Why do we keep fighting?

[mschana 0]

I am very encouraged by these posts. I moved to the US on June 8th and have been struggling to adjust.When I visited in Aug-2010 my husband was not living with his sons and so the house was neat and tidy and we had a really great time together. He opted to have the boys live with him,one son is autistic and the other recently graduated from high school but does not want to work or go to college. My first shock was when we got home and I found the house to be a total mess. I have lived alone for nearly all my adult life in a nice 3 bed apartment and have an interior decorating background. My first thoughts were to clean clean clean and maybe they would get the message that we need to live in a clean space. But every time I clean they just mess it up again. The autistic boy gets aggressive sometimes and causes lots of damage in the house--breaking doors, smashing windows and if I am alone with him I have to run to our room, lock the door until he calms down.

I almost quit the other day and told my husband that I want to go back home. I miss my house, my job(where i was CEO), my friends( haven't made any new friends here yet apart from those in his circle) and the fact that I have to depend on him for everything. I was used to driving myself around and earning a livelihood. He has a business where I get to help out and I am thankful for that but sometimes I feel that it is not a real job. I'm praying for patience and to keep hope alive.

The boys eat only junk throughout but my hubby and I decided we must eat healthy food. My hubby tries his best to help me adjust but sometimes I just break down and cry. Every Friday night we have a date night and today morning we went to walk in the Park.

I'm really glad to have read all the experiences here and know that others have had similar experiences and ended up successfully.

[xjoseyx 19]

Great topic. Ive been here since mid May and we got married 2 weeks after. We live with his parents. My husband is unemployed and isnt bothered about getting a job. He wants to move to the middle of nowhere in Texas to go to wind school which costs $35,000 and doesnt see why I dont want to move there.He has no savings so i dont know how he thinks he can go there. Ive moved here from a city where Ive lived my whole life. We live rurally now but can get to most things with a 30 minute drive.I think 1 big move for me this year is enough. His parents are well off so pay for everything for him. His parents are generous to a fault. Their wonderful people and of course they dont want him to be without but hes 30 years old. I gave up my nice car, house and a 40 thousand dollar job to be with him and Im itching to get working again. I dont have a drivers license yet as Im waiting for my social security number (ive been waiting 5 weeks so far) and I feel in limbo and very dependant. We're in each others company all day and all night, every day so obviously we're going to fight. The past 2 weeks have been good but Im worried about his lack of gusto to get working. Ive had a job solidly since i left school and he's been unemployed for almost 3 years apart from where he worked for 3 days. Living with his parents is ok. The house is nice and fairly big but I feel like I have no real privacy. I know its an adjustment but I though moving here would be more fun than it is so far. In time, things will get better when I can work and go places by myself and not be completely dependant on my husband. I just wanted to vent.

[PalestineMyHeart 1,897]

I've watched my wife go through this. How much harder it would have been if we had to live in someone else's home, I just can't imagine it. They give up everything to be here. Their jobs, family, the land they know and understand, their life style, I mean really its darn near everything. Then they get here and what do they find? They don't know how to get around, they don't know where they are, they can't work, when they can they're starting off below were they were before. Their comfort foods are all gone. Their friends are too far away. Everyone is a stranger, even you as their spouse suddenly is different because now you're living together and they see all sides of you. They are totally dependent on one person, and yes, its easy for them resent that. Add in they can't even eat the healthy meals they're used to? Of course he's going crazy. Of course there's fighting. You are the one on the home ground. You're the one who needs to be bigger. The one who needs to ignore and let go of comments made out in anger or frustration. You expect them to be grateful for all you've done to help you two be together, and down inside there is a place they are. But its hidden under a thousand daily frustrations for them. You're never going to understand all of the frustrations and emotions they're going through, but it doesn't matter. Its now your job to sympathize with them, to give them every bit of strength you can, to ignore any bad actions until they slowly start to come back to themselves. Some people are stronger on both sides of this. Some of these long distance marriages fail because of these frustrations. Do you want your's to be one that works? Then give it everything you have. As they get over these emotions and frustrations, the support you give now is the thing they're going to remember, and its great training when later hard times hit you.

This should be a sticky in every regional forum :thumbs:

[canuckbos 10]

I have been in the USA since Sept 2011, retired from a well paid job, my own house and active social life, high speed internet etc. Now live 4 hours away in the USA and the adjustment has been more difficult then I would have guessed. If it is this hard for me to move 4 hours from home, then I know it must be extremely stressful and hard for those who come from much further. Everything that has been written here is so real and so helpful. I think it will take 2 years for me to feel at home here. I know that we will have to move to "our" house out of "his" house. No matter how much we say the current house is ours; I cannot get to that place where it really is mine also. That's going to be a big step for me.

Also; the dependence you feel on your spouse is frustrating at times and it's easy to blame him when it's really just me adjusting to a new life. I don't want to repeat every good thing that has been said here already, but the adjustment is real and I hope that everyone who reads this thread will learn from it. It makes me think of my two daughter's who came to me when they were 5 and 7 after their birth mother walked out on their dad. When I married their dad in 1980 they became my stepdaughters and I was thrilled because I wanted to be a mom and they wanted a mom too, but over the next two years I shed many tears because I just felt like a failure and thought at times I had made a mistake thinking this would work out for all of us. Well with God's help; it did all work out and those two young girls are now daughters of my heart, we are very close and I love them no differently then my birth son, now that their dad has passed away and I have remarried they have accepted and embraced my new husband and we have formed a new family bond. So I know with lots of love and patience and communication that my new life in the USA will be good if I just relax, take a chill pill when I need it.

I pray everyday for guidance and love too. :-)

Take care everyone! Good luck to everyone, hang in there and it will get better.

[DiZZyLoX 114]

Kickass thread!!!!

[rlogan 2,036]

A bunch of people have said that it is always hard adjusting, and I have to point out our experience was nothing of the sort. First of all, I specifically chose her culture after a lot of experience in foreign countries, including years in hers. I understood her so well that in the beginning I explained to her exactly how she felt about things, what was important to her, and how we would go about achieving her goals. That led to an all-out sneak attack, too salacious to tell here. But she did seem to have an understanding what would interest me despite never having a boyfriend before.

I spent months over there building a house with her father and brothers, and it was a riot. The worst time for us was the waiting in-between for her visa. But when she got here it was just wonderful, 24/7. She got a little psycho when she first got pregnant, and I was looking at her saying "You are way over the line here, ####### is wrong with you, have you lost your mind?!" She was pregnant.

Before coming over here the one thing that was an issue pertained to financial affairs. The upshot is that either she could adopt my way of doing things, like namely planning ahead and saving money for stuff - or they could drag me down to their level in which case I was leaving her out of self-preservation. Once she spent money I had sent for food and other expenses on the Manila interview trip. Too bad honey - you'll have to go hungry for two days. I already gave you the money. She told me it was over and hung up on me. But if I had sent more money then or any other time, I might be living a nightmare now instead. No means no.

Some have disagreed with me about this, but before she came over on the Visa I had a sit-down meeting with her mother. I explained that this was our honeymoon. If they contacted us just once over the first three months with any kind of emergency that I was sending her home. Because if they couldn't do that much for us then I knew it was going to be that way for the rest of the marriage. I love her mother, she loves me, and we get along great. She did me some real justice watching over her daughter while I was back in the US. So this was not a confrontational meeting in any sense. I am grateful to her. Just laying down the rules.

We're still on our honeymoon after five years.

Edited July 21, 2012 by rlogan

[X Factor 1,112]

We're still on our honeymoon after five years.

That is amazing - many people get pass the honeymoon phase in about 2 years. Keep the love rolling

[웃 910]

A bunch of people have said that it is always hard adjusting, and I have to point out our experience was nothing of the sort. First of all, I specifically chose her culture after a lot of experience in foreign countries, including years in hers. I understood her so well that in the beginning I explained to her exactly how she felt about things, what was important to her, and how we would go about achieving her goals. That led to an all-out sneak attack, too salacious to tell here. But she did seem to have an understanding what would interest me despite never having a boyfriend before.

I spent months over there building a house with her father and brothers, and it was a riot. The worst time for us was the waiting in-between for her visa. But when she got here it was just wonderful, 24/7. She got a little psycho when she first got pregnant, and I was looking at her saying "You are way over the line here, ####### is wrong with you, have you lost your mind?!" She was pregnant.

Before coming over here the one thing that was an issue pertained to financial affairs. The upshot is that either she could adopt my way of doing things, like namely planning ahead and saving money for stuff - or they could drag me down to their level in which case I was leaving her out of self-preservation. Once she spent money I had sent for food and other expenses on the Manila interview trip. Too bad honey - you'll have to go hungry for two days. I already gave you the money. She told me it was over and hung up on me. But if I had sent more money then or any other time, I might be living a nightmare now instead. No means no.

Some have disagreed with me about this, but before she came over on the Visa I had a sit-down meeting with her mother. I explained that this was our honeymoon. If they contacted us just once over the first three months with any kind of emergency that I was sending her home. Because if they couldn't do that much for us then I knew it was going to be that way for the rest of the marriage. I love her mother, she loves me, and we get along great. She did me some real justice watching over her daughter while I was back in the US. So this was not a confrontational meeting in any sense. I am grateful to her. Just laying down the rules.

We're still on our honeymoon after five years.

Aren't you in an open marriage or am I thinking of someone else?

[Golden Gate 530]

Aren't you in an open marriage or am I thinking of someone else?

He lives in Alaska in a cabin in the wilderness. I don't think he is the one in an open marriage.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

A bunch of people have said that it is always hard adjusting, and I have to point out our experience was nothing of the sort. First of all, I specifically chose her culture after a lot of experience in foreign countries, including years in hers. I understood her so well that in the beginning I explained to her exactly how she felt about things, what was important to her, and how we would go about achieving her goals. That led to an all-out sneak attack, too salacious to tell here. But she did seem to have an understanding what would interest me despite never having a boyfriend before.

Dude, you weren't her first - not that that should matter anyhow.

[웃 910]

Dude, you weren't her first - not that that should matter anyhow.

He said she neved had a bf before. Are you saying she was lying to him?

Edited July 22, 2012 by ☠

[VanessaTony 3,567]

He said she neved had a bf before. Are you saying she was lying to him?

I'm not sure this is a joke or not so I'll reply assuming it's not.. just because she's "never had a bf" doesn't mean she's never had sex, a LOT.

We're still on our honeymoon after five years.

Tom Cruise thought that too...

This is supposed to be an encouraging thread so I won't got into the things in your post that I find incredibly disturbing but suffice it to say, your relationship is not one I would aspire to.

My husband and I have a normal relationship. More ups than downs, the downs aren't so bad I would ever consider leaving, they're just disagreements, not screaming matches (in fact I don't think he's ever seen me truly furious). Homesickness was hard for me of course and I'm sure there were times where I was irritating as hell but just like many others do (unfortunately some relationships don't survive it) it does get better and eventually (for me about 2 1/2 years later) you forget how bad it really was at the start... maybe it's a survival thing.

Edited July 22, 2012 by Vanessa&Tony

[elmcitymaven 9,712]

I understood her so well that in the beginning I explained to her exactly how she felt about things, what was important to her, and how we would go about achieving her goals.

If anyone "explained" to me very early on in a relationship how I felt about things and what was important to me, I'd tell him to sling his hook for being a patronizing and manipulative so-and-so.

Guess that makes me a manipulator. Or at least yet another shrill harridan of the sort that makes men have to take extensive surveys of the globe to find more amenable mates.

[TBoneTX 46,161]

another shrill harridan

This reminds me of the song "H, A, double-R, I; G-A-N spells Harrigan, " blimey man. And, this is surely the first use of "harridan" in a VJ post, see man.

[one...two...tree 2,762]

He said she neved had a bf before. Are you saying she was lying to him?

Okay, maybe not a bf, but a kissing cousin. Nobody's born with skillz - they come from lots of practice.