SaharaSunset

The chasm between what you actually post and what you say you've said gets wider with every post.

OMG, wishing people ramadan karim, there's a game changer. I didn't realize we were dealing with someone who hands out ramadan karims. Why didn't you say so from the beginning?! Don't tell me you have one of those "coexist"
stickers on your car too!!
Anytime anyone, Muslim or not, makes a drastic lifestyle change or radical departure from formerly held religious or non religious beliefs there is always going to be a possibility that this departure may be unpalatable to their spouse or SO. If my husband started hanging out in bars or joined a thuggish motorcycle club, I wouldn't stay with him. Why would he be obligated to stick with me if I suddenly, randomly embraced unpalatable to him lifestyle choices and behaviors? It's less a MENA thing than a be yourself from the very beginning with your spouse and don't paint yourself as someone you're not. And neither should either partner expect to change each other in fundamental ways.
I'm missing how your sh1tty husband's behaviors means that no matter what, myself and everyone else here married to guys from MENA who aren't MENA themselves will never be part of their husband's inner circle, whatever that means. Your ####### hasn't kept me and my children from being as close to my husband as his own blood, in every possible way, and I know way too many people here in the exact same situation to believe it is any kind of anomaly. Your getting ####### doesn't mean everyone else got it too.

I will say it again: good men are hard to come by anywhere in the world.
I reiterate it because, OP, you keep insisting that this behavior is typical of men of a certain ethic or religious group. You think that people of this certain ethic or religious group are the most hardened in their beliefs of anyone and that they expect their mates of a different culture to assimilate without question. Your words, my summary. Patriarchy isn't exclusive. Do you know what machismo means? Did you know that in the Dominican Republic men who murder their wives are rarely prosecuted? Do you know it's estimated that a woman is raped every 15 seconds in South Africa?
The things your husband did to you are not exclusive to any ethnicity or race or nationality. I have a particular understanding of this because I am a longtime volunteer with rape crisis centers and battered women's shelters here in Brooklyn. I know women who were abused in ways you can't imagine for most of their lifetimes. One woman comes to mind - every single man who ever entered her life abused her in some way. Her father raped her from age 8 to 15. Her long-time boyfriend beat her every day and when she was pregnant he threw her out a window and fractured her hip. Her brother got her oldest daughter addicted to crack. Her more recent husband beats her, cheats on her, and ruined her credit. She was 45 years old before she started to reclaim her life for herself. Her background or her abusers' backgrounds are irrelevant though for the record they are varied. She could have let the anguish and anger swallow her whole but she didn't. She mentors younger women nowadays and tries to teach them about healthy relationships and self-esteem. She teaches taking responsibility and control rather than wallow in victimhood. You can never expect abusers to change - you're the one that has to.
Tangent aside... You may think you are a catch objectively but I have my doubts about your self-confidence. Abusive relationships can happen to anyone and don't think badly about yourself for falling prey to one. Abusers cannot be pigeonholed into categories like ethnicity, religion, class, creed or sexuality because they come from all walks of life. You should really take that to heart in the future, so that you don't become a victim again. Wasting this time over the last few days deriding all Arab or Muslim guys is doing you a disservice because it's not helping you move forward. Your weekend could have been better spent doing something for yourself. Seek support in getting through your divorce so that the anger doesn't consume you. Life goes on and you have a right to get back on track.

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 agree with Sandinista....trying to reason with someone like the OP is folly. Her frequent mentions of her "attractiveness to western men", extensive education, and cultural savvy, are nothing more than a sad, and desperate attempt to set herself above us all, and give herself credibility and authority...a vain grasping attempt to conceal tragic insecurities that are glaringly obvious to everyone but her. "Methinks thou doth profess too much." She is desperate to validate her bad choice, by laying full blame on all MENA men. And anyone who has received one of her delightfully venomous replies, surely can sense that perhaps there is much more to this "tragic" tale, that just a scummy husband who went awol. At first it was the lowlife scammer "sometimes abuser" that left her to live and do business with some old man....then suddenly she was the confident champion who could have stayed with him, but chose to leave him. With each story change I am more confident that the we are not actually getting the real story at all.
I'm sure its enraging have her theory shattered. A theory which I'm sure at one time probably made her feel better, and less foolish. The theory is that "the majority" of MENA relationships are as dysfunctional as hers was. It must be awful to learn that in fact, it was actually your own poor choice that landed you a bad egg, and not be able to blame MENA men in general. Because as long as she came blame the lot of them, then she doesn't have to acknowledge that perhaps she was just foolish, and made a rotten choice for a husband. Misery loves company. And I'm sure our stories, and our wonderful, good MENA husbands & relationships must just irk her to the core....hence the defensive lashing out, and desperate attempts to belittle and discredit everyone who disagrees with her. I think the nature of the OP's replies (and original post to begin with) gives us more insight than anything to the truth behind the words ....if you catch my drift.

Well, I tried. The above only shows your total ignorance and prejudice about all cultures and peoples. It floors me that you think other cultures are so unified and that there is no American culture... or that America is particularly young in comparison to other nations. You maybe need to take a step back from your own socialization and consider the facts on the ground. Pick any other country and examine it against your statements.

Your logic is hilarious! "Why waste time on something that is already happening???" Well by your logic, we should throw out prisons too right? I mean bad people are gonna do bad things, so why waste time trying to catch them and lock them up. Eventually they'll just kill everyone and then kill eachother and then we'll be extinct. Simple as that. I mean why fight something that's already happening?
And I love how you throw in "And of course reform the welfare system" - HA!! How about we tackle that beast first before we open the door to millions who will tap into it the second they get the chance...that is if they haven't already through stolen social security numbers etc. You're living in a dream world if you think that the massive sums of money that are shelled out to people on the doll doesn't impact our economy. And the paltry tax revenue from people earning less than minimum wage will not compensate for the the money tax money spent covering their welfare check. Or maybe they'll figure out what so many Americans have - feign "disability" or unemployment and earn a much better, "free" paycheck than you could ever rake in working for minimum wage....then we'll get no tax revenue from them anyway, and we'll just get to pay for their new "legal" life here. Super fun. Oh and I consider the 30+ percent of my paycheck that goes to taxes(which of course also pays for welfare) a pretty significant impact on my economy....
I think the OP is right. Shut down the businesses who employ illegals. Brilliant. Problem solved. No need to spend millions deporting people, they'll go home on their own when suddenly they can;t find work. And then illegal immigration will stop. Simple as that. Then work on streamlining the processing of legal immigration.
And then, heaven forbid, those self-serving illegal employers might actually have to pay people a fair wage for their work. And spare me the line about "no one will do those jobs" I don't believe for one second that Americans are too lazy to "do the jobs no one else wants." Garbage men deal with trash all day long - who wants that job????!!! Oh, maybe someone who want to get paid $80,000 a year. Not to shabby. And you can't tell me that's a job anyone wants. Pay farm workers even just $15 an hour, and you'll have people fighting for that job....legal American citizens and residents are not to lazy to work when they are paid a fair a reasonable wage.

Amen! EXACTLY how I feel!!! Makes me FURIOUS!!!!!

Is anyone else that is trying to get your visa so that you and the one you love can be together? Well, after making a small error on th 156 form it would not let me make any changes..so..once again..do another form over again. Then I think of all of the Mexicans that are here illegally and when they get here, they are given low income housing..food stamps..welfare money..medical, education for their kids, and any child they have born here automatically becomes a U.S. citizen When they get a cold, you will see them at the emergency room. Millions of working Americans have no medical insurance and cannot afford to go to the doctors when they are really sick!Consequently, many Americans die each year because they could not afford to go to the doctors and therefore die because their illness was not treated or diagnosed early enough to save them. Yet, we that want to bring a loved one here..well..WE have to jump through so many hoops it makes me sick! Not to mention the over priced charges they put on you for the medical..interview..129, etc. The price St. Lukes charges us for that medical exam is rhidiculous!In the Philippines you could get a hell of a lot of health care for the money they charge you for an exam. There is so much welfare fraud in this country it is incredible. The country is broke and yet these politicians hand out benefits to illeagal aliens that come here. Those of us that have worked hard and paid taxes all of our life????? We can't get anything but our balls busted by the government! They hand out these benefits to people that did not bother to go through the anguish we have to go through to get a visa approved. These people come here, cut grass, get paid under the table..pay no taxes, have never contributed anything to this country and yet they get help, when so many Americans can't get a damn thing from them when they need it. The working poor catches hell in this country!
Amen.

I have a problem with it, but not for the reasons stated in the article. I didn't realize that winning an election in the U.S. qualifies you for a Nobel Peace prize.

Merge all the scout divisions together ( girls and boys) and just call them Uniscouts so the world of scouting can be politically correct forever!

As an Eagle Scout, I don't really see this affecting much. You're talking about young guys and the expectation is still that the guys are sexually abstinent. So whether they think they're gay or think they're straight is not really a big deal in my opinion.
As far as the leaders, you shouldn't let in openly gay leaders. If you had a girls organization that involved camping with 12-17 year-olds and the rule was that male leaders were not allowed, nobody would find that odd. Even if those men are in committed relationships with other adults and have no history of being sexually aggressive towards underaged girls, it seems reasonable to not allow them to camp with groups of young girls. It's the same with gay men and young boys.

Oh I know how tenure works. And in many states, it no longer exists. And if scores don't really impact teachers salaries then hooray...Because standardized tests are nonsense and were never remotely intended to be a measure of a teacher's skill. And although I'm not forum savvy enough to know what "tl;dr" means - I'm guessing it means you prefer witty banter as opposed to actual conversation. So here you go:
I'm pretty sure that to believe anti-union/teacher propaganda, to the extent that you believe the "corruption" is so rampant that it outweighs or negates the good in education; and to believe that "sucky teachers" are the rule, as opposed to the exception, and are always recycled; and to believe that principals rarely take action in unionized districts, is imho, also naive and rather ignorant.....oh and I have some ocean-front property in desert for sale in you're interested in buying that too

Its so sad to me that people are starting to buy into the ridiculous rhetoric that has started raging against teachers in recent years. First, I would love some real examples of teachers needs trumping that of the children? Real examples. Not hearsay. And I'm not just talking about the fact that you can't get a teacher fired because she is grouchy. I mean REAL examples....and numerous ones. Because for everyone 1 teacher like your son's, there are literally hundreds the exact opposite. And yes, I know the media likes to vilify teachers these days...but its not reality. Sorry. I mean, you do know that teaching is not actually high-paying job, and wrangling 40-240 kids a day is not a walk in the park? So why do most teachers get into teaching?....because they love kids, they love their job, and they want to make a difference in the world. And yes, I know the media these days makes it seems like that's not the reason. But I'd invite you to talk to every teacher in your son's school(not just the grouchy one), and I think you find that it is the reality for the vast majority of teachers.
Along those same lines - have YOU actually seen the teacher lose her temper in class? Or is it based on your son's perception. Because as a parent you must know that a child, or teen's, perception of an adult they don't not like, tends to have a fair bit of bias. And "rumors" about a teacher may not be anything quantifiable. The real reality is, contrary to popular belief, if there are in fact legitimate complaints (beyond being a rude or snappy person) a Principal ABSOLUTELY CAN take action. And Lord knows there are a multitude of successful businessmen and other individuals who are complete jack@$$es...so snappiness doesn't equate with failure. And of course, maybe you've also forgotten that "back in the day" when our schools were the supposedly better (before they "started going downhill"), teachers smacked kids, whipped them, publicly humiliated them, and were generally perceived as mean....and yet supposedly schools were better. Hmmmm. So is successful teaching connected to sweetness in personality? Maybe. Maybe not. But if the principal tells you otherwise about disciplinary action, and blames the union, they are lying. Despite the propaganda about "Teachers Unions" - teachers can and do get fired.
Secondly, you mention that kids should not be considered a "manufactured product" - I could not agree more. So do away with the nonsense of standardized tests. Allow teachers the freedom to teach and you might find that people like your "anger issues" teacher suddenly become more relaxed and happy. And why? Because her job isn't riding on whether or not parents have disciplined their children enough to control themselves, so she doesn't have to freak out when some random kid is jumping across the desks for the hundred-thousandth time, while she is trying to prepare them for an upcoming Standard Test....on which her job may be riding.
Thirdly - why should parents have a say in whether or not a teacher is fired? I know, every parent lived though 13 years of school, so clearly they are experts....not the professional teachers and principals who went to 4-8 years of college on the subject. Seriously. Does the average parent have ANY CLUE about teaching pedagogy, theory, strategies etc? No. They can evaluate personality, and perceived likeability which, in fact, is not all there is to teaching. (Shocker I know.) But I don't think they should be involved in that kind of decision because they can't be objective. If little Johnny is actually a jerk, and the poor tired teacher just snapped at him, how are you gonna convince Johnny's Mom that its really her and Johnny that are the issue? You won't. Good old Home School is always the alternative if you fear the "detrimental impact" of Unionized teachers on your son.
The reality is this - I do think that there are teachers out there who suck. Just like in any profession. And even though it doesn't make for very good drama, in truth, the sucky teachers usually don't last long. It may not be because they get fired, it's more likely that they quit. Because again, contrary to the image of teachers, just relaxing their days away, breezing home at 3pm, raking in their sweet median income of $45,000....teaching is, in actuality, physically and emotionally draining. And people who don't love it, don't last long (and yes of course there are exceptions.) But Public education is not as fraught with terrible teachers as some would like to make it seem. There are other issues. You may ask, "Then why aren't schools are doing so great compared to the world?" Well 1st of all the international comparisons are silly because the standards vary (do you think China includes their "Chinese Language learners" and Disabled kids in their test scores, like we include our "english language learners" and disabled kids in the U.S. ). And secondly and finally, I think perhaps, rather than blaming teachers and teachers unions... for heavens sake, maybe we should look at the degeneration of the family, as the source of our recent "issues" (if in fact they exist). Teachers can help - most of them want to. But they can't change what is, or is not, happening at home. And at the end of the day, that will override a lifetime of good or bad teachers. To presume that teachers/unions are the source of all student failures, would also mean that they are also the source of all student success. And I think most proud parents wouldn't dream of crediting teachers for their high school grad's Harvard acceptance letter - I'm pretty sure they take most of the credit for that. So this blame game is a bunch of hogwash. Unions or no Unions, the people who will do the most to positively impact their child's life, are the parents.

What is the point in your topic? There is no question, there is no experience.. so... I'm not sure what the point is except to belittle people who've had a hard time. As others stated, professionals sometimes have a hard time getting their qualifications recognised. Grunt work is pretty easy to come by if you're happy with minimum wage.

I don't think processes should be cancelled for failed relationships, unless the initial process hasn't even completed yet. If someone has immigrated to the US, is setting up a life, putting down roots and the relationship fails I totally support them being able to carry on with their life. The visa processes support that. But the purpose of family based visas is to reunite families. My fiancée's visa was just approved this week. She should visa in hand next week and travel here the following. If our relationship ends today I don't think she should still be entitled to move to the US, however. Even if we were married now I don't think that entitlement should exist. The point of the visa is to reunite us. If there is no "us" I don't see the purpose of the visa, unless it is simply to immigrate regardless.
I wouldn't suggest in that case that it was a fraudulent application. I would say, however, that if she decided to come anyway and expect to stay and work based on the family visa (not totally applicable in my case, since the K-1 doesn't give work benefits on its own, but certainly applicable in the OP's) that it wouldn't seem to make any sense. The OP may have given notice at his job but he's certainly still working, which was the reason given for the relationship issues, so they likely could continue to work there or find other employment there more easily than coming to the US, alone, single (or divorcing) with relatively fewer ties. If that happened then yes I would say the intent of the visa, at the time of travel, was immigration only, since the relationship on which the approval was given is over. The immigration intent at the time of travel would NOT be based on the relationship.
I am usually pretty lenient on folks, given the challenges I've had in my own life and visa situation. But for family/relationship based visas I totally expect the intent and focus to be the relationship, not the immigration. The concern for the green card seemed the larger issue. That's the only part that surprised me.

I was a little concerned that the OP didn't sound as concerned about the relationship as he was about the greencard. Take care of the relationship first, then there won't be GC issues. I think that's what most posters are focusing on. But the bottom line is, the visa is relationship based. If the relationship is over, it doesn't make sense to immigrate, unless that is the real goal. If you are only looking to immigrate, and the relationship isn't the primary reason for it, I see a problem with the visa. If the relationship is the only goal, and it falls apart, so does the visa. If it doesn't fall apart there is no visa issue.
I don't know where there is any question about where the GC is mailed. If you're together, it will be to your address. If you're not together why are you still coming? Is the relationship really the reason for the visa, or is the visa the goal and the relationship only the means?
Good luck with that.

Some posts are so full of hidden gems of information. If you've been in country only 4 months thats like a long vacation, and I doubt any USCIS offical would be convinced that your life is here in the US now, and returning to Italy would be so unfair, and "starting all over again." As you said, you don't even have you EAD or a job yet. Thats one of the reasons why they do the K-1...so you're marriage turns out to be a sham, (and I doubt its just one person who is to blame) then you, the non-citizen can go home before its too disruptive to your life.
If you want to be a legal taxi paying citizen of the US, you will have to go back to Italy, and return with a work visa...then go from there. If you do have some connection will give you job before you apply, that should help. I'd start planning your trip home, and looking into the work visa. But if the anullment happens, you no longer have authorization to stay. And you don't want to overstay, or you'll jeopardize your chance to come back. Or if you're such a ladies man, as you stated above, you might find a new wife who doesn't mind your attitudes about women. Good Luck!

Right. And ask Europeans how they feel about immigration....

No MY husband is the greatest on Earth
Congratulations to your husband, wonderful news!!!!!!!!

I tend to agree with that sentiment. Every restaurant, meat packaging plant, lawn service, construction business that was raided and lost their slave labor has managed to stay in business with American labor. I remember the stories of long lines of job applicants at meat packaging plants that had to hire large numbers of people quickly because they were caught red handed exploiting illegal immigrants. People do want to work. They also want equitable compensation and I don't think it's too much to ask.

I find this a curious argument, and although I know its used a lot, I'm not sure if I believe it. I wonder....what would happen if the illegal immigrants didn't fill those spots? Would lettuce and wine and apples REALLY disappear from our economy?
Lets say for example, those jobs did get filled....by unskilled(or uneducated) US citizen Laborers....and we have plenty. We are just used to the current system with illegals filling the spots, so we think its the only option. But what if, for example, seasonal "farm labor" became a component of government assistance? What if, in order to receive your "unemployment" checks, you were required to actually work....and you there was work to do because every year those seasonal positions need to be filled. So the government ships you to where ever, sets you up in a little apartment, you work the season, then go home and continue to live off of welfare for the other half of the year. Clearly Americans accept this lifestyle for Mexican laborers, so it shouldn't be beneath us right? And honest hard work is good for the soul and may actually improve the lives of people currently not working. I worked at a restaurant where the kitchen was full of illegal workers - there was literally an immigration bust one night and we lost over half of the kitchen staff. But instead of refilling the jobs with illegal immigrants, the spots were filled with young high school and college kids. And guess what, there obviously were legal residents to fill the spots, and the work was hard, and hot, but they did it. And life moved on. So claiming that could never happen now is silly. It could if we wanted it to.
My point is, there is plenty of labor in the US. And saying Americans won't do it, or will think its beneath them is nonsense. I may be wrong, but when was the last time we tried it out to see? And if no one would do the jobs illegal seasonal workers do, because farm labor is getting away with paying less than minimum wage (because they can pay under the table) then SHAME ON THEM for abusing the fellowmen! That should be stopped.
Again, I'm not an economist, but I do feel that this argument is thrown around in educated circles, where people would of course balk at hard manual labor for $8 an hour. But I think we underestimate the work ethic lying dormant so many of our less educated, unskilled citizens. And if we have created a "entitled" society, then we need to break it down and go back to the principals that this country was supposedly founded on anyway...hard work! Just a thought.

Everyone's advance into the realm of moral decay occurs at different speeds. Thanks for mentioning yours.

Quite true.

I worked as a bartender at a restaurant for 6 years, and I would put in food orders for employees. There were 3 wonderful and sweet women who worked in the kitchen, and everyone morning before they left for the day, they would come order, "Pollo con fritas." Six years, and never once did I hear a lick of English out of any of them....and they were in their 30's and had been in the US since their early 20's. And frankly, I don't think they cared much about learning English because they got by fine without it. Which is fine. I don't know is English mastery alone should be foundation for why someone should be given citizenship. I also disagree that illegal immigrants assimilate more.
Over here in the west that's not the case AT ALL. I'm not sure what you base that argument on, but I think its more a matter of age of arrival than anything. America these days, is a funny mix of country pride and desperate clinging to heritage and culture. And frankly I thinks thats part of our challenge right now. Contrary to what people love to claim, America was not founded on clinging to one home country, both language and culture. The swell of immigrants in the 1800's & 1900's tried everything possible to "become" American. They even rejected the spelling of their names in an effort to assimilate. So anyone who thinks America was founded on embracing our differences, is looking at the past with modern eyes, and misunderstands history.