Has marriage & life been what you expected?

[KimberlyAhmed 28]

I love this thread! I am not married yet, but Insallah we will be soon. My fiance, I know will be in shock, when he gets here, but together we will work it all out. We are already planning on weekly calls with his family, and joining a community center near where we will be living.

[Sarah B 26]

I read all of your wonderful stories and decided to share my own.

Anis and I met while I was doing my Master's in Paris, France. After two years, we moved to Tunisia so that I could meet his family, work, and do the DCF visa. My father is from Algeria, so I did not have so much culture shock. We lived with his family for a little less than two years and I worked at Amideast. We often look back fondly at that moment of our lives as being the honeymoon period before real life set in.

Anis and I have been married since 2008 and when we moved here in 2010, I honestly had more than a few moments of regret. Anis dealt with the culture shock very badly, even though this was someone who had spent 10 years in Italy and France. He didn't understand how hard people work here for so little (compared to Europe), the healthcare system (what system?) or many other factors. I got a job 3 days after getting off of the plane and basically spent the first year working and educating my husband on life here. However, thank God, since starting work last year, Anis has done a 180. He likes his job (he's a cook - yes, Arab cooking man!) and is planning on going to cooking school to be a chef. Even though we don't have kids yet, we're planning on waiting another year, I can say that I am thankful that I can look back on the 5 years we have been together and have seen such a progression in the depth of our trust, faith, and love for each other.

I love this thread! I am not married yet, but Insallah we will be soon. My fiance, I know will be in shock, when he gets here, but together we will work it all out. We are already planning on weekly calls with his family, and joining a community center near where we will be living.

If he ever needs to talk to another Tounsi, let us know

[MHandMB 0]

Hi everyone,

I don't visit this board very often anymore because we finished our visa journey about 3 years ago, but I do occasionally come back to check in and see how everyone is doing.

This is a great topic, so I'll throw my 2 cents in.

My husband ( who is 9 years older than me) has been here for 6 years. We met in Paris and after a long distance relationship for several years, i moved there for a year to make sure we were ready for the next step. He went back to Algeria for the k-1 process,and luckily things moved fairly quickly for us and he was here within 6 months.

The first few months were very difficult. He was able to get a temporary work permit, and I found him a job relatively quickly through a friend of a friend, but he was miserable. He's a people person and is good at negotiating and networking, and he was working in a warehouse doing welding and cleaning. He didn't yet have his DL, so he was dependent on others for transportation. I had only been back in the USA a few months before he came over, so we ended up living with my parents until we had some money saved up.

Once we had our wedding, moved into our own place, and he got his drivers license, things got a lot better. He eventually got better jobs, and he loves his current employer and is very happy there. We've been married almost 6 years, and it's been almost 3 since he became a citizen.

I would say that the transition period was difficult, but what made it better was the fact that he developed a very close relationship with my family, and he also began going to the Mosque and met many great friends from his own background who were also married to American women. I think he just felt a bit lost for a while and had to be dependent on me for everything, which he wasn't used to.

As for the questions someone raised upthread about kids... That's the most difficult thing going on in our lives right now. He wanted to try to have kids right away, but I wanted to wait and try to get settled in and get in a better financial situation before we started trying. That caused a lot of friction, but he respected my opinion. Now, I wish I'd listened to him more. It took us a long time to get pregnant, and last year I had a miscarriage. It took us almost a year to get pregnant again, and now it looks like I'm about to have another one. I'm not past the age of trying again, but I never thought it would take us so long, or that I'd have so many problems.

Everyone's situation is different, but if you're thinking of having children at some point and are putting it off for one reason or another, just be sure to factor in potential fertility issues when making your decisIon. You might think you have until 40 to start trying, but your body might not agree with that.

Anyway, there's my story. It's nice to come back and see so many positive ME/NA relationships still going strong. So many times, this place gets in a cycle of gloom and doom, so it's nice to be reminded that there are success stories!

Marissa

[Staashi 371]

Marissa, congratulations on the success of your marriage. My thoughts and prayers are with you on your attempts to have a baby. God knows the desires of our heart...have faith. You will get through this.

[msheesha 548]

Marissa, congratulations on the success of your marriage. My thoughts and prayers are with you on your attempts to have a baby. God knows the desires of our heart...have faith. You will get through this.

Ditto. Fertility issues are not fun.

Kind of related but not directly, ovulation prediction kits and pregnancy tests are crazy expensive. I recommend to anyone who's trying & needs these two items, to order the test strips ovulation/pregnancy combo pack from Amazon. 40 ovulation tests & 10 pregnancy tests for $13.95. One test of each cost more than that in stores.

[Meriem_DZ 37]

We will be celebrating 6 yrs of marriage in Sept. After Hachemi got here he adapted really well. I survived teaching him to drive. lol. That was a hoot. I thought I was gonna die several times. We did have a horrible wreck when he had his permit but it wasnt his fault. Our car was totaled, but we were ok. Cant say that for the motorcycle that was crushed between us and the dude that hit us. He was hurt pretty bad, but survived. Hachemi is now a great driver and goes anywhere he wants.

He was hired with his first application after getting his green card at a boat manufacturing plant. He worked there one yr before he decided to go back to school. He already had a computer science degree. He went to the community college and got an associate degree in computer networking. He graduated with special honors and had a 3.96 gpa. While he was going to school he would visit the convenience store down the street to get coffee when he was studying late. They asked him if he needed a job. He told them he would work if he could get hours around his classes. He worked there for 3 years.

Toyota was building a huge manufacturing plant about 45 miles from our house. He thought about applying but we had made plans to go visit his family in Algeria November of 2010. We stayed for a month and when we came home he decided to apply and was hired. There were 43,000 applications and they hired 1200. It is a wonderful company to work for and they have the best insurance I have ever had. We put our house up for sale and bought a house in the town closer to his work. Thank God it only took 45 days to sell!

I had already had a hysterectomy when we married. I would most likely been to old to have kids, but I know several women that had kids in their 40's. It just wasnt meant to be. We had discussed this fact prior to marrying. Hachemi has crohn's disease which is well controlled with medication but he always worried about having kids because he didnt want to pass it on. We have kitties as our kids. He loves his kitty cats!

My husband is now a citizen and is very happy living in the US. He misses his family, but not Algeria. He talks to them on Skype every Sunday for a couple of hours. Hachemi is still the sweet loving man I first married. He hasn't changed a bit. He just adores me and I feel so lucky to have him. Hachemi does not cook or clean. He really doesnt know how. Thanks to his mom and sisters who did everything for him. Every once in a while he will run the vacuum. I dont work so it's all up to me and I don't mind. He works so hard at his job, I just don't ask him to help. I also do the yard work because I am afraid he will run over my flowers. I am very particular about my plants and flowers LOl. I didnt even let my son do it because he is so careless. I let my next door neighbor borrow my riding mower last week and when I got home I almost had a heart attack because he mowed my yard in return for letting him use the mower.

If I had any advice for your SO's, It would be that taking any job, even though it is not what they want to do, will build work history. Just be patient and hang in there. It took Hachemi about 5 years to finally get a great paying job with wonderful benefits.

Meriem

[Beauty for Ashes 257]

I got pregnant and miscarried 4 yrs ago. After that we didn't try/didn't prevent. It took about 3yrs to conceive with that method. My husband did work out of state for a time so that also prevented conception. I'm really glad things worked out the way they did. We had several years together before bringing a baby into the mix. Years we were able to work out the kinks so to speak. I will say that a few months before I got pregnant with our daughter, my husband did mention fertility testing. He thought maybe he was the problem since I had two already. He is so loving being a dad that he's already talking about trying again. Lol. Yeah I'm so not ready for that.

I got pregnant when I was over there and then lost the child shortly after birth. It was then I knew he was not planning on staying with me ( when he wouldnt try again nor wanted anymore kids with me) I stayed with him.. sometimes in and out of the house. He is now a citizen. I don't regret anything on his behalf. I am glad I was able to add something to his life and change it for the better. Truthfully, I would have never married him nor brought him here had I known 1/8th of the ####### he would pull when he got here but now he has naturalised and calmed down and honestly, I think the stress of immigration, status made things unbearable for him.

I wish him the very best. We are not legally divorced but when a mena man does not want to get you pregnant and both of you can and there is nothing else inhibiting you, he is not planning on staying with you and will find his way out of the marriage. I love him but I can honestly say that I did not appreciate losing 6 years of my life for nothing. I do care and love him but I know that I was just a means to an end, sadly.. Glad I could be of service though..

Ironically, all I feel is forgiveness in my heart. I feel no bitterness. He had alot of losses in his immediate family back home while he was gone and something in my heart just let all my anger go. I think he will do fine in the years to come. I hope I heal and eventually some day, when my children are older, find someone who loves me for me and plans on staying with me and building something with me. When you know someone does not love you and you in your heart know you were a means to an end, something dies inside. I know as time goes by that he will realise all the ####### I went through to bring him here and support him like I did.. but that is in the future. Right now , when I look at him, its like looking at a job where you know there will be a big layoff, you just do not know when. I know I am not permanent thing for him .. and although it hurts, there is clarity at least

Edited May 13, 2012 by Beauty for Ashes

[Beauty for Ashes 257]

We will be celebrating 6 yrs of marriage in Sept. After Hachemi got here he adapted really well. I survived teaching him to drive. lol. That was a hoot. I thought I was gonna die several times. We did have a horrible wreck when he had his permit but it wasnt his fault. Our car was totaled, but we were ok. Cant say that for the motorcycle that was crushed between us and the dude that hit us. He was hurt pretty bad, but survived. Hachemi is now a great driver and goes anywhere he wants.

He was hired with his first application after getting his green card at a boat manufacturing plant. He worked there one yr before he decided to go back to school. He already had a computer science degree. He went to the community college and got an associate degree in computer networking. He graduated with special honors and had a 3.96 gpa. While he was going to school he would visit the convenience store down the street to get coffee when he was studying late. They asked him if he needed a job. He told them he would work if he could get hours around his classes. He worked there for 3 years.

Toyota was building a huge manufacturing plant about 45 miles from our house. He thought about applying but we had made plans to go visit his family in Algeria November of 2010. We stayed for a month and when we came home he decided to apply and was hired. There were 43,000 applications and they hired 1200. It is a wonderful company to work for and they have the best insurance I have ever had. We put our house up for sale and bought a house in the town closer to his work. Thank God it only took 45 days to sell!

I had already had a hysterectomy when we married. I would most likely been to old to have kids, but I know several women that had kids in their 40's. It just wasnt meant to be. We had discussed this fact prior to marrying. Hachemi has crohn's disease which is well controlled with medication but he always worried about having kids because he didnt want to pass it on. We have kitties as our kids. He loves his kitty cats!

My husband is now a citizen and is very happy living in the US. He misses his family, but not Algeria. He talks to them on Skype every Sunday for a couple of hours. Hachemi is still the sweet loving man I first married. He hasn't changed a bit. He just adores me and I feel so lucky to have him. Hachemi does not cook or clean. He really doesnt know how. Thanks to his mom and sisters who did everything for him. Every once in a while he will run the vacuum. I dont work so it's all up to me and I don't mind. He works so hard at his job, I just don't ask him to help. I also do the yard work because I am afraid he will run over my flowers. I am very particular about my plants and flowers LOl. I didnt even let my son do it because he is so careless. I let my next door neighbor borrow my riding mower last week and when I got home I almost had a heart attack because he mowed my yard in return for letting him use the mower.

If I had any advice for your SO's, It would be that taking any job, even though it is not what they want to do, will build work history. Just be patient and hang in there. It took Hachemi about 5 years to finally get a great paying job with wonderful benefits.

Meriem

Meriem, I am so happy you guys found each other . Crohns is a very hard disease. I have UCTD, in the same family and you both are so lucky you found each other and found love...I am grateful to have met you

Hi everyone,

I don't visit this board very often anymore because we finished our visa journey about 3 years ago, but I do occasionally come back to check in and see how everyone is doing.

This is a great topic, so I'll throw my 2 cents in.

My husband ( who is 9 years older than me) has been here for 6 years. We met in Paris and after a long distance relationship for several years, i moved there for a year to make sure we were ready for the next step. He went back to Algeria for the k-1 process,and luckily things moved fairly quickly for us and he was here within 6 months.

The first few months were very difficult. He was able to get a temporary work permit, and I found him a job relatively quickly through a friend of a friend, but he was miserable. He's a people person and is good at negotiating and networking, and he was working in a warehouse doing welding and cleaning. He didn't yet have his DL, so he was dependent on others for transportation. I had only been back in the USA a few months before he came over, so we ended up living with my parents until we had some money saved up.

Once we had our wedding, moved into our own place, and he got his drivers license, things got a lot better. He eventually got better jobs, and he loves his current employer and is very happy there. We've been married almost 6 years, and it's been almost 3 since he became a citizen.

I would say that the transition period was difficult, but what made it better was the fact that he developed a very close relationship with my family, and he also began going to the Mosque and met many great friends from his own background who were also married to American women. I think he just felt a bit lost for a while and had to be dependent on me for everything, which he wasn't used to.

As for the questions someone raised upthread about kids... That's the most difficult thing going on in our lives right now. He wanted to try to have kids right away, but I wanted to wait and try to get settled in and get in a better financial situation before we started trying. That caused a lot of friction, but he respected my opinion. Now, I wish I'd listened to him more. It took us a long time to get pregnant, and last year I had a miscarriage. It took us almost a year to get pregnant again, and now it looks like I'm about to have another one. I'm not past the age of trying again, but I never thought it would take us so long, or that I'd have so many problems.

Everyone's situation is different, but if you're thinking of having children at some point and are putting it off for one reason or another, just be sure to factor in potential fertility issues when making your decisIon. You might think you have until 40 to start trying, but your body might not agree with that.

Anyway, there's my story. It's nice to come back and see so many positive ME/NA relationships still going strong. So many times, this place gets in a cycle of gloom and doom, so it's nice to be reminded that there are success stories!

Marissa

Keep trying. Often clomid will do the trick.. I am glad you posted

[Beauty for Ashes 257]

I think I've said most of what I was going to say already in the other thread. I'll add that my guy and I are the same age in our early 30's and he's a city child having grown up in Cairo but he also has roots in Luxor. For him he thought with coming here he could handle it as well because of his exposure to western culture. However, he did have culture shock as well. Even though he'll deny it he did exhibit all the classic symptoms of culture shock for the first two years. In fact I think we're still going through it and I'll let you know how he handles adapting to our society once he starts his residency in July 2013. I agree with others that have said learning to drive here and having a job has helped them in this process with gaining a sense of independence and feeling more comfortable.

Back to the topic of kids. I've said most of it in the other thread. I still have hope that in the next ten years that he'll have adapted more and thing get better financially. I would have preferred to have them before 35 but that doesn't look possible now and I know that risks and fertility issues are higher after that age. It does seem more and more women in our society are waiting longer to have children. Even Hollywood Mom's are waiting until their 40's but I've never considered that might be me. I don't want to do that in our 40's either. I've tried all the arguments like some have mentioned that we can't control how our kids turn out no matter how we raise them. He doesn't share that philosophy at all and no matter what I say it really doesn't change what he thinks. He has his ideas he's sticking too and for now at least I know he's not ready. Maybe in a couple of years though. Plus as some have said it does give us a couple years together to work out the wrinkles. Even though we've been married 5 years and known each other for 9 it has only been 2 years of living together in the States, which is different then the rest of our time together and that does change things.

Olivia

If a man from mena has a house and can afford it and is telling you he does not want to have kids, he is not going to stay with you. If you want kids , please please do not compromised your fertility. I know you love this guy and I am very remiss to say anything to you about this but please please pay attention to the flags...Ive never met an egyptian who did not want kids. I think you are wasting your time and your life with this guy. It doesnt mean you dont love him. It means he doesnt love you enough for you to be the mother of his children. Pay attention and do not waste your life and your fertility

This is NOT a slight against you. You are fabulous and beautiful. He is a himar. There were plenty of men who you have met through the years that would love to give you a baby. If an egyptian doesnt want to, hes NOT STAYING WITH YOU..Its heartbreaking to accept it but its the truth

Edited May 13, 2012 by Beauty for Ashes

[Ihavequestions 419]

Ive never met an egyptian who did not want kids.

Me either.

This is the place where both the bride and groom have an entire month off of work after they get married. Why? So they have plenty of time to get pregnant without distractions.

I've met plenty of gay Egyptian men who are either married or planning to marry ... because they want children.

To not want them is most unusual.

[Beauty for Ashes 257]

Me either.

This is the place where both the bride and groom have an entire month off of work after they get married. Why? So they have plenty of time to get pregnant without distractions.

I've met plenty of gay Egyptian men who are either married or planning to marry ... because they want children.

To not want them is most unusual.

Please tell me I am wrong for saying something to her. If you have ever seen a picture of her, she is just lovely. I don't know what her husband's evil scheme is but something smells and its not her. Are we just supposed to not say anything if we think things? She might not do anything about it but honestly, playing with her fertility as far as I am concerned JUST SUCKS..It gets harder and harder and if she sticks it out with him and then hes set in life and just dumps her, that would be heartbreaking. There is NOTHING wrong with her.. I dont know what he is doing to her exactly but its smells bad

[Beauty for Ashes 257]

So I figured I'd start a topic about marriage & life for those of us who have been with our spouses for awhile. Has marriage & life been what you expected? Has your family grown with you & your spouse? Care to share experiences? Gives newer couples an insight to what we have experienced through out the years.

The other thing I wanted to point out is nothing that I talk about is a slight towards mena men, marriage etc. I have had some amazing amazing relationships with people from mena and deep love as well .. the timing was just off with the other person I was in love with (also mena)

The thing I wanted to say though is that I just was not cut out for bringing someone here, paying a ton of money to get him here, his tickets, lawyers visas etc only to have him not appreciate anything, not work hard and when he finally got a job, not contribute to anything. I do love him but its hard to love a sponge and a bogart ( is that still a word) I had a very tough time of it and would never ever ever bring someone from a foreign country again nor screw around with immigration. Its too much damn money and too much stress and it was a horrible, lengthy and terrifying experience for me. They were worse ( things that I expected) beyond my wildest dreams and honestly , things have calmed down a lot...very little drama and I am sure I ll get my closure. Its just the post traumatic experience of having to live through all the nonsense that was so hard. It was a bad bad move on my part and I was not prepared to raise a teenager from mena.. which is exactly what I ended up doing ( add 20 years to the teenagers age LOL)

[Beauty for Ashes 257]

Me either.

This is the place where both the bride and groom have an entire month off of work after they get married. Why? So they have plenty of time to get pregnant without distractions.

I've met plenty of gay Egyptian men who are either married or planning to marry ... because they want children.

To not want them is most unusual.

I am not even with an egyptian but I do know that when they love a woman, they leave the money up to allah ( risk) and knock their wives up as fast as they could. If I was with an egyptian who was not letting me have kids, i would run like hell because I would know they were using the hell out of me.. I knew very quickly in my heart that I was a goner when no kids were wanted. Anyone who has loved me truly has wanted them.. If he doesnt want to get her pregnant and both can, something is very up and very wrong

[sandinista! 1,816]

there are assorted exceptions to this of course.

what is confounding, icky, yucky, and just plain BS is the whole "i suddenly don't want american kids after purposefully immigrating to the US and telling the american woman who brought me here as her husband that we would have kids IN THE US"

[msheesha 548]

Groundhogs' Day??

Weren't these exact same things written a few months ago, in this thread if I'm not mistaken?