I was talking to a friend this morning and he told me that one of our friends had gotten an email from his fiance telling him she wished not to leave Russia and hopes he can find his happiness with another Russian girl....she was to have her interview in Moscow in about two weeks.
She gave him no reasons or excuses in her email and will not talk to him on the phone.
I called him this morning and he said on his last trip to her a few weeks ago that she was excited about getting her interview. He said he saw nothing during his visit that would indicate that something was wrong. He's a great guy and has no financially problems.
He was upset and said he had no idea what her thinking was and was just going to do a wait and see thing with her and see if she changes her mind and does the interview.
I think I would see if she was just having cold feet and if I was not sure about that then I would run in the opposite direction real fast like.
I'll update as he tells me more.
Whew, I know his heart is hurting not to mention the amount of money and frustrations doing this process.

bruc

Wow, that's a bit messed up... I do hope it's just a minor case of "cold feet" and it'll work out for you friend!!!

Maybe she had an old boyfiend who she went back to. I have a girlfriend who it happened to. But in her case she came here and lived here for 6 month. They got married and then one of these days her ex boyfriend called her new home and she left her new american hubby to be with him. Sad, but true. One thing i tell you - if it happens maybe it was not real LOVE and that man is better off? and if something like that happens - better now then after she gets here!

Or of course, maybe she dont want to live her family. It is hard to live people you love - talking from expirience.

Anyway, if it is just cold fee and she loves him - it will all work out in the end. and if not - this relationship is not ment to be.

I don't like this situation, and I hope this person finds happiness, as I do with everyone on the planet.

But why post this if we are not supposed to know who this is? Why not just leave it as a completely private matter instead of making us wonder (natural human nature, don't you think)?

I would like to thank the ones of you that have sent me pm's and have offered some insight into what could have happened or taken place and offered your help.
My fiance got her on the phone and she did talk to her for a few minutes and asked her to give her a couple days to think about what she had done and call her back.
It was also posted on two more forums by two more guys and the support from the guys that had been there and done that offered a lot of different reasons as to why she did it. Most of the guys with wives here and still with fiances over there offer their help with giving her a call also.
After talking to her for a few minutes my fiance seems to think she might have gotten cold feet...

Thanks,
bruc

I think she probably got a "better offer" from someone else.

I'll second that.

i think it's cold feet too. the question this friend of yours needs to consider is this: does he really want to spend more time, emotion, and money on someone who isn't 100% sure she wants to be with him?
i wish him the best, but i think he can find someone way better that won't run on him.

Yeah, we haven't seen him on this forum for a while and it was pretty abrubt. There are a million things that could've happened and who knows what really did.

However, we're here to talk about it when he's ready to come back.

Hmmm, I wonder if it's MOX.

Amazing when there's no news to report and someone takes a long weekend off with his children and the speculations fly, but I do have news to report now and it's good news.
The issue was that she had been hearing a lot of bad reports for a month about how bad our economy was and her friends advising her not to do the interview and definitely not relocate here. She had a nice job there and friends she could depend on so why take the risk.
My fiance and a couple of girls that's been here for a few years finally got her to talk to them on the phone. I think with my fiance not being here and had no plans to back out and not come and the two girls here telling her everything was fine for them and she should reconsider her actions she had a change of heart and mind.
This took several phones call to her from a lot of people discussing this with her.
She sent her fiance a sms and told him to call her and he did. Some of us know the conversation and heard the conversation between them including the two girls from Russia.
She was very upset when she talked to him and was very apologetic for her actions towards him and asked for forgiveness and to not leave her.More in the conversation but I think that should remain just between the ones of us that heard it.
Her interview is this week and her fiance landed in Moscow this morning and we understand was greeted with much happiness from her. He went to give them his support for the interview and his care for them.
She also asked him if he would stay for another week and let them fly back with him and those are his intentions.
When they arrive back in Atlanta a pile of us will be there to greet them with big smiles on our faces, and too, our small community is being blessed with another family from Russia joining us.
Sometimes it pays to not jump to conclusions, keep patience and find out what the problem is before taking any actions that one might regret later and this is just what her fiance did. We also need to learn from these unfortunate things such as this one.
Thanks for all your input and suggestions.

bruc

If her friends influenced her so greatly as to change her plans of marrying this guy, I don't think I'd be letting her out of the house much once she got here! Definitely wouldn't be letting her make a lot of friends.

And then it took a conference call to finally sway her?

It's hard enough to make it with a girl that wants to come here. One that's "not sure" is going to be even more challenging. I sincerely hope this was just a case of her being "overly cautious" and things getting caught up in the international translations, etc., and not a case of her being so influenced by the gossip of her friends that she'd call off getting married to a guy she loves. That makes me question her motivations in the first place.

But, that's not my business so if the update is that she wants to go through with it and he's OK with that, good. That's their business. Good luck. I can see how it could happen. Personally though, I think I'd be the one ready to call it off now if she was willing to call it off simply because of what her friends were telling her. But, once again, I'm not involved here.

Time will tell.

amen

My comments:

I agree with Slim that if the marriage rises and falls on the US economy (which is really bad right now) then the long-tern outlook for this couple is not good. I understand the material side to Russian women but there must also be some degree of love and affection to ground the relationship. I recall our friend, Irish44, and his sad situation.

I will also comment that I don't really get this thread...what's the purpose? Unidentified people with vague problems being discussed by a forum which they do not belong to. I never trust these discussion when a third party is selectively telling us the supposed facts.

This seems a private inner circle matter and I'm not invited to join...so why should I care?

First let me say I made this post as what could be a warning to some of you with something that could be happening to some of you also and to get comments on your thoughts. Thank you for your comments positive and negative and I certainly wish you all the best.
You all "were" a part of this and it doesn't matter that this person should be a member of this forum or any other forum which he is not.
We should be smart enough to learn from other persons problems and solutions to their problems and this has certainly been good information for a lot of guys out there is what we're hearing. It also made me listen and talk to my fiance about it and other guys are doing the same thing.
The day her fiance called her was not a conference call. He asked us to listen in on their conversation to help him decide if she was sincere or not especially the two girls from Russia listening.
We could tell that between the media and her friends that she had gotten scared and worried about the future of she and her two young daughters here. We all agreed we would have felt the same way in the same situation and the two girls from Russia said "she was definitely scared" and understood her actions. We never know what could"really" be happening in the background no matter how solid you think your relationship is.
It didn't have anything to do with love and trust. She loves him and trust him but she wasn't so sure about our country and what the future held even the possibility of her fiance eventually being unemployed and not being able to support them. I certainly understand this and you should also because the only real person that knows your future is your employer and you never know when you might get walking papers yourself. I'm an employer so I can tell you that I know more about what's happening in my company than they do.
Last week a bank here gave four of their people their walking papers because of the economy. One of them told me none of them saw it coming until the morning it happened to them...so you never know. I certainly hope all of you do survive this attack on our economy and not loose your jobs.It's scary out there right now for a lot of us that own businesses.
I do have good news on my part. I got a call from my fiance this morning about 4am, woke me from my sleep to tell me we have an interview in September. It was a long haul for us because our paperwork got lost and we had to refile. We didn't start throwing things, yelling and do all those things to
to vent our frustrations. We both had a little laugh and said oh well, here we go again and kept the patience that it would eventually happen for us and it did.
Like most everyone doing this frustrating process I have learned a lot here and I will leave you with a wealth of information not only learned from you but gained from our own personal experiences.
I'm also thankful that my fiance and daughter will have a nice support group here in our community that speaks their language and understands her culture more than I do to help them adjust to their new lifestyles here.
I wish all of you still in the process the best and to keep your chins up, it will eventually happen for you also. I wish all of you that are married a much successful life with your Russian wife.

bruc

Are you sure it is MOX?
http://www.visajourney.com/forums/index.php?showuser=38377

His timeline says the interview was scheduled for:
http://www.visajourney.com/timeline/profile.php?id=38377
May 14, 2008

Unless there was a change of date with no update, bruc must be talking about someone else.

Sorry, but I believe this is hogwash.

Whenever I see one of these relationships go up in smoke - and I've seen many, including my own years ago when I was courting a Ukrainian woman - the guy's first instinct is to ignore reality and pin the blame on anything other than the obvious fact that his girl simply never loved him and never will, and that her motivation for marrying him was not in the best of his interests. Time and again I've watched guys try to squirm out from under the weight of logic and blame controlling parents who don't want her to leave Russia/Ukraine, pessimistic and jealous friends who spread rumors of a horrible life awaiting her in the US, fear of retribution from ex-husbands, etc. The list goes on and on. It's hard to except the reality that his girl is trying to let him down as easily as possible and the alternative of believing her story is a million times better than accepting the fact that she's been playing him for a fool all along.

Wow!! Truth on VJ. Whodda thinked it? You get a +1 for the day.

Exactly why we should all be on VJ. Just because it's not someone we know, it's possible that certain things in someone else's life could be similar to our own. We can learn from others, even if they're only hypothetical.



My company gave walking papers to 1/3 of my department two weeks ago. The economy here is uncertain as it's been in my lifetime, but what normal people do when they face economic uncertainty is they TALK to each other and figure out what they're going to do to make their relationship weather the storm. They don't "call it off" before discussing it with their fiance(e) or S/O, they discuss options and figure something out. They find a solution to money problems so their relationship survives, not call off their relationship so their money problems go away.

The fact that the fiancee threw in the towel without discussion tells me that she's more motivated by the economic impact of marrying an American guy than the quest to find love abroad. That's not necessarily a bad thing because reality is there are some pretty hot MILFs over there that need a "rich" American man to support them and their children. But, once that support starts to fade away (..... unexpected walking papers...) that support is gone and the "love" starts to dissipate real quick.

If your buddy is rich and doesn't care if his fiancee is a gold-digger, then by all means, tell him to go ahead. But, if he's just an average American guy (in debt, waiting for his next paycheck) then you better tell him to start the process over and find a younger one with no kids. Maybe even add "Philippines" to the search for a wife next time. My words aren't meant to be harsh, just meant to call attention to the reality of the situation. Remember, we're all learning from each other here. Wanna learn from me? Talk to your fiancee IN DEPTH about money and her obligations BEFORE she comes here. If she still wants to marry you, she may just like you for who you are, not what you make! (I didn't do this..... my wife's still trying to decide.)



I hope your fiancee isn't swayed the way your buddy's was. But, since your support group is helpful in convincing fiancees to do the right thing, you should be just fine. Thanks for the successful wishes, and right back at you. It is a challenge! Keep the lines of communication open, and don't throw in the towel before you talk it over with your S/O first.

I don't think it is hogwash to the OPs friend. I believe we in America really underestimate the influence of friend/family opinion on Eastern Europeans. We apply our standards, and don't get the picture sometimes. While I see the same possible relationship issues here that you do, I think they stem from a legitimate fear of leaving a very comfortable situation (in terms of long term relationships and familiar surroundings) and taking a great risk with the happiness of her and her kids. All that doesn't negate the problem we all see though.


Click to view attachment Click to view attachment

I agree with all of what you're saying but it needs to be remembered that the beneficiary is coming here to live in America. They can bring some of their culture and language and all of that here, but when they get here, they need to remember that life here is life here, not back home.

America is a certain way and in order to make a healthy relationship here, either you need to be pretty well-to-do already (which frees them up to do whatever they want) or they're going to need to fall into an American role pretty quickly. And, they're not bringing their family with them, are they? Sure, they can talk on the phone or e-mail or whatever, but it's not like their mom and dad are going to be paying your mortgage.

If they want to get advice from family and friends, great. But, often times that advice doesn't help you pay your mortgage whereas advice from you (GET A JOB! Don't send money we don't have back home to your mom!) probably is going to help you pay your mortgage.

A paid mortgage seems to make for a happier family.

Good points all, as money issues can also be relationship-ending. Also, as was discussd earlier, her choice of friends will be important. If she listens so closely to advice, but falls in with the "spoilers" in the Russian community there will be more trouble ahead. My fiance' told me that there is a saying about how it is "difficult to bring myself up, but much easier to bring you down", meaning the potential for bad advice is high.

I have no doubt that there is a high level of anxiety for any woman contemplating leaving her family, friends, language, and country behind. But I see so many similarities to other crash n' burns that I suspect there's a lot more going on.

My apologies to Bruc for picking at his posts, I don't mean to attack the messenger, but do any of you married guys see the following quote as strange?



Would you have other people contact your fiancee - the woman you love and plan to spend the rest of your life with - and when she finally agrees to talk, have others (who are probably strangers to her) listen in on the conversation?

My wife and I had plenty of disagreements and issues in the days leading up to her interview, some of which gave her second thoughts, but never in a million years would I have considered having a "Russian friend" contact her and act as an intermediary. Not only were our squabbles no one else's damn business, but my wife would have seen such behavior as weak and indecisive, which in turn would have only made matters worse.

I sincerely hope things work out for Bruc's friend and his fiancee and I apologize for being cynical, but sometimes a guy in this situation can use a dose of reality from his friends rather than "support." Sometimes it's really difficult for guys who are also involved in the K1 process to see another pilgrim entwined with the wrong type of woman, as the first instinct is to think, "damn, this could be happening to me too and I just don't realize it yet." So then the most palatable option is to rationalize the obvious problems and blow sunshine up his butt.

I would like to thank all of you for your replies to my post concerning this problem with one on my friends. Many have read your replies that are not members of VJ including the Russian girls here in our community. I can assure you that none of them rattled anyones nerves here or made a temper flare.
Everyone has a right to his freedom of speech and thoughts, so thank you for speaking what your thoughts were.
We're getting excellent reports from our friend in Russia. He made the comment to me on the phone this morning that he and his fiance were talking a walk and just happened to meet one of her friends. He said she looked a little startled to see him there and holding hands with her. She had told him that no one knew he was coming except her. I'm sure our next report will be visa approved. I feel certain everything will be fine for them and they'll move on with their lives together and remember this as a learning experience for them.
I've been in VJ since 2004, I've learned a lot of interesting things and I would consider it the most important place to be when doing this process with all the many fine and outstanding members that post here and get much needed support sometimes.
I commend all of you fine people for the extended effort you do here to help the many people that have no where else to turn to for answers and support.
VJ members are a unique family because you all share the same goals together and you do it as a wonderful team of teachers and doctors.
Next week is my fiance's birthday and my grown children and their spouses and myself have decided to go spend it with her. My children want to meet this fine lady in person that will be there new step-mom and especially the daughter that will be there new little sister. They've also had a correspondence with both of them and they think they need to experience some of her country and culture. I definitely agree with them.
It's time for me to leave VJ now and move on with preparations for the arrival of my new family in September. I have many things to do not only in our home but I think maybe emotionally too.
I would like to thank all of you that never knew I was sitting in the background reading and learning from your experiences and frustrations.
I will probably post again one day after my friend and his new family get here and when my new family has arrived and settled in.
I leave the ones of you with step children, childen coming with their moms or now adopted children, that was left to me by my very loving and carry parents on my 12th birthday.It still remains in my home next to my bed so I can read it every night before I go to bed. I will also give this to my new daughter one day.
It's called the Adoption Creed:
"Not flesh of my flesh, nor bone of my bone
But still miraculously my own.
Never forget for a single minute.
You didn't grow under my heart, but in my heart.

God Bless all of you and I wish you the best that life can always give to you.
brue

I believe you're a good judge of hogwash and respect your "tough love" cautionary posts. Would we encourage a 350 pound man to become a trapeze artist?

Bruc's anonymous friend with the fiancee with the dollar signs in her eyes is probably in the wrong game; and relationship by committee is making a bad scene even worse.

If she does make it over here - I'm predicting :

Chance of divorce prior to AOS filed: 10%
Chance of divorce prior to AOS approved: 20%
Chance of divorce after AOS approved: 40%
Chance of divorce after 10-year PR card approved: 20%
Chance of remaining married 5 years or more: 10%

It was not mox. I can, however, report that Nadya and I have recently had a mutual parting of ways, but there's nothing sordid or abrupt about it, and we remain fast friends. I've held off on saying anything because Nadya's ex boyfriend/stalker lurks here, and saying anything would have only encouraged him to re-start harassing her. But he's managed to figure it out, so I can at least share with you all that we won't be completing our VJ.

I do want to thank everyone for their support, especially those few of you who I did share the situation with, and who were so incredibly supportive. I made some great friends, and had some good times. Best of luck to everyone here. I'm sure I'll drop in from time-to-time to offer my voluminous wisdom and crass, baseless attacks, so you're probably not rid of me quite yet. Besides...I know this girl in Moscow...

How weird is this? Everyone who got their interview postponed broke up?
To me it looks like the couple who does it, especially the SO who should be coming to US has doubts and second thoughts about it and that's why asks for more time and postponed the interview. I think it's a red flag, unless it's because of a medical reason. Just my opinion.

Edit: To me it looks like anyone who dissappears from VJ out of the blue and especially before their SO got here, is self explanatory that things are not working out or the couple has some issues.

Yeah - shocking. Just shocking.

It wasn't cold feet in our case. In fact, I've yet to come across anything similar. I'm happy to discuss it with (almost) any longtime RU forum posters offline (with the caveat that our discussion won't migrate back online or to other members), but for reasons I mentioned above, it's really all I can say. Sorry to be so dramatic, but some people exist to ensure we can't have nice things. I *am* fortunate in that there is no animosity between us. I see some of these relationships fail where the USC is left completely bewildered, and I'm thankful that my situation is not like that at all.

Regarding disappearing: our situation happened to coincide with an extremely busy time in my life anyway (as I posted some weeks back), so either way I'd have been a lot more scarce. But yeah, agreed.

((((((((((Kirk))))))))))
You are dear to my heart.
Smile

You can't say "everyone". I postponed Alla's interview from March to May. She has her visa in hand now. I am able to assure you we have zero plans of breaking apart. As for not being around much... Ahhh... It's summer. That trumps VJ any nice warm day of the week!

Someone else had a postponal too..was it Kevin and Natasha? If that's who I'm thinking of, they were recently married.

Kirk,

Sorry to hear that things didn't work out with Nadya, but glad to hear it was an amicable parting.

Very well said.



Mox, you will be missed and I surely hope you'll come back. And really, there are a lot of nice girls in Moscow...... don't give up just yet! (Rough draft before final copy!)



You can add us to the list that "Mr. Kind Eyes" and his Alla are on; the "we postponed it but still went through with it" list. But, like you said, for those that are all into the process and on this forum 9 times a day then they suddenly disappear and next thing they post is a postponement followed by a break-up... that does seem to be the new trend.



And lastly.... bruc, if you're still reading...... another red flag for your buddy. Why was her girlfriend surprised to see him there and them holding hands?

I hope this guy has money, he's going to need it.

Here is my two cents:
I hope what I am about to say is not true...

I am very skeptical about this whole relationship. I thought it was love, not economic in USA. I've seen many people had trouble with their fiance(e) several months after arrival into USA, even after get married. The marriage didn't last long because it was for financial gain & economic, not LOVE... From what I understand above here, it seems that this Russian fiance(e) is looking for financial gain and economic, not love? Love conquered all things regardless, and no doubt.

I also have 2cents to offer.

In the world outside of VJ where people meet, decide to get married without government approval cold feet is common. Its not new, people panic about the commitment and what is to come. From moving one town to another, one state to another or even just learning to live together, the unkown can be scarey. It doesn't mean they don't love the other person in the relationship.

I don't see dollar signs in someones eyes b/c moving halfway around the world to an unknown environment 'spooks' them a little.

I am glad to see the wonderful community support, people willing to ask for help and others there to provide it.

ok climbing off the soapbox now.

cheers -m

You're absolutely right, but in the world outside of VJ people who meet and decide to get married usually know each other fairly well before deciding to make such a serious commitment.

If your fiancee backed out of your engagement and phoned to discuss it with you, would you have your friends listen in on the conversation so that they can give their opinions on how sincere she is?

It's frightening to move to a whole new country, a whole new life. I hope they work it out.

I agree, and this goes to my earlier point. Even if there are concerns about the relationship generally (and most of us seem to think so), some last minute freakin' is not uncommon - especially given the distance and culture/family/relationship differences.

That being said - yes it is a different way of dealing with the situation to have outsiders talking/listening to the conversations. If she has such huge issues that she wanted to call it off - those feelings will not go away because she interviews, successfully or not.

So she is just marrying him for money?

Is she marrying him for the money? Probably.

If that bothers him, then he needs to leave. If it doesn't bother them, they can still be happy.

No point in judging people. Love is not always the cornerstone of marriage. That is a modern, western ideal.

Happy? Maybe for a short time. Unless a guy's extraordinarily wealthy, what's to prevent his Russian wife from upgrading once she arrives in the land of plenty? Not much! If she's young and attractive she'll have plenty of suitors to choose from when she's here.

Not sure I understand the point. This could be said of any marriage.

I'd thought it was obvious, but a woman who actually loves you isn't going to be constantly on the lookout to upgrade her relationship. A woman who marries simply for a $better lifestyle$ has nothing, outside of the material comforts you provide, to keep her from straying.

Understood, but what I mean is that a woman who is predisposed to going after the next best thing is going to do it no matter what her stated motives. With any marriage, especially of the K variety, you go in with certain expectations. Those expectations may be a loving relationship, or one of convenience as Chuckles describes. In either case, there is a trust factor. A woman who professes to love you is not going to be any more or less trustworthy than a woman who agrees to a marriage of convenience.

The devil's in the details, of course. Sure a woman who professes to love you can be lying. By taking the time to get to know her before proposing, however, you can at least mitigate this risk. I haven't seen anyone posting here who willingly married a Russian woman knowing it was a marriage of convenience, and IMHO any guy so p****whipped to beg for a role as a sperm bank with a checkbook just to have the attention of a pretty Russian wife deserves the sad fate that certainly awaits him.

FWIW, I realized when I proposed to my wife that we had additional risks due to culture and language. As you can probably guess from my posts I'm fairly skeptical, but when I slipped the ring on her finger there was absolutely no doubt in my mind that she loved me (and to this day I still don't understand how she could have fallen for a bum like me).

(AFAIK, there was nothing in the OP's tale that indicated his friend was willing to marry for convenience, so this discussion is purely hypothetical.)

Trustworthiness is a secondary issue. Money hunger is the primary issue here. US women have their own wealth and success path...they don't need men to live well. And I have to say American women probably consider much more than just the financial bottom line when they decide to marry a man. The American ladies may dump you, but it might well have nothing to do with $$$.

And American women typically don't stray too far from their own age range...but as we all know, Russian women are down with 20 year age differences. So the field of men they can seek out and "upgrade" with is much larger.

Any woman can walk away...but if they're Russian, it's probably linked to doe-ray-me.

Mark, don't underestimate yourself. You are a great guy with a big and warm heart, very friendly, smart, and kind. And yeah, Polina is a SWEETHEART!!!