Arranged marriage divorce

[Confusedcookie]

I will try to keep this short but thanks in advance for any advice i will think about it all.
A few years ago i got into a relationship with someone who had an arranged marriage when they were much younger, now they had long seperated but never divorced as the other side refused too. My partner was honest with me from the start in telling me the history but i maybe stupidly believed like a uk divorce it could be made to happen quickly. Now a few years have passed and there is no progress, researchimg online it looks as though this is the cultural norm and divorces can take 5-10 years, sometimes more, with many people trying to move on but ending up in situations like this. So initially i didnt mind being kept as a sort of secret because i didnt think it would be for much longer, but now it is taking its toll. I just want a normal and happy life with the person i love and who loves me, but i cant have that. We cant live together, try not to be seen together, cant start a family and it seems like it is never ending. I would feel so cruel to leave, and i would also be risking never finding this love or happiness again, but equally i feel so sad and stuck knowing things might never get better. What would you do in my situation? I cant really talk to people about this in real life, so thank you for any support.

But the issues you mention op, they wont go away even if the divorce comes through. People will still judge. And it doesn't seem like they are brave enough to face that for you.

It's actually really insulting to you that you are essentially being kept like a dirty little secret. I suspect the real issue is that their family may not approve. And if that is the case then in all likelihood they would never accept you.

And if it isnt the reactions of his/her family they are worried about then...wtf are they doing making you suffer like this for the opinions of others?

It may even be that this whole marriage divorce thing is just being used to keep you from wanting what you have every right to want as someone partner. To be acknowledged as a partner. Perhaps they want you to feel like you arent 'good enough'. There are a lot of sadists about who take enjoyment from that shit.

Sorry OP but he doesn't see you as someone he wants a future with, he just wants you for easy sex. You have to understand that most men from these types of cultures (and even many men in Western cultures) don't respect women who have sex freely out of marriage without expecting proper commitment from men beforehand. You're happy to be treated as a sex object by men so why should they respect you? You're happy to be used for sex so that's exactly what they do.

You've also chosen to sleep with a married man who's happy to cheat on his wife so it'll naturally bring all kinds of problems... You're a grown woman - take responsibility for your choices and get out of this situation.

Hi OP. I had an arranged marriage too and might be from a similar culture to this guy. My advice is, please walk away. You have no future with this man and you're wasting your life. Leave him and you'll find someone else who you can have a normal relationship with. The fact that it's an arranged marriage makes no difference to anything, and I can tell that he's using it as an excuse to make you think there's some complex reasoning behind his behaviour. There honestly isn't, he just wants a mistress.

Hi OP, I was in a similar but slightly different situation, so I understand how hard and confusing this must be. In my case, he wasn't married, but his family were keen for him to meet and marry someone from their own culture. He was quite liberal, and had other ideas.

I spent years in the relationship, waiting. He became a firm part of my family, my parents treated him like their own son. My nephews and nieces called him 'uncle'. I never met his family. It was brutal.

We couldn't live together, I wasn't allowed to visit him (he lived with his family, despite being late 20s). I knew his parents were continually introducing him to women that they deemed suitable. It was brutal.

He told me that they knew I existed, but to this day I don't know if they truly did. I got tired of waiting around and realised that if I had to take control of my future. It hurt like hell, it took a long time to get over him - but I honestly don't regret my choice at all. I'm now happily married with a DS and I honestly feel that had I not made the decision for myself, I would possibly still be there waiting to stop being a secret.

After breaking up he did regret it, I received daily emails and he tried to spend the next 2 years persuading me otherwise. I mostly ignored it. There was a moment where I always almost persuaded, but when faced with an ultimatum, even then he couldn't do it. To me that was very telling.

I spent years making excuses for him. We both made excuses for his inability to make that jump - cultural differences became the perfect excuse. In the end it was simple, just couldn't do it.

*he just couldn't do it.

Sorry, typo! Best of luck. I know it's hard but listen to your head. If he really means it, he'll act and prove it.

Oh love. It's hard but let go. You might just soar.

A different perspective. A relative of mine fell in love with a man whose culture has arranged marriages and always between relatives, never outside his religion or race. You know what the man did?? He married her regardless. He was ostracized. She faced unbelievable racism. He lost family, friends, businesses. He gained family (us). They were together 20+ years. He died suddenly in her arms.

If he truly loved you he could have walked away and walked with you. But he is having his cake and eating it. He must feel so lucky.
What will you do, feel, be when 10 years from now you are still his (bitter) dirty little secret?

There’s a big difference between getting divorced and being someone’s dirty little secret. He future faked a version of your life together that he never was going to follow through on because he knew that you would fall for it and you did.

Have some self respect, don’t worry about him, he’ll have you replaced in no time.

This. Though perhaps the issue is as the OP says she hoped it could be resolved quickly 'like a UK divorce' as though it isn't the case that he was married in, say, India or Pakistan or something with potentially different divorce laws?

Doesn't matter. IF he lives in the UK he can divorce there, no matter where he married.

I would give him an ultimatum and stick to it. Maybe I'd tell him I was going to give him a few weeks to make his decision, and during those weeks I'd not be seeing him, so he could decide whether life without me was what he wanted or if it made him realise how important i was to him so that he'd divorce.

FWIW, if someone loves you enough, they will choose you over their culture and cultural expectations. My DH chose me, despite not knowing whether his family would totally disown him. Luckily they didn't, but he loved me enough to take that risk.

So you need to give him to ultimatum and it's win/win for you: either he chooses you and gets the divorce, or he chooses not to divorce and you lose someone who didn't value you enough in the first place.