Period of Adjustment

[mybackpages 0]

Thanks. I'm just having a bad day. We've been stressed out these past couple of days wishing our situation was better than it is. We're both just out of the parents's house and starting together and it's our slap in the face of financial situation and learning to live with less.

[flutter95 4]

I am having a little trouble settling in here.

I am happy to be here and all. And I DO love this country.

But I am missing England. Silly stuff - the weather I used to complain about I am now craving along with foods, and people and what not.

Its all part of the adjustment, I know it'll pass.

My husband doesn't help though, he doesn't understand. I don't know why, I guess when I say I miss something about home or miss him he feels jealous/insecure and either tells me to stop being silly or gets grumpy and tells me to "go home then". Hopefully he will come to realise that it IS an adjustment no matter how much I love him/want to be with him!

We didn't live together per se before my moving here but I used to spend 3 months at a time with him, so I got to knwo all the habits that he has, and he mine.

[Dr_LHA 3]

flutter, you just came 3500 miles to come to live in a foriegn country, at a young age, to be with your husband. You need to slap him upside the head and tell him to be a bit more sympathetic.

[KIDDO 0]

Hi. I discovered this topic and i feel like my experience here is worth sharing with all the others like me. I came in this country in the summer of '03 and got married to my american spuse in september of the same year. We never lived together before and i never had a serious relationship prior to him. I was 21 and him 9 years older.

At first the adjustment with to the new culture hit me hard and i have experienced alot of depression. I have felt very lonely. My husband was working alot and i was at home all the time. Like Laura, i have been through the same, when he would get home, he would be so tired he wouldn't do anything. I cried alot but not in front of him. Our comunication was good, but he turned out to be a little cold and unwilling to compromise when i would ask him to help me with something. And I had no other option than to adjust and learn how to be a local.

In 3 years, he made a real woman out of me, a fighter, a survivor. I had to learn everything on my own and he told me that from the begining. I was a bit of a dependent on him, inlove and vulnerable and ready to listen to him and do what he sais. Well, he rejected that part of me and left me alone to suffer just so i can learn how get stronger. He said he did that just so i can adapt faster....he always told me: "in this country, only the strong survive and the determined succeed. I am doing this for your sake, i won't teach you anything, just so you learn something". I wanted to leave but his words made me wanna prove to him and myself that i am strong.

I have learned so much and i have been through so many harsh times, but i have wiped my tears and like a soldier i proceeded in finding a good job in a decent place, i learned English very well( every day listening to tapes) and watching tv. And now I am getting very good at Spanish too. It was hard for me to comprehand this idea but i have come to the conclusion that you can make yourself happy first and you don't need anyone's help...it's in you, it's in all of us...this power. Only after you discover how to make yourself happy, then you ask that from someone else.

My husband had a bike, he only took me once but that was it. So i learned how to ride and now i am having the time of my life on my new Sportster. I did not understand my husband at first, i was this close to leaving him and going back home. I am so happy i didn't, i am very greatful to him. He had teached me how to be together with someone and in the same time be independent, on my own 2 feet. My love for him matured and became to a more deeper level. We became best friends. Now he comes to me for advices and i am happy to give them to him:).

To everybody out there, immigrants like me,...hang on, don't give up. Love your spouses and even if you don't understand the culture, try to accept it and make it a part of you. That's the only way...keep your roots but stop comparing one culture to another. Thta was my mistake. I have come to understand that the cultures are not right or wrong, but different. And now i like it here very much and i am happy.

[flutter95 4]

flutter, you just came 3500 miles to come to live in a foriegn country, at a young age, to be with your husband. You need to slap him upside the head and tell him to be a bit more sympathetic.

I guess hes just young too, well a little older than me....now wheres that frying pan?!

[taurean 0]

I am glad I came across this thread!! It's very interesting to hear that though people come to the US from all over the globe and under different circumstances, the issues that I have heard about the period of adjustment are so similar. Hubby has been here for exactly two months today. He's done extremely well given the circumstances. But still and all we have our good and bad days. I do all I can to support him and make things easier for him, because I know how it is to be a "stranger" in a foreign country. What has helped us is that we were able to spend a lot of time together in his country before him coming here. So I understand exactly what he has left by coming here to start our life together. When he starts to miss home, he can talk about things and I understand because I have been there.

We just try to treat each other *softly* and try to understand where the other is coming from,literally and figuratively. For example, when we have a disagreement hubby likes to be quiet and think before discussing, whereas I want to talk it out right away. This caused issues because he didn't want to talk right away and I wanted to hash it out immediately. However we have come to an understanding on that where I give him some time and then we talk it ALL out so there aren't loose ends. This approach has done wonders for our communication.

All in all we try to keep at the forefront all of times that we were fighting to be together when it seemed this relationship would never work due to the distance, and how after all the effort we don't want to lose what we have.

[Cassie 8]

I've been here 2.5 years and I still have my moments. It hasn't helped that for most of the time I have been here, both of my parents have gone through cancer treatments, and my mother is currently going through it again. The need to see them (to make sure they are ok when they say they are ok), and the guilt I feel at times for being away from them in a time of need have been overwhelming. Fortunately, I have an amazingly patient husband who holds me when I cry, lets me vent, prays for me and with me, and has been my rock through all of this adjustment.

Unfortunately, no matter that my husband has been fantastic, he can't seem to make the ocean magically appear for me when I miss it.

[GabachaYucateca 0]

Sigh...my fiance was NO HELP to me when I got frustrated with living in Mexico. He had the same reaction that flutter's husband had and I wanted to kick him in the head.

Of course, I'm much more understanding than he and am very aware of the struggles that he will go through. Although I can't comprehend yet how and when they'll happen nor how I'll react, I hope that I'm more willing to help him than he was me. But, I have always been much more self-sufficient than he is, and I think he expected me to not have down moments, as he'd never spent a moment of his life feeling like a stranger in a strange land. Hopefully he'll have more insight into why things were difficult for me, but I can't expect this level of reflection, especially when he's freaking out!

[GabachaYucateca 0]

And another comment...I came back to the States and taught ESL to recently arrived immigrants so I actually went through culture shock with the, They ALL told me how miserbale they were the first 6 months, and only after a year did they start to feel better. Now it's like a support group when someone comes in and is miserable, they all give her pep talks about having gone through the same things and how it'll get better.

One woman told me that she cried every day, all day, when her husband went off to work, but now she couldn't imagine moving back to Mexico.

[bostonparis 0]

My fiance isn't here yet... but something the OP said struck me, about not "throwing it in your face" that he moved here and gave everything up. I don't agree with the "throwing in the face" but I absolutely positively recognize that my fiance IS giving up his LIFE - almost everything - for me! A great job, friends, family... to take this chance on our love, and our life together. It is such a huge step, and to not recognize that, and to say that often, for me, will be a mistake. Because I do recognize it and it makes me sad for him, even if he's not sad!