to be true, then my sweet they probably are. Lessons learned and all thatxx