The cold, hard truth about MENA "husbands"

[msheesha 548]

Maybe at the end of the day its the man who asks the woman to marry! I was 22 and blinded by lust. This guy took advantage and made lots of promises, in addition to throwing gifts and gold and fancy European trips at me. I am a very respectable person. I was just naive and lonely and I didn't know the truth about him until all these skeletons came popping out of his closet after our 1 year anniversary. THE POINT IS, it doesn't matter how careful somebody is or how loving a man seems, it is a big risk when you combine all these factors of visa interests and cultural differences combined with religion and distance.

[msheesha 548]

Just wrote out a long post but somehow it got erased. So here's the cliff notes version. OP- the you will serve yourself better by examining what are the issues you struggle with that motivated to Marty a physically abusive man. Not only married him but experienced the physical abuse, but got home where you were safe and sound and had no need to ever be in contact with a physically abusive man again. Not only did you return to a physically abisive situation, but you went to significant trouble (immigration process) to bring that abuse into your home. AND you put your dad at risk by allowing him to sponsor a physically abusive man financially. Questioning and figuring out why you welcome abuse into your home will serve you better than all of the cultural and religious generalization gymnastics you've gone into here. You're still in denial that he shows you who he was from the beginning. The minute he laid hands on you, he showed you exactly who he was. And the minute you disregarded that and ignored that and continued a relationship with him, you showed him exactly how you expected to be treated. You need to get out of that denial and figure out what issues you deal with that motivated you and allows you to be in an abusive relationship. That will bode better for your future than any of your vj postings will do. You're more likely to be in future abusive relationships until you figure that question out about yourself. But that's tough to look at. It's easier to talk about his culture, religion, friends, family etc - bit it's not going to help you avoid abusive relationships in the future.

[Fandango 1,439]

Maybe I was insecure and naive, but that doesn't change the facts that most MENA men will NEVER go to the lengths for a woman that the women goes for them. You convert, respect their culture, respect their family, agree to raise children in their religion (those children will know little to nothing about your culture and religion), as yourself, will this man do the same for you? No, he will never abandon his beliefs for you.

As a general comment, religion should be a very personal and serious choice one makes with his/her God. It should never be about choosing a religion for your SO. It should never be about doing it for someone else...it's not like getting a new haircut to entice your husband.

I am sorry that this happened to you, my heart goes out to you. I would probably have never commented had your topic been as you stated in your OP 'this is not universal but this is my truth'...yet the posts are filled with multiple generalizations and just look at the title you chose. This is not the first time a topic like this has been on here, and I would suggest you think back to the you of yesterday, and imagine how receptive you would have been to reading something like this. It seems like your intentions are innocent...you're just trying to 'warn' people...but at the end of the day, it's NOT a universal truth of MENA. You're not Martin Bashir with some groundbreaking expose that's gonna blow US/MENA marriages 'wide open'.

I think if you want to help women, a universal truth definitely is that if a man physically abuses you, you should not marry him. There is no excuse for that, but that is not exclusive to MENA men. Or even if you want to focus on never losing yourself in a man, no matter what the nationality....by blindly adopting his views, by excusing reprehensible behavior with thoughts like 'oh it's cultural'. Many women have lost themselves to some degree to men, and there are many horror stories out there...and guess what? Not all those men are of MENA origin.

I wish you well.

[abbi627 43]

To the OP I am so sorry that this happened to you. You had the misfortune to marry an abusive man and no one deserves that. I am happy that you are getting out of the situation.

The reason you are getting negative responses is that you came here and basically insulted everyone's husband/fiance by making a lot of statements that are just negative stereotypes. You are full of anger and that is understandable. But I hope you can someday realize that what happened to you was not because your husband was from a certain country but because he was abusive.

Yes we all know the generalizations/stereotypes: Men from MENA are just out for a green card; men from MENA have another wife back home they are waiting to bring here after they leave their American wife; Men from MENA expect their wives to convert to Islam, men from MENA are abusive to the wives, etc. And sometimes this turns out to be true unfortunately. But it is not the norm. If a man is a liar and a abuser then that is because of HIM - not where he is from.

Abusers come in all shapes and sizes and races and religions and from all parts of the world. Good men who make great husbands and fathers come in all shapes and sizes and races and religions and from all parts of the world. We just have to learn how to tell the difference. And if it turns out that we make a mistake then we learn from that mistake and move on and try not to make the same mistake again.

[sailormoon01 41]

Where do you live? I live in Brooklyn. Born and raised. Did you know there are mosques with spanish language services? I know because in my borough if ye seek ye shall find.

You do realize you've made yourself into a sideshow rather than a person. This thread shall not stay open much longer because all you are doing is bickering. You have an axe to grind. That is not the fault of anyone on this forum. That is your husband's fault and your fault too [you married him even after he physically abused you??]. Now you're mad that we aren't all joining you in your pity party. Usually insulting a group's significant others isn't a good way to gain a supportive audience. You wouldn't be the first and you won't be the last but any somewhat valid points you were trying to make was lost in all your inane arguing. You made a bad choice of a husband and I feel sorry for you but life goes on. The best thing you can do for yourself is to move on.

For your information, the abuse started AFTER marriage and after the papers had been filed. Second, people on here are attacking me because you are probably scared that your husbands will do the same. So many MENA husbands hide their true intentions for years. They are great actors. Finally, I am well aware that there are Spanish speaking mosques and Hispanic converts. I am not Hispanic, but I know that most converts of any background are those who are lapsed in their religion and not very in touch with their own ethnic background, hence the identity crisis to become anything your man is.

[sailormoon01 41]

OP- seriously, it sucks majorly that you had to encounter that. I truly am sorry what rats men can be.

The truth of the matter is, I hear horrible In-Law stories from women across the globe. I hear abusive men stories from women across the globe. Your generalizations are fairly offensive but given your pain, I am understanding enough to forgive an angry misguided rant.

I am NOT generalizing. My story is NOT the only one. Accept the truth and stop trying to argue or paint me as a bitter woman. I am quite happy now and I wouldn't want this guy back if he was offering me billions of dollars. I am fortunate to have met other people and moved on.

[sailormoon01 41]

As a general comment, religion should be a very personal and serious choice one makes with his/her God. It should never be about choosing a religion for your SO. It should never be about doing it for someone else...it's not like getting a new haircut to entice your husband.

I am sorry that this happened to you, my heart goes out to you. I would probably have never commented had your topic been as you stated in your OP 'this is not universal but this is my truth'...yet the posts are filled with multiple generalizations and just look at the title you chose. This is not the first time a topic like this has been on here, and I would suggest you think back to the you of yesterday, and imagine how receptive you would have been to reading something like this. It seems like your intentions are innocent...you're just trying to 'warn' people...but at the end of the day, it's NOT a universal truth of MENA. You're not Martin Bashir with some groundbreaking expose that's gonna blow US/MENA marriages 'wide open'.

I think if you want to help women, a universal truth definitely is that if a man physically abuses you, you should not marry him. There is no excuse for that, but that is not exclusive to MENA men. Or even if you want to focus on never losing yourself in a man, no matter what the nationality....by blindly adopting his views, by excusing reprehensible behavior with thoughts like 'oh it's cultural'. Many women have lost themselves to some degree to men, and there are many horror stories out there...and guess what? Not all those men are of MENA origin.

I wish you well.

Again, you are the one judging WITHOUT knowing the entire story. The abuse started AFTER marriage and whether the women on here want to admit it or not, I guarantee at least one of you has had to endure some type of physical or verbal abuse at the hands of a MENA spouse.

[sailormoon01 41]

Just wrote out a long post but somehow it got erased. So here's the cliff notes version. OP- the you will serve yourself better by examining what are the issues you struggle with that motivated to Marty a physically abusive man. Not only married him but experienced the physical abuse, but got home where you were safe and sound and had no need to ever be in contact with a physically abusive man again. Not only did you return to a physically abisive situation, but you went to significant trouble (immigration process) to bring that abuse into your home. AND you put your dad at risk by allowing him to sponsor a physically abusive man financially. Questioning and figuring out why you welcome abuse into your home will serve you better than all of the cultural and religious generalization gymnastics you've gone into here. You're still in denial that he shows you who he was from the beginning. The minute he laid hands on you, he showed you exactly who he was. And the minute you disregarded that and ignored that and continued a relationship with him, you showed him exactly how you expected to be treated. You need to get out of that denial and figure out what issues you deal with that motivated you and allows you to be in an abusive relationship. That will bode better for your future than any of your vj postings will do. You're more likely to be in future abusive relationships until you figure that question out about yourself. But that's tough to look at. It's easier to talk about his culture, religion, friends, family etc - bit it's not going to help you avoid abusive relationships in the future.

Again, its amazing how you guys flip the script and start to blame the woman for the bad relationship and abuse without knowing the entire story. Pathetic. Finally, to say that culture and religious convictions and family (family which I believe is the most important) play NO role is both ignorant and naive.

[sailormoon01 41]

Identity as an American is a cultural identity. It sounds like you just don't believe American culture is worthwhile and that other cultures are superior to it. Anecdotally, btw, most of the women I know who adopted Arab culture and/or Islam were Catholic. I don't consider my anecdotal evidence to be particularly something I would toss out as a surefire fact. I also wouldn't generalize from it and make a statement that all Catholics are wishy-washy people who don't care about culture or religion and are on a search for something more. I certainly wouldn't pidgeonhole a singular ethnic group of people attached to Catholicism and then decide they all were spineless. I don't think bilingualism saves people.

Yes, there are people who weirdly have to become absorbed in their spouse's culture/religion/etc. There are also people who have their identity absorbed by their kids, their jobs, or whatever else. That is a personality trait. It is not dependent on your genetic code, religious dogma, or lingual abilities. That's what it seems like you don't understand. For those people on the board who are technically WASP, you just insulted the blanket lot of them by saying they are unable to control themselves. Thta's kind of sucky. I think what would have been a better critique would have been people not watching for warning signs, not loosing themselves in someone else, and being more educated about what they are getting into. It seems like that is the more of what you may have been going for in a way?

American culture is not a singular one as are other cultures. American culture is a mosaic of many cultures. Not to mention, the USA is a fairly new country and nobody aside from the Native Americans are truly American. Every American identifies in a different way, that may or may not include the ethnic background of their families. In my case, my family are immigrants and I have a very strong ethnic background in addition to my nationality as an American. Therefore, i was never lacking the "flavor" and/or culture that many women hope to achieve through their MENA spouse.

[sailormoon01 41]

Although your degree in International Relations, is no doubt as impressive as the fact that you were "an attractive girl who got lots of Western guy's attention and did not fall into the stereotype of being frumpy, obese, or an older woman desperately in love with a younger man" - your knowledge about the demographics of Islam is not so impressive. In point of fact, only about 15% of Muslims are Arab. So the correlations you keep making with Islam and Arab culture is, quite frankly, rather ignorant to the breadth of Islamic culture. It appears that you are basing the vast and sweeping generalizations regarding Islam, (and your obvious disdain for "non-ethnic white girls" raising their children as Muslims,) on a classically ignorant stereotype that all Muslims must be Arab. A rookie mistake for a Master in International Relations.

And for all your degrees, in continuing to make correlations with MENA men and Arab culture, you seem surprisingly unaware that there are entire ethnic groups in the MENA region that are not even Arab....and there are plenty of women here that are married to non-Arab MENA men. The Berbers for example, are not Arab, and make up a good percentage of the actual ehnic make-up of North Africa. Iranians are not Arab. So clumping all men in this region into the Arab ethnicity and culture shows, yet again, a lack of real understanding about the region you claim to have such insight into.

And that's to say nothing of the nonsense of stereotyping ANY ethnic group in its entirety, period. The Arabic "cultural norms" you claim to understand, are in reality, so diverse and varied depending on the country, its ridiculous to suggest that your isolated experience with an Arab from Lebanon gives you insight into all Arabic men. Its like someone marrying a guy from the Southern U.S. claiming to understand how all American men behave. Its totally different in different regions, families etc.

Clearly you have a lot more internal healing to do. You may want to start by forgiving yourself for being duped by the lowlife you married. Railing on MENA men is only a temporary fix. Once you stop blaming everything else, you can own your part in the disaster, and realize you were too young to see the screaming red flags (for any relationship, MENA or not). I think only then can you forgive yourself, and forget him, and stop letting this relationship poison your life. And I know, you are over it already. But the fury with which you write would suggest otherwise. Best wishes in your journey.

I am well aware of the fact that not all Arabs are Muslims and there are many non Arab Muslims like Chechens and Turks, etc. Get help girl and stop trying to attack a woman you have never met based on one thread. You are the one with insecurities obviously. Also, in all reality, I could have done everything the guy wanted and still been with him. I am the one who ultimately chose to move on and fortunately, I found happiness again. Peace out.

[berber_wife 90]

OP, in your original post you said

Prior to him coming here, my time with him was like a fairy tale (aside from the sometimes physical abuse).

That indicates that the abuse started much earlier than you are claiming now.

I think several of us are concerned by the casual way you referred to the physical abuse in your relationship. This is a problem. Being truly introspective about why you put up with bad behavior and coming up with standards for what you will not put up with in a relationship in the future will serve you much better than blaming the end of your marriage solely on culture and religion.

[sailormoon01 41]

Although your degree in International Relations, is no doubt as impressive as the fact that you were "an attractive girl who got lots of Western guy's attention and did not fall into the stereotype of being frumpy, obese, or an older woman desperately in love with a younger man" - your knowledge about the demographics of Islam is not so impressive. In point of fact, only about 15% of Muslims are Arab. So the correlations you keep making with Islam and Arab culture is, quite frankly, rather ignorant to the breadth of Islamic culture. It appears that you are basing the vast and sweeping generalizations regarding Islam, (and your obvious disdain for "non-ethnic white girls" raising their children as Muslims,) on a classically ignorant stereotype that all Muslims must be Arab. A rookie mistake for a Master in International Relations.

And for all your degrees, in continuing to make correlations with MENA men and Arab culture, you seem surprisingly unaware that there are entire ethnic groups in the MENA region that are not even Arab....and there are plenty of women here that are married to non-Arab MENA men. The Berbers for example, are not Arab, and make up a good percentage of the actual ehnic make-up of North Africa. Iranians are not Arab. So clumping all men in this region into the Arab ethnicity and culture shows, yet again, a lack of real understanding about the region you claim to have such insight into.

And that's to say nothing of the nonsense of stereotyping ANY ethnic group in its entirety, period. The Arabic "cultural norms" you claim to understand, are in reality, so diverse and varied depending on the country, its ridiculous to suggest that your isolated experience with an Arab from Lebanon gives you insight into all Arabic men. Its like someone marrying a guy from the Southern U.S. claiming to understand how all American men behave. Its totally different in different regions, families etc.

Clearly you have a lot more internal healing to do. You may want to start by forgiving yourself for being duped by the lowlife you married. Railing on MENA men is only a temporary fix. Once you stop blaming everything else, you can own your part in the disaster, and realize you were too young to see the screaming red flags (for any relationship, MENA or not). I think only then can you forgive yourself, and forget him, and stop letting this relationship poison your life. And I know, you are over it already. But the fury with which you write would suggest otherwise. Best wishes in your journey.

I am well aware of the fact that not all Arabs are Muslims and there are many non Arab Muslims like Chechens and Turks, etc. Sorry you thought you were telling me something new. Get help girl and stop trying to attack a woman you have never met based on one thread. You are the one with insecurities obviously, so you have to attack somebody who just might be telling you something you don't want to hear, as I did to women before who told me their horror stories. Its easy to paint somebody as being a racist or culturally ignorant, but when you have lived something, you can talk. Also, in all reality, I could have done everything the guy wanted and still been with him. I am the one who ultimately chose to move on and fortunately, I found happiness again and I don't give a damn if I ever see my ex again. I am not even attracted to him anymore. lol. Sorry to disappoint you, but I am well past the heartbroken stage. Peace out.

OP, in your original post you said

That indicates that the abuse started much earlier than you are claiming now.

I think several of us are concerned by the casual way you referred to the physical abuse in your relationship. This is a problem. Being truly introspective about why you put up with bad behavior and coming up with standards for what you will not put up with in a relationship in the future will serve you much better than blaming the end of your marriage solely on culture and religion.

Hey genius! AFTER our marriage, after the visa paperwork was filed, while we were still waiting, I visited him many times in his country and in Europe. Anybody who blames a woman for physical abuse is also disgusting.

[msheesha 548]

You're flipping your own script. Go back and read your original post and when you noted the physical abuse started.

Didn't say there are not difficult issues in inter cultural relationships. I said that if you blame them on your issues you and ignore that you married an abusive man you will likely repeat that pattern. Nobody here wants to see a woman be abused. Ergo, why I encouraged you to look at that aspect of your choices.

[sailormoon01 41]

You're flipping your own script. Go back and read your original post and when you noted the physical abuse started.

Didn't say there are not difficult issues in inter cultural relationships. I said that if you blame them on your issues you and ignore that you married an abusive man you will likely repeat that pattern. Nobody here wants to see a woman be abused. Ergo, why I encouraged you to look at that aspect of your choices.

Before I married him, there was NO abuse so don't say I married an abusive man. Why don't you become secure in your own relationship and stop attacking anybody who tells their story or doesn't agree that the majority of MENA men have good intentions. Its like you subconsciously know what I am saying is the truth and you want to fight it because you think that by downing every woman who has a bad story or making it seem like it was HER problem, you are preventing the same from happening to you.

[sailormoon01 41]

As a general comment, religion should be a very personal and serious choice one makes with his/her God. It should never be about choosing a religion for your SO. It should never be about doing it for someone else...it's not like getting a new haircut to entice your husband.

I am sorry that this happened to you, my heart goes out to you. I would probably have never commented had your topic been as you stated in your OP 'this is not universal but this is my truth'...yet the posts are filled with multiple generalizations and just look at the title you chose. This is not the first time a topic like this has been on here, and I would suggest you think back to the you of yesterday, and imagine how receptive you would have been to reading something like this. It seems like your intentions are innocent...you're just trying to 'warn' people...but at the end of the day, it's NOT a universal truth of MENA. You're not Martin Bashir with some groundbreaking expose that's gonna blow US/MENA marriages 'wide open'.

I think if you want to help women, a universal truth definitely is that if a man physically abuses you, you should not marry him. There is no excuse for that, but that is not exclusive to MENA men. Or even if you want to focus on never losing yourself in a man, no matter what the nationality....by blindly adopting his views, by excusing reprehensible behavior with thoughts like 'oh it's cultural'. Many women have lost themselves to some degree to men, and there are many horror stories out there...and guess what? Not all those men are of MENA origin.

I wish you well.

I am not trying to blow anything wide open. Just trying to share and express my views and hopefully anybody who has any doubts about their own relationship and the sacrifices they made can make some sense of their problems like I made sense of mine. Thanks